Fallout 1 vs Fallout 2

Sn1p3r187

Sn1p3r187

Carolinian Shaolin Monk
Gameplay and story wise. Also Vault Dweller vs the Chosen One. Which did you think was a better character and why? I liked Fallout 1 for it's story and it's way that just kept me immersed in gameplay and kept me going for hourse, the gameplay wasn't perfect but if it were a bit longer through any means of mods. It would definitely be worth it. I liked 2 for the gameplay though the story was longer, it just wasn't as kept up and as simple as Fallout's. The plot twists felt too predictable and the game seemed to black and white in my tastes. Though I did admire the humor of the game. Like seriously who didn't laugh their ass off when that midget fell down the well in Broken Hills. Lol. Anyway and comparing the protagonists. The Vault dweller has his hardened powered armor and turbo plasma rifle. The Chosen one, his car, Gauss Rifle, and Advanced power armor MKII. Yep. I though South California while desolate was a bit more interesting to explore than NorCal. For Some reason I don't know why. I guess cause I like Los Angeles better than San Fran. But what do you think was better?
 
The majority of the threads made on this topic were around the early NMA era, when NMA was at its height. Basically what happened though is that, you can only talk about two games for so many years before you run out of things to say. Its like when two people have been married and doing the same damn thing for ten years eventually they run out of things to talk about. Most of the members that were around back then you will find either in the Order, or have departed from this website a long time ago. I was a drifter around the 03-06 period (NMA's height/former glory) but I never really signed up partly probably because back then I was a teenager who didn't know half of what these guys knew, and Roshambo scared off any newbies ((a man who I wouldn't mind coming back to NMA today)).

If you ever want to see what I'm talking about when I say the "height of NMA's existence", just go back as far as the threads will let you (usually around 03 before the forum's switched and Miroslav left) and just read on from there. There were a lot of great conversations, arguments, and generally good times (that, back then happened on a daily basis. Now if you post something you usually have to wait 6-12 hours to get a reply, and most NMA members don't have that charismatic personality that many of the OG's had. Yet I stick around... anyways... probably hoping Fallout 1/2 will gain popularity, get some OG Fallout players in here (that have half a brain, or at least half a personality... I'll take either one) and we can return NMA to its "former glory".
 
Last edited:
Seems that brain & personality are over-rated these days.

Anyway, i may look for one of those thread, as i never actually looked for Fo1 & Fo2 opposition. I am aware that there are some quite important differences, but as the games are both great, i never minded.

Here some options i found :
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?200992-What-in-your-opinion-is-the-biggest-difference
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?199464-Why-do-people-prefer-Fallout-2-over-Fallout-1
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?200096-what-was-your-first-and-favorite-fallout
www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?195854-So-are-the-first-two-games-worth-playing
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?189468-Should-I-Buy-Fallout-2
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?165527-Fallout-1-or-Fallout-2
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?175477-Best-part-of-fallout-1-amp-2
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?160162-Difficulty-levels-in-FO-vs-FO2
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?164551-Why-is-Frank-Horrigan-so-cool/


I didn't have time to read them yet, so i don't know which one is the most interesting.
 
Last edited:
Fallout 1 might had a better atmosphere, plot, and final boss character, but Fallout 2 was better in every single way.
 
Last edited:
Fallout 2 felt more epic and grand, has better companion system and companions with better personalities, useful features like the take all option, and its longer. Even if it has too much pop culture references, everything else beats Fallout 1.
 
helios1 said:
Fallout 2 felt more epic and grand, has better companion system and companions with better personalities, useful features like the take all option, and its longer. Even if it has too much pop culture references, everything else beats Fallout 1.
Click to expand...
Yes, FO2 is just largely overlooked as a source of more depths because of all the pop-culture references, and all of that spite just seems to bleed into everything else, whether it makes any sense or not. I've seen people say that New Reno is one of the "worst offenders" in their eyes, with silly mobster families that "didn't belong" in the Fallout universe, according to them, but they felt perfectly at home, to me. What, Gizmo's fine as a seedy underworld "businessman" who's really a terrible and ruthless crime lord, but crime FAMILIES are a no go? It's not even like they were all stereotypical Italian mafiosos, either, the only Italian one was the Salvatores (Mordinos were Mexican, Bishops and Wrights were... something else) and even then they were as authentically Fallout as it comes. The model for the bouncers being just ridiculous and out of place I'll agree with were a stroke too far. But the complaint that intact buildings didn't fit with the aesthetic of a destroyed world? New Vegas... it happens. They made a pop culture reference that broke the fourth wall? "You see Ed. Ed's dead." at the beginning of FO1, a Pulp Fiction reference. Everything FO2 gets criticized for, FO1 had too, just more of it, and in many parts, better versions of.

