For this past week, IGN has been counting down a number of "Top 25 Games of All Time" lists, for various consoles and the PC. Based on criteria such as the overall quality of the game, the impact on the industry, and how enjoyable it is today, Fallout was ranked the fifth best PC game of all time. It is the highest RPG on the list, ahead of Oblivion (#16) and Baldur's Gate II (#7).<blockquote>Fallout really had it all: dynamic, believable characters; a quality of narrative and storytelling too rarely seen in games; and the opportunity for players to drastically affect how events proceeded. It was a game that above all else recognized and rewarded the player's free will. Fallout's fiction and game world were vivid, it's character development system deep, and it possessed an often hilarious tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. Peering past the post-apocalyptic science fiction surface, deeper cultural themes become apparent, echoing notions of humanity's absurd fallacies hit on in novels like Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. Though games like Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Planescape: Torment and plenty of others are all worthy of the PC RPG crown, this 1997 release from Interplay is our choice for the top of the heap.</blockquote>I would describe Fallout's humor as 'often subtle dark comedy,' perhaps they are thinking of Fallout 2.
Link: Top 25 PC Games of All Time at IGN (Fallout's listing is on page 3).
Link: Top 25 PC Games of All Time at IGN (Fallout's listing is on page 3).