Fallout is a series of computer role-playing games produced and published by Interplay. Although set in and after the 22nd century, its story and artwork are heavily influenced by the post-world war II nuclear paranoia of the 1950s. The series is sometimes considered to be an unofficial sequel to Wasteland, but it could not use that title as Electronic Arts held the rights to it, and, except for minor references, the games are set in separate universes. There were two role-playing titles in the series (Fallout and Fallout 2), one squad-based tactical combat spinoff (Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel) and one action dungeon-crawler for PlayStation 2 and Xbox (Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel). A sequel, Fallout 3, is currently being developed by Bethesda Softworks. Bethesda owns the rights to make Fallout games, although Interplay retained the right to publish a massively multiplayer online role-playing game version of Fallout. In 2001, PC Gamer named Fallout and Fallout 2 as the fourth best computer game of all time.
Storyline edit
The background story of Fallout involves a "what-if" scenario in which the United States tries to devise fusion power resulting in a hegemonic United States that has less reliance on petroleum. However, this is not achieved until 2077, shortly after an oil drilling conflict off the Pacific Coast pits the United States against China. It ends with a nuclear exchange resulting in the post-apocalyptic world the game takes place in—although it is said in Fallout 2 that nobody knew who sent the first missile. In Fallout 2 one conversation train with the Skynet computer results in Skynet stating that the war may have started because computers with Artificial Intelligence may have grown bored. However, as the Skynet computer was a parody of the computer system of the same name in the movie "The Terminator", Skynet's claim may not be true.
Before the nuclear exhange took place, 122 Vaults were constructed across America, supposedly to protect the populace from the dangers of radiation. Only 122 were constructed, however, while over 400,000 would be needed to protect the entire nation. This is because the Vaults were not intended to save humanity; rather, they were social experiments being conducted by the United States government. Most vaults featured some variable to test how certain things influence people, such as Vault 69, which contained 999 women and one man.
Games edit
Fallout edit
Image:Fallout.jpg Fallout box art
Released in 1997, Fallout is the spiritual successor to the 1988 hit Wasteland. The protagonist of the game is tasked with recovering a water chip to replace the chip that broke in his home, Vault 13. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic southern California, beginning in the year 2161. It was originally intended to run under the GURPS role-playing system, but budget issues required the development of a new system, the SPECIAL System. Fallout's atmosphere and artwork are reminiscent of post-WWII America and the nuclear paranoia that was widespread at that time.
Fallout 2 edit
Image:Fallout2.jpgFallout 2 (European version) box art
Fallout 2 was released in 1998 using a slightly-modified form of the engine used in the original Fallout. Taking place 80 years after the original game, Fallout 2 centers around a descendent of the Vault-Dweller, the protagonist of Fallout. The player assumes the role of the Chosen One as he tries to save Arroyo, his village, after several years of drought. The game featured several improvements over the first game, including the ability to set attitudes of NPC party members and the ability to push people who are blocking doors. Fallout 2 has been criticized for containing too many easter eggs; No Mutants Allowed lists over 100.
Fallout 3 edit
Fallout 3 is in production Bethesda Softworks. No screenshots, concept art, or movies have been released, however. Fallout 3 may be published on several platforms.
Recently it has been listed stores and confirmed by software distributors that Fallout 3 will be available in November 2007.
November 7th 2007 is the anticipated date for distribution, while Futureshop.ca has shown Nov 30th 2007.
