Should I play the original Fallout games

[The Madman]

Sure, they're cheap and easy to find these days and the worst case scenario is you're down a few bucks and have to hold off on buying that fancy snack next time you're out for lunch. Best case scenario you find something you love and are able to enjoy the hundreds of hours worth of gameplay and adventuring the original two Fallouts make available to you.

Pretty good odds I'd say.

That said my number one comment for anyone wanting to try out the old Fallout games is to stick with it. So very many people myself included at one point tend to just get frustrated around the beginning of the game and never really give it a chance to grow on them, which is a terrible pity because speaking for myself at least once I finally pushed past that initial wall of frustration I discovered two of my favourite rpg to date. Fallout 2 especially just blows me away in some ways and I'm happy to recommend it to any relatively 'hardcore' so to speak fans of the rpg genre.

 

[dangoball]

Damn... People like you are making me feel old and I'm only 20

Anyway I recommend 1 and 2, best post-apocalyptic RPGs I've ever played, about on par with Baldur's Gate series (that being best fantasy).

HOWEVER! As it has been said many times before, it's old. I don't mind cause I grew up playing those games, but it shows on graphics and rules are way more complex than in Fallout 3 (NV did a better job adapting original rules but it's still very simplified). And the start is slow. You probably won't hit anything with a gun for quite some time and even when you do a band of bandits is gonna kick your ass at first.

So give it a go, be patient and don't be ashamed to ask fallout.wikia how stuff works in those two games

 

[AD-Stu]

They're very different to the new games - there's no hand-holding and you have to have patience because starting out you'll be losing fistfights with rats. If you can get past that, and the graphics, and all the reading though, there's some fun to be had.

 

[felbot]

i would definitely recommend them, i can even give you a link.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/fallout
go buy it immediately, and if you fail, know that there is a teenager laughing at you.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well do you like isometric turn based RPGs? Because that what those are, none of that CoD malarkey going on.
Sure the setting is the same but the new games feel miles away from the originals.

 

[Easton Dark]

1's all right, if a little slow-paced. Give 'em a whirl, they're not critically acclaimed for nothing.

 

[katsumoto03]

They're very different from Fallout 3, but they are a load of fun.

 

[wolf thing]

there really date and i could not be arsed finishing it. if you a fan it might be worth picking it up if you can get it cheap like of good old games.

 

[raankh]

Compared to modern games, Fallout 1 & 2 are difficult, demanding and more like board games. First and foremost, in my opinion, they're games about building a character in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system (which, btw, can also be directly used as a pen-and-paper system).

Coupled with that is excellent story-telling and humour. If you do get into it, you just _have_ to try playing with intelligence 1 and/or one of the two extremes luck 1 / luck 10.

That alien blaster on the Elvis space ship is pretty neat. Also, exploding two-headed cows.

EDIT: SAVE OFTEN!

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

As long as there isn't a new Fallout game on the horizon, I do suggest you check out / play through the first Fallout. As it can still be installed from the CD, even on Windows 7, I have no experience with the Steam install.

What I do know is this, though: These days, a screen resolution of 640x480 can cause brain farts and feelings of claustrophobia.

As there are Steam forum threads about it, I would believe that the Fallout1 resolution patch and - if needed - Windows 7 color fix would work with those installs, too. Besides, it feels and plays pretty epic to have the game running on FullHD on a big screen.

Just don't freak out when Mr. Monk says hello early in the game or when some other character sounds like MacGyver. I think that the game really feels even more fun nowadays.

Just be warned that it can be Demons Souls / Dark Souls level of deadly and frustrating at times, and you'll be reading the equivalent of a novel in the process from start to finish. Also, AI is pretty pocket calculator stuff at times, with your allies more often than not putting themselves in all available lines of fire. With that in mind, and still not feeling major doubts, do obtain, play and (hopefully) enjoy it. If you like it, there's Fallout 2... and if you're feeling daring, do hunt down Planescape Torment. Different universe, same level of awesome.

 

[Zhukov]

Yeah, they're pretty good and they haven't aged too badly.

I played the first one in 2009 and still enjoyed it a lot. I never got far into the second one since it felt like just more of the same and it was a buggy as hell.

 

[teebeeohh]

they are really good.
however you should probably play NV first and if you like what made it different from F3 you should like 1 and 2 if you get around the dated graphics and mechanics. and NV also didn't rape the lore with a rusty crowbar

 

[Klaflefalumpf]

Well I still maintain that Fallout 3 was awful (I gave it a fair chance, between the writing and that engine though *shudder*).

Fallout 2 still stands as one of my favorite games of all time, it's utterly magnificent... although there's a lack of any real tutorial so you may want to find a guide first.

EDIT: Won't have to play Fallout 1 and 2 (I preferred 2) long before you realise the Fallout 3 writers never actually played them, just read about it on Wikipedia.

 

[LookingGlass]

I absolutely love Fallout 1 and 2. Hell, I just finished Fallout Tactics (as in, about 30 mins ago) for the first time and I really liked it too, despite it being a very different game (squad-based tactical game as opposed to an RPG).

You may love them, you may hate them, or you might alternate between the two (they can be brutally difficult at times). Considering how cheap they are these days, you might as well try one out and find out.

 

[kabooz18]

I've been a huge fan of the fallout series since F3. I haven't put as much time into FNV because I've been letting a friend borrow it, but I'm hoping summer will give me enough to fix that.

Now, I've been curious and I've been reading things about the games. Should I play the preceding games? Which ones should I play? Or should I just read the wikia pages. I hear that the intro to the first one is really good.

short answer:
yes you should play Fallout 1 and Fallout 2


long answer:
Fallout 3 and New Vegas have a vastly different purpose
for example, fallout is designed as a mainly character driven, open world RPG (open world in a relatively loose sense), the combat is round based so it's tactical

Fallout 3 however focuses on exploring and is an open world RPG with story and characters (however neither are really fleshed out, with a few obvious exceptions), further the combat is that of a shooter + vats which makes not much of a difference since you can't walk when in it

so if you like the lore of FNV (since it's way closer than Fallout 3) or the characters and stuff like that you should play Fallout 1 and 2 even more
if you like the exploring and combat you should still play it since the exploring in Fallout 1&2
is still very cool

 

[Smeatza]

I'm always wary about buying old games.
I loved Dragon Age: Origins, and a friend reccommended I play the Baldur's Gate games. But they were just so outdated I just couldn't get into them without the nostalgia value.
It's the only reason I haven't tried the original fallouts myself.

 

[jklinders]

Fallout 1 and 2 are excellent games.

But they are completely different from Fallout 3 or really any other game you will see now. They are turn based and stat based. There are consequences for doing shit wrong that can end the game if you screw up badly enough. There is a pretty steep character learning curve as well. But once you are well enough armed and leveled you can positively start curve stomping virtually everything.

I recommend it if you can get past the very old graphics and turn based style gameplay to see what a great game it was and remains.

 

[Sunrider]

I've been a huge fan of the fallout series since F3. I haven't put as much time into FNV becuase I've been letting a friend borrow it, but I'm hoping summer will give me enough to fix that.

Now, I've been curious and I've been reading things about the games. Should I play the predecing games? Which ones should I play? Or should I just read the wikia pages. I hear that the intro to the first one is really good.

A thousand times YES! I love the third game, but it doesn't hold a candle to the originals in terms of writing and how open they are.
If you don't like the gameplay mechanics, I guess there's not much to do. I played through FO1 and 2 pretty recently, and it's hard getting back into even for me. That said though, the writing is absolutely glorious, and I could not recommend them more.