I was talking to a friend recently who recommended I try out the original Fallout video game, which first hit computer screens in 1997 (when yours portly was a doughy lad of twelve).  I missed Fallout and Fallout 2, only dipping into the series with the release of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.  I never played Fallout 4 or the doomed Fallout 76, the latter I had hoped would do well because it takes place in West Virginia, which just seemed cool to me (I’m still waiting for a Fallout game in the Southeast; West Virginia is the closest they’ve gotten so far).  Suffice it to say that, as much as I love this franchise, my experience is limited to the two games in the series that are arguably the finest entries (F:NV being the widely-accepted best installment in the franchise).

But what of the isometric origins of this series?  I’ve always wanted to dip my toes into Fallout and Fallout 2, but even having grown up in the era of late 90s/early 2000s gaming, some of the controls and interfaces of that era have aged poorly.  Even yours portly has become soft and indolent with the various quality of life improvements abundant in modern games.

That said, clunky controls (and, goodness, Fallout controls are clunky, until you get the hang of them) can’t stop this pudgy dynamo.  So it was that, a little over a week ago, I took my first serious foray into the game that started it all.

Fallout sees the player emerging from his vault, Vault 13, to search the wastes of California for a water purifier chip following a massive nuclear war that has forever altered the landscape.  The Vault Dweller enters a world of two-headed cows; radioactive scorpions; Mad Max-style bandits; towns made of junk; and all manner of other post-apocalyptic tropes.

I’ve only clocked about ninety minutes of gameplay at the time of writing, all from a single gaming session.  I’ve been attempting to get in some more time, but with robust roleplaying games like Fallout, I like to have large chunks of uninterrupted time to indulge in them.  This past week was too busy for intense gaming.

That said, this game made a huge impression in that short ninety minutes of playtime.  That was enough to prompt me to write this blog post.

My biggest takeaway from Fallout is the following:  the game is brutally unforgiving—and I love it for that reason.  It is a roleplaying game in the truest sense possible on a computer:  you assume the role of a character, and you have tons of freedom to make whatever choices you’d like in the game world.  That said, you have to live with your choices, and that makes the game a really special experience.

Modern RPGs have so many guiderails, it’s almost impossible to do anything that will seriously alter the game or how you approach the main quest.  All choices ultimately seem to lead to the same outcomes, maybe with some altered endings.  Even when modern RPGs offer some illusion of roleplaying or choice, they heavily signpost how you should play the game (for example, many games with morality systems will make it quite clear that you should be a good guy if you want the optimal ending/outcome).  Baldur’s Gate 3 is, I have heard, likely the major notable exception, and it’s little wonder that game has been an explosive success; one student of mine who is a Dungeons & Dragons aficionado tells me it is the closest thing possible to playing D&D outside of having friends over for an extended tabletop session.

But there was a time, dear reader, when RPGs encouraged you to, you know, play a role.  I fondly remember Morrowind, where you could actually kill NPCs who were crucial to completing the main quest—and the game let you do it!

Fallout is such a game.  I went into the game largely blind (although I know the main villain and the overall story arc based on watching various YouTube videos over the years), and stumbled a bit out of the gate figuring out the controls.  I did pull up a guide just to help me figure out some of the keyboard commands (for example, I put a lot of points into the “Sneak” skill, but couldn’t figure out how to make my character sneak based on information in the game, although I did find this information in-game later), but otherwise, I wanted to see what the game had to offer on its own.

After getting through the easy starter dungeon with my thirty-year old thief-y character, I marched towards the first objective of the main quest:  Vault 15.  Along the way three giant naked mole rats ambushed me, and instead of fleeing (I didn’t know how to do that!) I tried fighting them.  I took one of the beasts down, only for the other two to turn me into their next meal.

After reloading, I decided to march south instead, just to see what would happen.  I arrived in Junktown, which is apparently more a late-game destination.  I couldn’t get in because it was nighttime, and I didn’t know how to “wait”—more on that later—so I left the town, wandered the wastes, and came back a few hours later.

I immediately went to the hospital, where the doctor had his two goons murder me because I couldn’t pay the examination fee.  Oops.

Upon reloading, I avoided that mistake, and managed to get to the quest-giver in town.  I even helped him survive an attempt on his life!  But then… I tried opening a door I wasn’t supposed to, and he turned hostile.  I was quickly arrested.

Now in the town’s jail, I couldn’t figure out how to wait to fulfill my twenty-four-hour sentence.  So I used my high lockpicking skill to pick the lock to the jail.  The guard did not like that, and opened fire on me.  Somehow, I survived, and exchanged enough fire to cause the guard to retreat.  I exited the jail to receive 250 experience points and a message saying, “You are definitely a fugitive in Junktown!”  Now everyone in town was hostile, but I managed to sneak out of the town, my reputation greatly diminished.

I contemplated save-scumming—reloading to an earlier point—but decided to embrace my rogue-ish character.  I wandered north and stumbled upon a raider camp.  I did not realize I still had my weapon drawn, and one of the raiders said, “You want to party?”  I took it literally—still ignorant of my drawn pistol—and entered their base, whereupon I realized “to party” meant “to fight to the death.”  Oops!

Another reload, and I holstered my weapon.  I didn’t want to take any chances with the unfriendly raiders, so I continued north to Vault 15, where I left off my first session.

Needless to say, I was hooked.  The appeal of these classic games is the ability to swap stories like mine.  What makes listening to podcasts and YouTube videos about Fallout fun is hearing how other players have stumbled into cool or unfortunate situations, and how they either survived and managed those situations, or succumbed to them.  I remember this feeling well from Morrowind, which offers a similarly rich roleplaying experience.  A big part of the fun of these games is talking outside of the games about your choices.

So, here’s to sinking many more hours into Fallout—hopefully this weekend!