I will agree that the overall aesthetic of FO2 just didn't feel the same as FO1, but how else could it? The further you move away from the apocalyptic Great War, the less of its looming shadow there is in which to stand. FO2 offered some really great material, and in many ways I felt like FO1 served as a prototype for what was to come in FO2. FO1 had a more consistent tone, atmosphere, and setting, and its story was more concise so of course the narrative was more consistent, but it's not like this served as a damning indictment for FO2. FO2 made mistakes, but it's not like they made the game a total loss. FO2 offered far more complexity to its choices (I still can't get over how cartoonishly black and white Junktown was. When I was 16 playing this game, it was cool, but looking back I really wish it was more complex and thought-provoking) and much deeper dimensions to its characters, like the companions as helios1 mentioned. It just did so much so well, but it gets crucified for not being exactly like FO1, which I think is just plain silly.
 
Glad that I am not the only one on this website who realizes that Fallout 1 had ridiculous and pointless pop culture references as well. The Doctor Who references always come to mind when someone mentions pop culture references in Fallout 1.
 
I kinda always thought the whole mobster thing was due to finding the clothes via scavenging or something like that. Plus I can kinda see the crime families being decedents of ones from the pre war era that happened to be able to get into the vaults.

But yeah, I do agree that Fallout 1 had it's fair share of pop culture references. Not as many as 2 mind you, but the latter's didn't really bother me that much.

Anyway, between Fallout 1 and 2, I feel the former had a tighter narrative and more of a post apocolyptic atmosphere to it like most people have said. However, I do like the feel of civilization beginning to get back on it's feet in 2. I just feel it's a natural evolution from the first game. Not to mention I really like a lot of the overall improvements to the gameplay, like having better control over your companions. Not to mention there's a lot more to do.

Overall, I think they're both equal in terms of quality.
 
5545Trey said:
Glad that I am not the only one on this website who realizes that Fallout 1 had ridiculous and pointless pop culture references as well. The Doctor Who references always come to mind when someone mentions pop culture references in Fallout 1.
Click to expand...

Also, the Tardis one wasn't in line with the ethos of still being fun if you didn't get the reference. Not knowing doctor who at the time, and still not interested today, that Tardis cameo felt meh.

IMO, the writting of Fallout 2 is great overall, and has nothing to be ashamed compared to Fallout 1. The locations are excellent too.
I cannot imagine Fallout without New Reno, Vault City, Broken Hills, the NCR & the hubologists.

On the other hand, the plot, the main story, can't compete with Fallout 1.
The Master/Lieutenant & the Unity is better than Horrigan/Richardson & the Enclave, the vault 13 overseer is better than the Elder/Hakunin, the Fo1 downer ending left a stronger impression than the oil rig blowing up, there are more choices in the antagonists HQ, and there is a better focus.

But the world of Fallout 2, its cities, some of its characters, are just awesome.
The thing is, that in Fallout 2, the gameworld, the satire, the characters, the life in the wasteland, are more important than the plot, which is one of the weak points, sometimes even purposly (the Geck being some kind of lampshaded macguffin)

On the other hand, most of the Fallout 1 enjoyement come from the main plots, (water/necropolis/unity/Children of the Cathedral/Followers of The Apocalypse/BOS/The Vault overseer's fears) or from secondary plots that are still important in the overall adventure.
(the deathclaws threat, the rise of new civilizations, ghoul's humanity, discover of the backstory before you left the vault)
 
Fallout is hands down my favorite across the whole series; but it's not perfect. If I had to choose only one Fallout game ~and never install any others... I'd probably choose Fallout 2 because it's larger, has the fixes that Fallout needed, and in most ways is essentially Fallout's gameplay.

Fallout 2 ~gameplay-wise is a bigger and better Fallout. I don't like the story as much, but in every other respect it's superior.... with the exception of a couple of the talking heads, and that the additional (new) combat sprites looked plastic, and were not a good match for the original artwork. They looked out of place.
 
