Reviews - Eich

Black Isle took the formula of Fallout 1 and added a large bowl of wack and a pinch of advancement to the post apocalyptic world. The result was one of the best RPGs made in PC history.

First of all Mark Morgan expanded his ingenious soundtrack and brought along the feelings from Fallout 1. I can't stress enough how important this soundtrack is to the game. Without it 50% of it's charme would be lacking. Turn up the sound and lean back. Let the radioactive background noise pour into your brain. Become one with the wasteland.

Then there is the story. Unfortunatly it is not as great as the story of Fallout 1. But of course it can live up to anything you may hope to find. It's epic, non-linear and wacky. Also there are hours worth of side quests and random encounters.

The atmosphere is of course moribund and mad. And with mad I mean talking rats and mafiosi with laser guns mad. It's just over the top and most of it is satire. Unfortunatly the civilization advanced since Fallout 1 and the wasteland lost some of it's post apocalyptic charme. But there is still enough to go around.
This makes Fallout 2 a very different game in terms of athmosphere compared to Fallout 1. But different does not mean inferior.

Like all old school turn based strategy games the fights are fun but there is not much depth to them. In general the fight is decided by the question of who is wielding the largest gun. But behold the critical hits. I had a great time shooting people in the groin or the tentacles and to read about how they suffered in the info box.

And of course there are the dialogs. You can either doom or save people or whole cities with one false or well placed word. And imagine a world in which your intelligence decides about your dialog choices. You can be a genius or a nutcase depending on your skill level. The whole game basically changes with Int lower than 3. Is there any other game which offers you the choice to play as a retard? I didn't think so!