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel edit
Image:Fallout_Tactics_Box.jpgThe box cover to Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel
Fallout Tactics was released in early 2001 to mixed reviews. Although it was given high scores by reviewers (PC Gamer gave it an 85%), many fans were disappointed by the game. Fallout Tactics focuses on tactical combat rather than role-playing; the new combat system included different modes, stances, and modifiers, but the player had no dialogue options. Most of the criticisms of the game came from its incompatibility with the story of the original two games, not from its gameplay. Tactics is the first Fallout game to not require the player to fight in a turn-based mode, and it is also the first to allow the player to customize the skills, perks, and combat actions of the rest of the party. Fallout Tactics includes a multi-player mode that allows players to compete against squads of other characters controlled by other players. Unlike the previous two games, which are based in southern California, Fallout Tactics takes place in the Midwest.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel edit
image:Fallout-_Brotherhood_of_Steel_Box.jpgThe United States PlayStation 2 box art to Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.{
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel became the first Fallout game for consoles when it was released in 2004. It follows an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel who is given a suicidal quest to find several lost Brotherhood paladins. An action role-playing game, BoS is a significant break from the previous incarnations of the Fallout series. BoS takes place in three locations: The towns of Carbon and Los and a Vault. BoS also does not feature non-player characters who would accompany the player in combat. BoS is generally not considered to be canon due to its stark contrasts with the storyline of Fallout and Fallout 2. BoS is the last Fallout game to be developed by Interplay. The game also features music from heavy-metal bands, including Slipknot and Killswitch Engage, which stands in contrast to the music of the first two games. This music came from The Ink Spots and Louis Armstrong.
Van Buren edit
Image:Fallout_3_Logo.gifThe logo to Van Buren
Van Buren was the code-name for Fallout 3 while it was in development at Interplay. It featured an improved engine, new locations, vehicles, and a modified version of the SPECIAL system. The story broke off from the Vault Dweller/Chosen One bloodline of the first two, and instead centered around a prisoner. The game started with him mysteriously appearing in a new jail that was under attack. Plans for the game included the ability to influence the various factions. The game was cancelled in December, 2003, when budget cuts forced Interplay to lay off the PC development team.
Fallout: Warfare edit
Image:Fallout_Warfare_Logo.jpg The Fallout: Warfare logo
Fallout: Warfare is a tabletop wargame based on the Fallout Tactics storyline, using a simplified version of the SPECIAL system. The rulebook were written by Christopher Taylor, and was available on the Fallout Tactics bonus CD, together with cut-out miniatures. Fallout: Warfare features five distinct factions, vehicles, four game types, and thirty-three different units. The rules only require ten-sided dice. The modifications to the SPECIAL system allow every unit a unique set of stats and give special units certain skills they can use, including piloting, doctor, and repair. A section of the Fallout: Warfare manual allows campaigns to be conducted using the Warfare rules. The game is currently available for free online from fansite No Mutants Allowed and several other sources.
Mutations and their causes edit
According to the "Fallout Bible" (a series of documents answering questions from players by Fallout 2 designer Chris Avellone, who was not part of the original Fallout team), it is interesting to note that most of the mutations in Fallout and Fallout 2 are not because of radioactive fallout. According to the Fallout Bible, most of the mutations the player experiences are because of a pre-War biological serum, named the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). Some players feel that this reliance on FEV paints the story with a genetic engineering theme that a 50s-viewpoint game should not have. Others, however, point to the fact that in the 1950s and early 1960s, radiation was viewed very similarly to the way that FEV was in Fallout and Fallout 2. However, in a later edition of the "Fallout Bible" Chris Avellone admitted that his attributing the mutations to FEV was a mistake, saying that almost all of the mutations were indeed caused by radiation.
Influences edit
Image:Bloody_Mess.jpg The Fallout series has a unique look and feel.Fallout draws much from 50s pulp magazines, science fiction and superhero comic books. For example, computers use vacuum tubes instead of transistors; energy weapons exist and resemble those used by Flash Gordon. The Vault Dweller's main style of dress is a blue jumpsuit with a yellow line going down the center of the chest and along the belt area, though the main character's appearance changes while wearing armor. The number on the back might differ from the Vault the dweller represents, but it's usually "13", or in other cases, missing.
