I've tried several times throughout the years to get into the
Fallout franchise. I bought the first game years ago, and I couldn't figure it out. I'm usually fine with older games like this--especially since I was a PC gamer during the timeframe of release--but for whatever reason, a few have stumped me throughout the years. Games like
Baldur's Gate (another I've tried several times to play) and
Fallout, particularly the first couple of iterations of each series, felt beyond me. I'm even one of those nerds that RtFMs. I have tamed the beast that is the original DOS
X-COM game. I never could figure out why
Fallout eluded me; maybe it's because I've evolved to the point that the only games in this style are the ones that hold nostalgia for me.
Fallout and
Baldur's Gate are games I missed back then, due to being a kid who didn't get an allowance.
Fallout: New Vegas randomly popped up as a gift from my brother one day after a conversation about these older games that we've both played or tried to play. This is the one that finally got me into the franchise, and I loved most of the 135 hours I spent with this game, including the 50 or so I spent on DLC.
New Vegas convinced me to give the rest of the series a shot again, and I purchased
Fallout 3 and
Fallout 4 with the intention of skipping the first two (for now).
Graphics are okay, but they're pretty reminiscent of other games of the 2010-2011 era. Given that my basis for the rest of
Fallout is simply the original
Fallout, they're a pretty dramatic improvement as far as I'm concerned. I liked a lot of the little touches, like the ability to customize the color of the HUD. This is something I did frequently, depending on if I was stuck in a darker area of the game (such as the
Dead Money DLC) or in a brighter area (wandering the Mojave for hours on end). Customizing a character is pretty standard fare at this point, but I liked the numerous options nonetheless. I did run into the occasional glitch, however. Each glitch was amusing, but annoying. Nothing like a bark scorpion stretching out for a million miles across the desert, and the Courier not having any clue where to aim. This was particularly frustrating with the
Dead Money DLC. 6/10.
Controls were pretty average too, but the addition of hotkeys that are usable with a controller? Automatic bump from my average score of 6-7/10. I didn't learn about the hotkeys until I'd technically finished the game twice (Yes Man and Mr. House questlines), and I'd beaten the
Honest Hearts DLC. This discovery made the remaining DLCs and quest lines much more enjoyable and made the controls feel just a tad bit better. 9/10.
Soundscapes were pretty average. I did quite like most of the voice acting and the narration of the ending--the narrator was great. Rose of Sharon Cassidy's voice artist was perhaps the most solidly cast role I've ever heard in a video game. Music was largely forgettable for me, and it's not a soundtrack I'd seek out to listen to for enjoyment. The effects themselves were fairly average; sometimes gunshots didn't sound like gunshots. The energy weapons were definitely interesting sounds, though. Some enemy noises, such as ghouls, were forgettable enough that I can't recall at this point what they sound like. The voiceovers are enough to bring the score up a bit for me. 9/10.
The content itself is amazingly enjoyable. Having so many different factions to serve or destroy adds replay value and definitely kept me invested. Ceasar's Legion is definitely on the bottom of my list, but even that quest line didn't burn me out before finishing the game. The DLC packs added new and interesting areas, quests and weapons, and having so many of them to complete was almost like having an extra
Fallout game in my
Fallout game. My only major criticism of the DLC content is that
Dead Money has a couple of mechanics that feel like artificial inflation of the difficulty instead of actual content (if you know, you know). The story itself was intriguing. 9/10.
Overall, finishing this game prompted me to buy two more games,
Fallout 3 and
Fallout 4. Despite my struggles with the earlier iterations of the franchise, I've definitely fallen in love with the 3D series and look forward to playing more in the future. 8/10.
4.0