Fallout (1997)

Fallout (1997), developed and published by Interplay

It doesn't start with the now-famous narration about the nature of war. No, instead of the unchanging nature of war, it begins with the howling of the wind and a cracking sound. And then the music starts, an old song called Maybe by The Ink Spots. First, we see a commercial for the Vault of the Future, meant to keep people safe if a nuclear disaster strikes. Then it turns into a newsreel where the brave men of the USA annexe Canada. And only after that, we hear about the nature of war, narrated by Ron Perlman.

After deciding who you want to be, the overseer of Vault 13, your home, tells you worrying news. The water chip of the water processing computer is gone and there is no replacement. If it isn't replaced, the vault will die of thirst and you have 150 days to find a new one. With that piece of information, you walk out of the massive vault door, the first time in your life, to see what happened to the world after the bombs dropped.

The world is in ruins. Most of the USA is now a barren, irradiated desert, where small settlements try to cope as well as they can. That is too what you have to do if you hope to save your vault. You can be nice to people or you can lie and cheat. Or if that isn't your thing, you can take what you need by force, not caring about the devastation you leave after. Fallout doesn't preach to you of your moral choices, it lets you do what you deem necessary to complete your task.

The water chip questline is a good example of that. If you want, you can postpone the deadline relatively early on if you so want. To do this, you need to strike a bargain with water merchants, who then ferry water to your vault. This adds an extra 100 days to the counter. But it also is a decision, that doesn't fly that well with the overseer, as you jeopardize the location of the vault.

The water chip itself can be gained by either brute force or by brains. If you just choose to steal it, you doom a city of mutants. You can also opt to help them by repairing a water plant first before taking the chip. Or you can just kill everyone standing in your way. In any case, this cuts out the water counter, but a new problem has arisen. A worrying threat was noticed by the overseer. The Mutants.

The overseer has done calculations and comes to a conclusion, that there must be more behind the mutations than just the effects of radiation. It is again back to the breach with you, this time with a task of finding out from where the mutants come from and if anything can be done about it. Depending on the version you play, you are again on a clock. If you play a version older than 1.1, you have about 500 days to do the task. Otherwise, you have around 13 game years. Either way, it is more than plenty.

As it turns out, the overseer was right. While some of the mutations were natural, there is a force behind it. A mutant called the Master, who is using pre-war technology, a virus called FEV to turn humans into mutants. You have your job cut out for you, but it's not only your vault that is at risk anymore, but it is also the whole of humanity.

You don't have to go alone to the wasteland. From the first human dwelling you find, Shady Sands, you can recruit a seasoned traveller, Ian. From Junktown you find two more companions, a ranger Tycho and perhaps the best-known Fallout companion of all time, the dog lovingly named Dogmeat. The final member you can recruit is Katja, an acolyte of the Followers of the Apocalypse. With this band of heroes and multiple types of weapons to choose from, you have to save the world. Or what's left of it.

Fallout lets you wander in whatever direction you see fit. The world is fully open from the get-go, so while the first location, Vault 15, is marked on your map, you can opt to wander in an entirely different direction. It won't be easy, as the denizens of the wasteland are more likely to kill you than greet you, but nothing is standing in your way. If you so want, you can even forget the main plot and have fun in the derelict husk of the former USA and rummage every crook and nanny before the lifeline of the vault, or the world, flat lines.

You can go on your business by being as good as humanly possible or you can be remembered as a murderous psychopath. Or you can be something in between. You can even decide to join the mutants if you want. Like I said, the game doesn't preach on your approach or whom you decide to kill or spare during the journey. There are no story important characters with unlimited hit points, so if you have enough will and firepower, you can level down everything you see.

It is surprising how well Fallout has aged. Not only in its gameplay but graphically as well. In many ways, the world the art team of Interplay created looks far more interesting than what Bethesda managed to pull off with their own take on Fallout 3. The music, the sounds and the sparse use of voice acting add to the atmosphere in ways, that the modern iterations of the game just don't quite manage to touch. No matter how more detailed Fallout 4 is, it just lacks the raw charm the original has.

It is a game you can play many times and constantly find new things, be it a new way to solve a quest or a way to join a group you didn't think of joining before, altering how the world reacts. It just doesn't cease to amaze me, how much detail and optional paths, not ever seen by most players, the developers managed to stuff in the game.

Fallout isn't a perfect game. The combat, while fun, lacks any genuine tactical element and the party AI is far from being good. More often than not, you can get hit by a barrage of friendly fire and your team can have a tendency to be more foolhardy than cautious, even if you order them to alter their combat behaviour. At times the line between a place where you are allowed to be and not be can be hazy, ending up with people suddenly attacking you.

But those are just blemishes, in the end, technical annoyances, you can learn to live with. The real reason you really are drawn to play Fallout, if you are drawn at all, is the possibility to believably role play a character, who green behind the ears is thrown in a world constructed of survival of the fittest. There you are, fresh out of the vault, making a decision to be a radiation angel or just go with the flow or even become the worst thing the wasteland has ever seen.

So, how will it be? Only you know the answer to that question.

Fallout can be bought from GOG and Steam. And probably some other stores as well.