Fallout's menu interfaces are designed to resemble advertisements and toys of the same period; For example, the characters sheet cards and perks available, look like those of the board game Monopoly. The lack of this retro stylization was one of the things the Fallout spin-offs were criticized for, as retro-futurism is a hallmark of the Fallout series.
Fallout also draws minor influences from other sources. One of the initial armors available in the game is the one sleeved leather jacket, which bears a resemblance to the jacket worn by Mad Max in The Road Warrior. Also, the armor featured on the cover of the game is powered armor, the most powerful (and rarest) armor in Fallout.
The Fallout games are famous for their Easter eggs. While the first game mostly had references to the 1950s and 1960s pop-culture (Doctor Who, Godzilla), in Fallout 2 there are many references to Star Trek, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python; Some fans of the first game argued that there are too many Easter eggs in the sequel and that they distract from the immersiveness of the game world.
In Fallout, the player meets an NPC named Tycho, who mentions that he is a Desert Ranger and, under the right conditions, will talk of his grandfather, who told him about Fat Freddy. Fat Freddy is a character from Las Vegas in Wasteland, which implies that Tycho's grandfather was one of the PCs in Wasteland, who were named the Desert Rangers. Although the time frame of Wasteland is completely different from Fallout, and Fallout game designers deny that Fallout 1 or 2 takes place in the same universe as Wasteland, this is one of many references to the events and the style of Wasteland in the Fallout series, which is why Fallout is sometimes regarded as the spiritual successor to Wasteland. (Cassidy also says that he was named after a kick ass comic book character, a reference to the Irish vampire Cassidy in the comic book Preacher)
The Fallout community edit
Most of the English-speaking Fallout fan community is focused on the two oldest functioning Fallout fansites - No Mutants Allowed, founded in 1997, and Duck and Cover, founded in 1998. The game is also popular in Central and Eastern European countries, such as Czech Republic (e.g. Fallout Skynet), Poland and Germany, as well as in Russia. One of the fans from these countries, the polish artist Adam EFC TurcZack, made a tribute to Fallout in the form of a song. Fallout is well-know in Brazil too, with serious fans communities, like Vault Of Broken Dreams.
The fanbase of the Fallout series is infamous in gaming circles because of their strong reactions to arguably every Fallout game since Fallout 2. The Fallout community has often reacted angrily to announcements about the games development and has been said to be overly argumentative regarding future titles.
Josh Sawyer, lead developer of Fallout 3 until its cancellation, gained notoriety for his frequent clashes with argumentative fans on the Interplay forums. On July 30, 2003, he famously responded to criticisms about the game's creative direction with a retort that ridiculed members of the Fallout community as fussy and impossible to please:
The point, in case zealots ever want to accept it, is that your tastes are not the only tastes in the world. Really, I know this may be hard to believe, but if you like playing a turn-based game set in three counties of Utah in 2242, and you like miniguns but don't like lasers, and you like the ratio of combat to dialogue to be about 4:1, and you like cars that look more like Buicks than Pontiacs, and you think 50s-style monsters are okay but 50s-style aliens aren't, and you think Max's jacket from Mad Max is okay but the football pad armour isn't, and you don't like it when italics are used in dialogue but you do like it when boldface is used, and you want it to be longer than 100 hours but no longer than 120 hours, and like games to be non-linear but only to a point, and like big cities, but only two because four is too much BUT HEY NOT THAT ONE, and you like the desert but don't mind a little grass BUT HEY NOT THAT MUCH BECAUSE IT'S NOT FALLOUT...I am terribly, terribly sorry, because we are not going to make a game just for you. We're not trying to make a game for everyone. Really, we aren't. But we're not making a game just for you and ten other angry guys with tastes that are narrower than a hallway in a camp of pygmy dwarves.
