Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 discussion

[WizardOfAtlantis]

I've been subscribed to Arcoolka's channel on YouTube and watching those vids. 8D I'll sub to yours too Sesom. I've already watched some...so cool.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

What operating system are you guys running that you can install Fallout 1? I'm trying on various compatibility modes on Win7 and I'm always getting errors of incompatibility with my type of OS.

edit: maybe I should be more precise. I'm trying to install them from cds from the Ultimate Collection I bought years ago, if that changes anything.

edit: got 1 installed through win95 comp mode but the colors are wonky at times. I'll see about the patches.

[sesom]

I bought the gog version of FO1 & FO2 (couldn't find my CDs anymore) so the patches are already done for me and it works perfectly fine with Windows 7 & XP .

Fallout Fixit (mentioned in the first post here) should help with your color troubles or look at http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/681908-fallout-series-introduction-and-game-guide/ in the third post you can find the links to the patches from NMA. But be careful some of the NMA fixes change the gameplay & character sprites which isn't a great problem if you want to simply play it but for a conversion that tries to stay true to the original it can be critical.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

thank you for the info, sesom.  

Is there any difference in gameplay if you run the games in compatibility mode or straight up windows 7?

[sesom]

Not that I know off. Fixit makes the most changes to the original that I could recognize. So it only depends which patches you are using.

It's not a big deal but I am pretty sure I will get the questions in the future from the purists why some dialog is different and why different armor is used then in the original but they where actually fixit changes.

[thermador]

Yeah, if you get the Good Old Games versions of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, you can run them natively in Win 7 x64, with full alt-tab support.  Totally worth the money ($10 each).

IMO, Fallout FIXT should be mandatory just for the bug fixes alone.  Same with Fallout 2 Restoration Project.  Looking through the lists of bug fixes on both of those, I don't know how you could handle playing without them.

[sesom]

Don't get me wrong here I strongly recommend Fixit and in case of FO2 the Restoration Project for a play through it's a lot more fun (I hope the new version of the Restoration Project comes soon out of the beta).

But as I started to work on Fallout The Story I recognized the changes that where made can be pretty drastic. For example the character sprites of Ian. At first I was only a bit irritated because he looks different in Fixit and meant ok not a big deal but then I thought further and realized why it was necessary.

It was made to allow him to use weapons he normally couldn't use (that's how the FO1 engine works sadly) but even that isn't a feature of the original game. So I simply had to make the decision do I want to make a NV conversion on base of Fixit or the original game and I went for the original game route and left only that installed including all bugs for conversion work. Similar like TTW does.

Some of the things that is a bug for someone can be a essential part of the game for another one. So it will be always a tight rope walk. For example even if it is very hard work (Bethesda sometimes you make my life very hard), I simply have to implement the "feature" that Ian is able to shoot you in the back if he misses ;) .

[thermador]

I just finished my first-ever Fallout 2 playthrough this weekend.  Here are some notes:

• 
  The graphics, even with Fallout 2 Restoration Project installed, are antiquated at best.  You get used to them eventually, but never fully.  Same for Fallout 1, which is about the same.
  
   


• 
  The gameplay is good, especially for the time, but the lack of fast travel means that if you forgot something, you are doing a lot of backtracking.  You get used to the turn-based combat after a while, but even at high-stakes endgame battles I still found it somewhat tedious.
  
   


• 
  Fallout 2 is about twice as long as Fallout 1 - about the same length as Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas
  
   


• 
  Fallout 1 and 2 are more difficult to follow due to the extremely limited quest tracking systems.  I often found myself unsure of what to do next.  Most of the quests are straightforward, but many are not, especially if you're looking for the non-violent solutions.  Prepare to reload your savegames, and OFTEN.
  
   


• 
  Fallout 2 (and to a lesser degree, Fallout 1) is kind of silly.  It is like playing with "wild wasteland" on, all the time, turned up to the max.  There is a lot of dialogue that breaks the 4th wall (addressing the player, not the player character), and a lot of ridiculous random encounters - especially if you have a high luck.
  
   


• 
  There is arguably more player freedom in Fallout 1 and 2.  For example, the lack of essential/unkillable characters, and some more choices in the predetermined storylines.  However, most of the "lack of freedom" in F3 and FNV can be addressed with mods.
  
   


• 
  It is impressive how well Fallout 3 and Fallout NV follow the "canon" of the first two games.  They keep the lore very consistent (minor nit-picks aside).  The other side of that coin is that, once you play Fallout 2, you kind of realize that Obsidian basically ripped off huge parts of F2 for the FNV storyline.  The same is true of Fallout 3, although not as severely so.

Overall though, I doubt I will go back to F1 and F2 again.  They are fun, and worth a playthrough if you've never done it before, but they are just too old compared to what's available now in terms of both Fallout games and RPGs in general.

If both were modernized into a new engine, as Sesom's project has started to do, they could be great games to play again though. 

[KennyMcCormick]

I never could finish the first two games. I gave them an honest try, but what killed them for me is twofold.

 

1: The combat engine. Ok, I admit, I already don't like turn-based combat. Even the best implementations bore me. I prefer realtime. Fallout 1 and 2 adopt a veeeeeeeery slow implementation of TBC that at one point quite literally made me fall asleep. Even hacking the game to give myself infinite AP and turning all the speed settings to 11 did little to help that.

 

2: The engine doesn't immerse me very well, if at all. In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, when I see a rotten 200 year old couch, I can tell just by looking at it that it's filty. I can rub my face in it, I can zoom into individual stains, I can sit on it, I can throw stuff at it. In Fallout 1 and 2 the sprite is far too pixelated to tell anything more than the fact that it's a couch, I have to take the floating text at face value. That, for me, shatters my immersion. As such I never got very far in either game, maybe four levels in, and I'd had enough. There just wasn't anything there to keep me playing.

 

 

Such a shame, too. The stories in the first two are excellent. I may yet go back and give them another try, though I'm not hopeful I'll get very far. Hopefully Sesom's project doesn't fall short and I get to experience those awesome stories in a, for me, far more immersive and fun manner.

[tizerist]

When I first came across a turn-based game in the mid-90's I almost baulked at the idea of having to 'wait my turn' to attack in combat. That, was a deal breaker for me everytime. Even more so in 2013.