5545Trey said:
Glad that I am not the only one on this website who realizes that Fallout 1 had ridiculous and pointless pop culture references as well. The Doctor Who references always come to mind when someone mentions pop culture references in Fallout 1.
Click to expand...
I wasn't saying the pop culture references were ever bad in FO1. Most of the time I didn't realize ANY of the pop culture references were pop culture references in EITHER game, unless I was aware of the material being referenced. Getting T Ray to explode by sleeping with him multiple times as a female Chosen One, specifically as a joke of his line "Damn woman, I just gave you sweet loving five minutes ago. You trying to kill me?" which was a reference to South Park, a show I was an ardent fan of at the time (and still am). The only reference that stood out was the man you found in the mine in Broken Hills, because unlike the Special Encounters, he was always there in 100% of all FO2 games, you didn't need a high Luck score to get him to spawn, he was always there, but clearly he was out-of-place in the world around him, and clearly his background as he described it was an inside joke. I didn't realize that the Slayer perk was a reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I thought it was an homage to movies and shows like Conan and Hercules based on the Vault Boy image. I didn't realize that the bones outside Vault 13 were a reference to Pulp Fiction at the time I played the game, I just thought they were an apt showcase of the danger of the outside world (and it doubled as both). Pop culture references were never a bad thing, some people just couldn't stand them. Some of them were over-the-top, but that was just those particular ones. I for one loved them, overall, even if I could tell that they were referencing something in particular. I loved the rabbit that could instantly slaughter you in Shadow Warrior and I loved the similar references to Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail in FO2 equally as much.
 
Tim Cain had a rule in place... it said that if the player doesn't "Get" the joke/reference... then they should not notice that it IS one.

He was worried that too many of those (or careless ones ~ I suppose) could make the game dated.

Another reference: Gizmo ~~ Tim says that he had a pet skunk named Gizmo.

** IMO the special encounters ~specifically, may or may not be hallucination. They all take place out in the middle of nowhere, and the PC has been traveling across the desert. ~~Or the wasteland is just weird as hell in some places. :grin:
 
Last edited:
Hmmm, I always assumed that the "visions" of Hakukin in FO2 were hallucinations brought on by whatever warped things he traumatized the Chosen One with during their upbringing, combined with their heat-stroke-induced delirium while traveling the wastes. Never thought to extend that logic to the Special Encounters, though. But the elephant in the room of assuming that they're hallucinations is that SOMEHOW the protagonist has not only had an episode, but they came out of it with this nifty new solar-powered lazer pistol- where the hell did that thing come from? XD
 
Fallout one is my favorite. I mean the whole interesting thing about post apocalyptic fiction, is the apocalypse and the somewhat immediate aftermath. A lot of UI improvements could have been in the original as well, meh maybe they just didnt realise it until too late. The scope as well could have been bigger as well. Modoc could have just as easily been a town in 1 along with Redding and the vault squatters among others.
 
SnapSlav said:
Hmmm, I always assumed that the "visions" of Hakukin in FO2 were hallucinations brought on by whatever warped things he traumatized the Chosen One with during their upbringing, combined with their heat-stroke-induced delirium while traveling the wastes. Never thought to extend that logic to the Special Encounters, though. But the elephant in the room of assuming that they're hallucinations is that SOMEHOW the protagonist has not only had an episode, but they came out of it with this nifty new solar-powered lazer pistol- where the hell did that thing come from? XD
Click to expand...

It fits the setting that there can really be some 'Twilight Zone' events in the post Apoc. wasteland, but it also fits the setting that the PC may have found something and hallucinated how, or doesn't know the truth of it.

The alien ship says "property of area 51", it could be delirium, it has a velvet Elvis painting; it could really BE a military prop, or even a staged encounter for the Press ~forgotten once the war broke out... They did have ray guns [made by the BOS] in Fallout 2... who knows really. The most obvious 4th-wall breakers are the Bridge of Death and the British Brahmin... but both of those ~and the whale could all be hallucination or not, or the bridge-keeper could be a complete nut ~like the car-salesman... or the salesman might not exist, and the PC found the bb gun in the shack anyway... Remember all those encounters in the Shining? Might not be too different after two weeks in the desert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60WR8dB0H-s
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top