These fans say that their anger is a justifiable reaction to Interplay's treatment of the franchise in the 6 years it has existed. The turbulent history surrounding the third Fallout game, the fans argue, is a good example of what they consider to be poor treatment of the Fallout series. Once in development, the prototype Fallout 3 "Van Buren" was cancelled long before release. Further angering hardcore fans, the later Fallout titles that were released were not seen as "serious" role playing games—one centered around tactical combat and the other was a Gauntlet-style action-RPGs. Both of them contained many contradictions to the original Fallout setting and were not considered canon by the developers of Fallout 3 (in both the Black Isle and Bethesda incarnations). Interplay fell on hard times toward the end of its lifespan, and many in the community speculated that the perceived lower quality of the last two titles was a symptom of the company's financial problems.
While Brotherhood of Steel was a poor performer in sales and received at best decent reviews, the tactical combat Fallout game Fallout: Tactics was moderately well received by both gaming critics and the general community. Some have argued that Tactics' moderate success, based on concepts the Fallout community is not fond of, has been a major aspect of how the Fallout community is considered by general gamers. Others argue that the partial success that Tactics enjoyed was due to the similarities between it and the Fallout series, rather than the differences.
This sense of communal isolation again became apparent when Bethesda Softworks was given the rights to not only make Fallout 3, but also Fallout 4 and 5. The news that Fallout 3 would again be in production (after a previous incarnation had been cancelled), was generally well received by the gaming community.
The move was met with anger and disappointment by some in the Fallout communities after Bethesda representatives had said Fallout 3 would be developed from scratch, disregarding the previous incarnation. Denigrating Bethesda's Morrowind as a role-playing game (and the The Elder Scrolls series in general), the Fallout community was most offended that companies founded by the developers of Fallout and Fallout 2 who left Interplay (Troika and Obsidian) did not gain the rights.
Only one of those companies, they argued, could truly make a proper Fallout 3. There are persistent rumors that Troika made a bid for the Fallout license but was outbid by Bethesda, but the Troika developers have gone on record as saying that they never made a bid because they believed that they could not raise the capital. In 2005 Troika indicated that it would cease operations due to lack of funding for new projects.
Arguing that they are not "dismissing" the game series, some in the Fallout community fear Bethesda will make a Fallout 3 that has little connection to the original Fallouts. For example, some hardcore fans of the series consider isometric view and turn-based combat to be essential to a Fallout game, however these concepts have become rare in major game releases since the release of the first two Fallouts. Other fans have argued that Fallout was successful for other reasons and that these concepts are not entirely essential.
A positive aspect of Bethesda's acquisition of Fallout is that the Fallout games, like Morrowind, were lauded for allowing a great deal of freedom with regards to travelling within the game world and allowing the character to reach virtually every location in the game in any order, save for the endgame areas.
On the other hand, Fallout is frequently praised for its well-written and humorous dialogue - something that was all but absent in Morrowind, which relied upon a system of 'key words' that prompted a limited, functional response. Therefore, many fans harbour concerns for the quality of character exchanges in Fallout 3.
There are two major references to the Fallout fan community in the Fallout games themselves. One is a special encounter with Unwashed Villagers, an early fan community, in Fallout 2. They are depicted as a group of people attacking a spammer. In Fallout Tactics, there is a senile old man who urinates into other people's drinks, named "Roshambo" after a No Mutants Allowed admin, well known for his distaste of the Fallout spin-offs and those who enjoy them.
Trivia edit
- Three key members behind the original Fallout (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson) left Interplay in 1998 and founded Troika Games. Troika was closed down in February 2005 due to financial problems.
- "RadAway", in Fallout, was a medicine that lowered the game characters level of irradiation. Supposedly it worked by bonding itself with radiation particles making it possible for them to "pass" through your system, as some form of radiation chelation therapy.
- "Mentats", a drug in the series that temporary raises your intelligence, is named after the human computers in the Dune universe.
- "Brahmin", the two-headed cows, share their name with the Hindu priestly caste. The possibility of this name usage being purely coincidental is diminished when considering that cows are sacred in Hinduism. The name is also similar to the Brahman breed of cattle which are found in India.
