Did radiation really do that?

[Morpoggel]

Uhm... yeah... well... I just think it'd get a little boring when it's totally underground... but that's because Fallout is the way it is now... if it was totally underground, I probably would think it sucks if it was above ground...

 

[Brother None]

Why not put everything underground?**

Impractical. The Vaults were flawed and could only include a limited amount of people.

Note that when people could live underground, they generally did (Vault 13, BoS), but even in fairly working Vaults the urge to go up becomes too big (Vault City).

 

[Caveman]

just to answer the initial question - yes
i read about soviet nuclear tests in national geographic years back - couldnt find anything as good as the article in there but this may interest some of you http://www.homestead.com/prosites-kazakhembus/Nuc_h.html

 

[muster]

Exile was all underground and the game rocked.

but, it would play hell with the plot of Fallout, it was all about emerging from the vaults and going out into the big bad wastes, if you just kept going into well defended underground cities, it wouldnt be the same culture shock. plus, the underground farm wouldn't seem as strange, and vault city wouldn't exist as all the vault dwellers would probably still live in vaults. not that the last thing would be a bad thing...