Geographic changes after the Great War

[NFSreloaded]

Ron Perlman said in the Fallout 2 intro: ''As spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies, whole continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans...''. Somewhere else I heard that whole fault lines shifted under the pressure of the nuclear storm, causing huge mountain ranges to rise and valleys to drop.
I don't know a lot of the real-world georgraphy in the United States, but were these changes acually noticable in the games? If so, what are the geographical differences between the US in the Fallout universe and the real-life version?

 

[lasix9]

In Fallout 2, when it comes to geography, they're pretty accurate (not 100%, but who is). The towns of course are all pretty much fictional (though Redding could be considered in the right place (or at least close)).

As a resident of upper northern California, they're pretty accurate. Again, not perfect, but the best I've seen in a game.

As for the first game, I'm not sure. My friend who's orginally from the Los Angeles area says it was pretty good too.

Overall, I think the got the majority of the geography right.

Though personally, I'd like to know which "whole continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans."

 

[Ausir]

The FO1 devs actually originally intended for California to be separated by sea from the mainland because of these geographical changes (as written in the original FO1 timeline), but the devs of later Fallout games, starting with FO2, ignored it.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_13:_A_GURPS_Post-Nuclear_Adventure_timeline

The effects are far worse than most imagined. The earth's faults shift violently. California is ripped from the mainland. Mountain ranges thrust themselves through the soil. Whole lands are submerged under floods of water.

 

[Lexx]

The south west part of the Fallout 1 map is different than the original coast line. I saw this while working on my combined Fo1 and 2 worldmap. There is a big part of the coast missing- in Fallout 2 not, that's why it doesn't fit 100%.

 

[NFSreloaded]

Thanks for the info, guys.

The effects are far worse than most imagined. The earth's faults shift violently. California is ripped from the mainland. Mountain ranges thrust themselves through the soil. Whole lands are submerged under floods of water.

Now I remember where I heard that part. It's good they didn't do that in the game, because that would've been too unrealistic (in my opinion) and had given Interplay too much creative freedom. A seperation of Florida, however...
That would've made a nice fungi-infested island.

 

[Kanhef]

The maps are fairly accurate, but a bit off. They put Redding a bit southeast of where it should be, The real Klamath is right on the coast, due west of where they have it, which is in the middle of nowhere. There's also a Klamath Falls in Oregon, but that's well to the northeast and off the F2 worldmap. The bay near Arroyo is new. Terrain is mostly right; there are some squares of city-type terrain near where Sacramento is.

In F1, Necropolis is supposed to be the remains of Bakersfield, but that's actually to the northwest of LA, a bit south of the BoS bunker. The west/southwest coast is somewhat different from reality, maybe caused by erosion/earthquakes/sea level rise, as there's a lot of sediment or something discoloring the water offshore. Those two new bays near LA were likely created by the bombs - you can see debris radiating from the eastern one.

"Whole continents" is probably an exaggeration, but island nations could have been destroyed - the UK, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan.

 

[Lexx]

That the locations are on different places is true but not that important for geographical changes, imo.

To the Fallout 1 map: The small islands south of LA are gone too.