However, I believe that no one claimed that Fallout 2 is the apex of interconnection and intricate networking. The most common claim, one that I also make, is that Fallout 2 has superior world and story design that result in the game feeling more connected.
Well, I'd disagree with that quite a bit. That is, I'm not saying Fallout 2 has a
terrible disconnected world, but the superirority of that particular world and especially the design aspect of the story are highly suspect. What Fallout 2 does have is a story with a lot more moral ambiguity, and a lot less emotional incentive to partake into any modules of the story - leaving you to find motivation for whatever you do in curiosity, self interest, altruism or common sense without forcing you into white knighting. Most people still do it, I suppose, I do, but you really are doing it for yourself and not because destiny said so. It also has a visual style which lets lesser nonsensical moments slip by the player, allows for much greater suspension of disbelief so to speak - the ammount of hilarious nonsense that goes on in that game makes FO3 look like an award winning SF* (*this isn't praising FO3, it just has less outright intentional 4th wall breaking nonsense). That nonsense is generally better written, but if you could immagine most of Fallout 2 played out in full 3d with voicework it'd be more like south park than mad max.
However, I think that artificially separating gameplay from the story is disingenous, as the two are very much intertwined. For example, the struggle for control over NorCal between New Reno, NCR, and Vault City pretty much defines the game and is thoroughly explored throughout dialogue and several quests. However, if you only look at quests you are right, it feels disjointed. But that's not really how the game plays.
Ah, but I'm not separating them for any disingeniuos purposes - in fact, I'm complaining about it for my own sake, to get it off my chest. The ammount of separation annyod me every time I played it (not enough to not complete a big bunch of rather thorough playthroughs over the years XD) The struggle between New Reno, NCR and VC does nominally define a big part of the game, but the way this plays out in terms of stuff you do IS a huge instance of story and gameplay separation. In fact, short of games who's plots are mainly an excuse, Fallout 2 is one of the games which I'd personaly use as a texbook example of unsatisfying story and gameplay separation, with the famous end game slides sort of an afterthought and consolation prize for not actually developing this aspect of the game and letting the player have at least SOME kinda tangible closure on much of his actions (apart from some of the confilicts that are resoved by shooting up a place, where the conclusion is kinda obvious).
If the conflict was actually done fairly and adequately, New Reno and NCR would have been made rather different than they are. Bishop is connected to the rest of the world, the rest of New Reno isn't. Yes as far as some dialogues are concerned, but not in any other meaningful way. There could've, and probably should've, been alcohol related Wright quests in many different places, with Wright children you could meet to build the family up before you find them. All the drug bussiness everywhere could've included Mordino's which would be impossible to fight on the first arrival, but you could backtrack and mess with them later. Salvatore's could've been a strictly New Reno gang. The Slavers vs. NCR rangers could've been introduced much earlier and played itself out throughout the game, with the possiblity of cloak and dagger stuff as early as the Den. Redding could've been so much more than it was (it's just 2-3 easy quests and a dungeon).
The "factions" of Fallout 2 are many and varied, which does open up tons of space for much more than BoS vs. Enclave high fantasy nonsense, but the player interaction with them is really, really lacking.
Also, non-linearity is a gameplay quality. You can complete Fallout 2 in less than thirty minutes and you can easily play it out of order. That's the point. Non-linearaviity is a trait that only requires the game to allow you to tackle things in a non-linear fashion, without being forced to follow a specific order. That's why Fallout 2 is non-linear whereas Fallout 3 is linear.
Eh, but IS Fallout 2 truly non-linear as much as most of the stuff in it being a red herring / wild goose chase / shaggy dog story in terms of actually completing the game? Does it really "work" as a game if you in fact play it in a non-linear fashion? It does allow for non-linear gameplay, and it steers rather than forces you, and that's all fine and dandy, but the challenge level, the money, power, chem, whatever levels, balance so to speak, falls apart horribly if you play it that way. The crowning moment of this is getting a suit of high DR armor "out of sequence", but it's also very possible to get a low AP weapon "out of sequence" without even trying to "sequence break". You can't really visit cities except in a rather linear sequence if you don't want the mounting XP rewards for mundane activities to completely break the game for you (by getting you level, perks and HP) - which is why, after years of playing it, I found that the biggest challenge for me is trying to make non-linearity not screw with challenge progression, which is to say, making it more linear through self imposed challenge. Because it, in fact, plays better that way. It doesn't really seem like it was designed with non-linearity in mind, it just allows for it.
I'm not sure why you mention difficulty varying between locations. Every game is (or should be) designed with variable, staggered difficulty. Otherwise you get crap like Oblivion's level scaling. It's boring and defeats the purpose of exploring.
Ah, but oblivion level scaling wasn't what I had in mind. That's scaling the challenge to player level*. The problem Fallout 2 has in this regard is not scalling the rewards to player level. You can't really visit NCR, for example, whenever you want, not because the random mobs around it will blow your head off (which they will, but w/e), but because interacting with folks in it will get you as much XP as solving the whole VC - Gecko questline for a random "barely a quest" self-contained dialogue. You can't visit San Fran even if you get your Outdoorsman high enough to sneak past the beef wall, because if you just do any quest at all you'll get an assload of XP. Also, just looting random containers in different towns can tell you if you've "missed this place when you were ment to do it" or if "whoah, I think I wasn't supposed to be here yet". The concequences of this defeats part of the purpose of questing, or at least the material/XP rewards and/or challenge assessments.
It can be something as innocent as just walking into Redding after the Den, looking around for things to do and managing to figure out how to rob the casino vault. It's interesting, intrigueing and not rocket science. BAM! Money coming out of your ears for the rest of the game. You won't even be able to tell you "broke sequence" while doing it, it doesn't look suspicious, except that you might've as well typed in a money cheat. Goint to New Reno "out of turn" is even sillier. If you set about doing quests for the Wrights, and why not exactly?, you solve one quest by talking to a bunch of people around town, which you do in towns anyway, and then you get sent to the SAD. Entering it is easy enough, so you enter it, and walk out with so much firepower that... well, you get the picture.
So Fallout 2 doesn't do much to prevent you from visiting stuff and interacting with people in any order you want, but actually doing so messess everything up, horribly horribly. Not to mention that you can shoot people without any indicator that they are somehow important, so you can screw yourself out of content without even knowing. Visiting New Reno and bumping Bishop can in fact lock you out of a big part of the whole "NR VC NCR" love triangle before you even get a clue there IS a "NR VC NCR" politics struggle at all. All you need to do is walk into New Reno and start talking with people and taking quests, you'll get the very self-contained and easy to do Mordino quests, you'll end up locking yourself out of everything before you can blink.
So, while the world had much more potential for quality stories and quests the execution is not so praiseworthy. Also the non-linearity of Fallout 2 is rather overrated, and the game might've actually been terribly built and concieved for it. FO3 fails for it's writing, the other games have superior writing, but as far as making you a part of it's world, heck, a gimmick like 3 dog does a pretty commendable job all things considered. Too bad it's not a worthwhile world it's immersing you in. It's also a shame it's about combat so much, as it actually works better as a non-linear game if you don't count the main quest.
Errr, srry about possibly unrelated texteall - OT - how's NV in this regard? Does the quality depend on figuring out an unwritten "proper" sequence too much? Thoes this stand out so much to a Fallout 3 fan that you'd find it crippling?