- An early version of Fallout had a Goodies folder on the CD; this included a Windows screensaver and 1994 prototype version of the game.
- In Fallout 2, the reason why Vault 13's water chip malfunctioned is "explained" in a random encounter, in which the Fallout 2 character discovers a portal similar to the Guardian of Forever. If he enters it, the player is transported to a small section of Vault 13, devoid of any other characters. When he interacts with the only computer he can, he breaks the Water Chip, ensuring the events of the player's past continue as they should. This encounter, like all special encounters, is only a joke and is not considered canon. Also Vault 8 contains several thousand water chips from an accidentally mixed-up shipment that sent Vault 13 the secondary GECK. The real reason the water chip malfunctioned was due to a series of tests by The Enclave to put the different vaults under experimental conditions. Vault 13's test was to have only one water chip that would malfunction after a certain time. Vault 8's GECK went to Vault 13 and Vault 13's extra chips went to Vault 8.
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura by Troika Games has a reference to the two-headed cows that appeared originally in Fallout. They are said to come from a "far away desert".
- "War. War never changes" is the famous phrase uttered in the intro of Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics by Ron Perlman. The phrase is one of the foremost iconic catch-phrases of the game.
- "Nuka Cola" is a blue cola in a coca cola shaped bottle, in the game, obviously a reference to the real and actual Coca Cola, and actually you could become addicted to it.
- At one point in Fallout's development, in Junktown, if the player aided local sheriff Killian Darkwater in killing the criminal Gizmo, Killian would become corrupt. However, if the player killed Killian for Gizmo, then Gizmo would go straight and help Junktown prosper. The game's publisher didn't like this though and had the outcomes changed to what they are now.
- Fallout games feature well-known actors as NPC voice-talent. Notable appearances include:
- Richard Dean Anderson (Killian, Fallout)
- David Warner (Morpheus, Fallout)
- Tony Shalhoub ((credited as Tony Shalub) Aradesh, Fallout)
- Michael Dorn (Marcus the Mutant, Special Agent Frank Horrigan, Fallout 2)
- Richard Moll (Cabot, Fallout)
- Ron Perlman (Narrator, Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics)
- Mission briefings in Fallout Tactics are barked by R. Lee Ermey (Also "Gunnery Sergeant Hartman" in the film Full Metal Jacket) and Kurtwood Smith, who is best known from his work in That 70s Show and RoboCop.
External links edit
- The Vault, A Fallout wiki, hosted by the fan site Duck and Cover.
- No Mutants Allowed, Fallout Fan Site
- Duck and Cover, Fallout Fan Site
- FIFE, Fallout open source engine that tries to replace the old Fallout 2
- Fallout LARP Terminal- Czech LARP in a postapocalyptic world inspired by Fallout (Czech)
- Nuclear Winter Studios A Fallout modding and fan group.
- Fallout Corner One of the most famous Polish Fallout fansites.
- Fallout discussion A LiveJournal community for Fallout discussion.
- TeamX A Russian Fallout modding group.
- Duck and Cover's Fan Fiction section, which houses such classics as "fallout sitcom" by Sir Pooperscooper.
- New Reno RPG A free-form IRC-chat-based RPG set in the Fallout 2 world and setting.
- Vault BR Brazilian Fallout Community.
Mods edit
- Mutants Rising A mod currently in production for Fallout 2.
- Wasteland Merc 2 A mod for Fallout 2 with mmorpg features such as cooking, mining, fishing and crafting weapons, armors and ammo. 60+ custom missions and 19 custom locations. RELEASED.
- Survivor A mod for Fallout 2 with a new concept and innovative ideas. RELEASED.
- Survivor2 A mod for Fallout 2 with a completely new story currently in production.
- Fan Made Fallout A mod for Fallout 2 that has been in production for 4 years.
- Fallout Yurop A mod for Fallout 2 that takes place in Europe.