My Twitter feed is fairly video-game heavy, but there’s a chance that yesterday at approximately 3pm, you saw Twitter explode with tweets about the announcement of Fallout 4. That and everyone making some kind of comment or joke about the dog in the trailer.
So what’s the fuss about Fallout 4? Is the series worth getting in to and do you have to start from the beginning?
What is Fallout?
Fallout was a top-down isometric RPG released in 1997. Playing as a vault dweller – a person who is descended from someone who survived a nuclear war by hiding in a sophisticated locked-down fallout shelter – the original game gave you a basic quest to leave your vault and find a component that your fellow dwellers needed in order to keep their drinking water flowing.
This quest took you far and wide across a desolate American wasteland, collecting companions and uncovering a larger plot in the process.
The short version in lieu of a full review is that Fallout was fantastic, as was its sequel. They had charm, they had character, they were quirky and well written and what’s more, it was an unusual setting for an RPG. At this point, most RPGs were dedicated to fantasy Dungeons & Dragons style adventures as opposed to post-nuclear Americana.
Unfortunately, the original games have aged a little bit so it’s hard to completely recommend them to a modern audience. If you do want to give them a go, there are versions which run on modern machines and the Fallout Classics Collection is relatively inexpensive. It includes Fallout, Fallout 2 and the more disappointing Fallout Tactics.
That link will take you to Green Man Gaming, but you can also pick the games up directly on Steam and you might even be able to still find a physical copy in the budget section of Game.
Fallout goes 3D
After the two RPGs, the series entered into an extended period of limbo. A couple of spin off games were released, but nothing that really satisfied fans. Following financial issues, series developer Interplay sold the rights to the Fallout franchise to Bethesda, the developer behind The Elder Scrolls Series (including Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim) and the series came back to the gaming stage with a bang in 2008.
Fallout 3 made the jump to a first person view and allowed fans to explore the nuclear wasteland first hand. A Fallout game from the people who are known for sprawling first-person RPGs seemed to be the perfect match and the game has gone on to build an enormous fan-base, discovering new audiences away from its pure RPG roots thanks to the use of the ever-popular first-person view point.
The RPG elements were still there and the world was all still similar enough to the originals to satisfy the die-hard fans of the series, but a lot of people agree that with Fallout 3, there was just something a little bit…off. Something hadn’t made it across in the translation.
So does Fallout 4 deserve the hype?
There’s no real mystery why people are excited about Fallout 4. The game world means a lot to people. Personally, I feel the series peaked with the isometric RPGs, but that’s not to say Fallout 3 is no good, it’s just not got as much character. Whether Fallout 4 will prove deserving of the hype will very much depend on the direction the game takes in terms of theme and general feel.
What I mean is that the Fallout series at its best has a surprising amount of heart, a grim sense of humour and very likeable characters. The original RPGs were able to evoke this through the very nature of a game that is heavily text based – without the elaborate graphics showing you everything, a lot of the magic is actually happening in your head. Fallout 3 by contrast lost a lot of this and instead we were trudging through very grey-brown landscapes and subway tunnels chasing an arrow in the quest log.
There is hope though. The most recent entry to the series, Fallout: New Vegas
, was in terms of feel, far superior to Fallout 3. Although having a slightly narrower scope, the game was able to go back to its role-playing roots and included a lot more of the quirks and general weirdness from the original games. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what made it so different, but there was something about the writing, something about the way the characters talked to you and something about the very nature of New Vegas itself – an extravagant casino town like an oasis in a radiated desert.
Fallout 4 is absolutely deserving of the hype. Yes, this is a pre-rendered announcement trailer that has been released and it’s very difficult to ascertain anything concrete from what’s on offer here, but even if it is just more of the same, that’s enough to make it a decent game.
So where should I start with the Fallout series?
If you want to get in to Fallout, you can take your pick. All of the games are part of the same world, but there’s very little in the way of a continuous narrative and each title is a standalone experience.
Personally I would recommend Fallout: New Vegas, but you would probably get a better feel for the series and the staples of the world over all from Fallout 3. Of course, if you have the patience and the time, you will find it rewarding to go all the way back to the first two games.
Alternatively, the odds are good that you can wait until Fallout 4 is released, you could probably jump into the series with that.
Which platforms can I play Fallout on?
If you want to dive into the Fallout world, the games can be played on the following platforms.
Fallout: PC
Fallout 2: PC
Fallout 3: PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Fallout: New Vegas: PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Fallout 4: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One
Finally, if you are looking at Fallout 3 or New Vegas, bear in mind that the PC versions also have access to a wide modding community which could breathe further life into the games for you once you’ve finished with them.
Disclosure: Links in the post above will take you to Green Man Gaming and are affiliate links, meaning if you went on to buy something from Green Man Gaming I would receive a small kickback.