LONG BLOG
BoB: Fallout 2
Let's talk Fallout 2, a game I never finished. It's considered a classic, and I can definitely see why, but no matter how often the game throws a badass power-armored Michael Dorn in my face, I won't ever see it through. With The Outer Worlds having come out recently (And being fucking amazing, just wow) That makes Fallout 2 my... Unfinished Business. *Dramatic sting here*
Note that I tried to fulfill the month's prompt and finish the game. I failed after I realized I'd have to go on a third run due to a save issue. So, I'm still giving my thoughts here, but not to the same extent those who actually fulfilled the prompt did.
This is Frank Horrigan. He's like Legate Lanius with every good quality upgraded by 10.
I botched my first run horribly by making a character unable to pickpocket. Said character was "Chuck", named and modeled after the protagonist of Jason Yungbluth's comic strip pastiche Weapon Brown, and skilled in unarmed combat and energy weapons. Since neither of these things are particularly useful in the early game compared to robbing everyone blind (Which, in my attempt to play according to the character of the vicious yet honorable bounty hunter, I wanted to avoid) Hence, I was unable to make any significant progress until my save corrupted and forced me to delete it.
This cover is gorgeous.
After looking up eight dozen online guides (Side note, the game refuses to function properly when minimized and doesn't work with the Steam overlay, so it was a fucking pain) I went through the hour-long Temple section again, this time with a character focused on melee and stealth. I'll admit it was a little painful to abandon Chuck, but hey, I gotta do what the game essentially forces me to do if I want to.
Fallout 2 is undeniably a goddamn classic, but with a total of nine hours logged and three total character files, I've finally given up on it. Not only do I refuse to go through the Temple again, I can't stand the way the game forces you to steal and to lose in its inutterably unfair combat system which feels so biased against you all the time in the early game. I understand that it's to encourage avoidance over direct confrontation, but Chuck (And my second character, who I dutifully named "Larry"), were not petty thieves or crooks. Rather, they were meant to be hulking powerhouses that also didn't suck with words.
In between the complaining I want to note that this game is a classic for a reason.
Instead, I essentially was left with boring early-game busy work that left me constantly at a brisk pace by forcing me to always be walking by some geckos or Radscorpions, which would later become the Fallout equivalent of goombas. Is it immersive and good at giving you the idea that you are surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Sure, but it also really breaks my immersion that Chuck can't just stomp these geckos into paste and that despite being a badass mercenary, Larry has robbed every single resident of every single town he's in blind. Hell, I didn't even make enough caps to pay for Sulik, the ultimate result being I had to rob random encounters regularly.
I also can't bear to look at the game over screen again. Fallout 2 is undeniably amazing, yes, and it's a fun little roleplaying game. I still can't finish it. Maybe it's that it's overhyped, or maybe it's just that its style of roleplaying isn't the sort I can get along with. Despite that, I leave Fallout 2 to eternally be my... Unfinished Business. Mainly because I'm too lazy to finish.
It's good, though. My opinion is shit.
- Congratulations on getting down here.
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