I remember when I was a kid playing FO2 and realized the door kids were stealing my stuff. I quickly realized they always stole the top item of your inventory and set a brick of C4 for a 2 minute timer and set it neatly on top of my inventory. One pickpocketing later and I was one brick of C4 lighter. Long story short the game knows you're up to some fuckery and will assign blame for the exploding children to you, awarding you the child killer reputation penalty. I still think the little bastards deserved it.
The worst part is when you're trying to pickpocket your stuff back from them and they catch you and initiate combat. Like, bro. 1: that's my shit, you stole it from me. 2: bring it you little twerp.
One of the benefits of having companions is that if they do the killing for you, you don't get the bad rep. But I think the explosives trick is too funny not to try (even if just to reload later).
Actually, if you hit them once with fist (just don't kill them) and end combat when they run they'll start running away next time they see you. Few slaps later and I could walk around Den without worrying about stealing little punks.
My personal favorite creative solution in F2 was the last Bishop mission to kill the NCR VP, What's-his-face. Had no special requirements for killing just had to do it. The area was deep inside NCR and with guard everywhere. Lacking both ammo and the skills to gun my way out of the NCR i had to get creative. Which involved using his grandkid. He would be running around the tree in the compound and you can ask him to go talk to his grandpa that a stranger wanted to talk to him or whatever it was. So I figured you can reverse pickpocket C4, so I turned the kid into an IED (after getting him drunk cause less perception means higher pickpockets chance) and had him go talk to his grandpa, only to explode and kill them both on the second try. First try I had multiple blocks of C4 and I accidentally put the inert block on the kid and kept the active C4 on myself cause I had trouble differentiating between the two sprites. Imagine my surprise when I was the one who blew up...
I've gotten so used to you doing total conversion mods for Fallout that I was really confused when it turned out you were actually talking about an official game 😂
Speaking of the power of Bozar: Back in 2003, after finishing the game for the first time, I was wandering the desert in post-game and randomly encountered a group of deathclaws. Thinking nothing of it, I pulled out a Bozar and burst-fired at a deathclaw the furthest away from me, at the very edge of the screen. The shot critted, and the deathclaw got obliterated with the sum damage of 1101 points. I still occasionally play Fallout to this day, but have never seen anything remotely close to this kind of damage. Ever since, I keep the screenshot of that encounter in a special folder on my hard drive.
@@sirosagaming8228 I tried to post the link multiple times, and YT just keeps deleting it. Is there any way to post an image link here in the comments?
@@libenhagos9335 I tried the imgur itself and a link shortener - the comment stays up for the entirety of 5 seconds and then gets blasted by an automod or something. Anyway, the screenshot is on imgur - just add a/8gkZZbi after the website address to see the image. I didn't speak English back then, so I played a Russian localization - sorry about that. You can still see the number 1101 in the combat log, and the deathclaw I shot is in the bottom right corner of the location.
I've got a dumb story about this game from way back in the day. A friend of mine was playing this game three years after it was released. He had just figured out the trick of abusing gambling by placing a heavy object resting on the 1 key, creating an infinite loop of "bet 5$, play again, bet 5$...". Suddenly his brother barged in the room "Hey bro, a plane just flew into the World Trade Center!" They spent the next couple of hours glued to the TV screen and when he got back to the computer he had something ridiculous like millions of dosh and the game's economy had kinda broken down.
Funny story, but the planes hit the towers at 8:46 AM & 9:03 AM EST on a Tuesday. Presumably, your friend and his brother would be sleeping, in school, or at work.
I remember taking the mutant 'cure' syringe all the way to Horrigan to see if it would one-shot him and all it did was crash my game. So much for creativity :)
you should have shown him the cats paw magazine. He starts talking about how he misses his Johnson and that he would use him jimmy every day with the local school girls back when he was a snot nose brat himself...he talks about how all he wanted was just his weiner, they could make everything else robotic, computerized but for the love of his country, leave his pecker! It is why he thinks he turned gay. ^_^ lol
I always found it interesting how the temple of trials is this elaborate stone structure, clearly taking the efforts of professional masons and artisans to construct... Yet the villagers of Arroyo, who supposedly built the thing live in tents outside of it. I guess they ran out of stone for their habitats? 🤔
I believe we don't have to think about it too much. It's just there because the developers liked the concept, even if it turns out completely ridiculous and out of place in the end.
It wasn't supposed to be there to begin with. I believe publishers demanded a "tutorial section" at very late development. Authors wanted it to be like in Fallout 1, dumped into the world, "off with you, motherfucker, don't come back without the GECK". Read the goddamn paper manual if you want to learn how the game's played, that's why it was added in the box. Blame corporate meddling.
15:44 The best example is actually 'Ghost Town Gunfight' in New Vegas, where you're given the option to either assist the small community of farmers and traders who dug you out of the ground, stitched your head up pro-bono, and taught you essential survival skills for your upcoming revenge quest, or the dynamite-happy raiders who only get two side quests afterwards and then disappear from the game.
And Goodsprings has 0 quests afterwards and 0 presence outside the starting town. Siding with Cobb also gives a discount with the store while siding with the town gives a discount with the bartender which is clearly inferior. There's nice loot in the town as well. Which you can steal anyway, but I always feel wierd playing a character who acts all paragon and then rob people of everything they own when they're not looking. I agree it's a morally obvious choice to help Goodsprings, but staying friends with the Powder gangers and then betraying them later down the line for the NCR is the power move in my opinion. One thing New Vegas did right is reward you appropriately for being an asshole.
@@Ibustanut710 Why are you here? You mock people for talking about their favorite games, in an hour long video talking about fallout 2, yet offer no viable critique or constructive criticism. Like bruh your comment is a waste of bytes
@@Odysseus_Dagoth your comment also posses no criticism or reason, also a waste of bites. Im not mocking anyone, if you consider that mocking, then you really got to grow up.
I think Fallout 2 is one of those things that really just set an example in a time when video games were still unpopular to most people. You really cant replicate what made it so fun because it came out in essentially a different era in technology, culture, and overall is just so significantly different from what most would even consider a videogame like a platformer or an FPS.
Its pretty amusing this playthrough was basically the same as I finished it for the first time, as an eastern european teen with very limited understanding of english
disco elysium did a pretty good job. definitely the closest modern game to og fallout. and the way they frame written/read text makes it look like you're reading text messages from a smartphone and makes the reading process a lot faster. that's something I thought was really cool. But now apparently they've added voice acting.
"A correct option, and a contrarian option" That is startlingly accurate. As much as I like (some of) the Fallout games, the ethical dilemmas presented in them usually just come down to that scorpion and the frog shitpost. There's no equally valid choices with moral implications other than "Do you want to do the quest or do you want to fuck everyone else and yourself over for laughs y/n"
Except his first example ends with gizmos making a wealthy thriving city over just staying a dusty shitty town. Most choices don't have true outcomes until the game is over.
@@Bourikii2992 I believe that was planned but changed before the game came out, because there was basically no hint Gizmo would make the town prosper. The sheriff guy has the good ending.
What I find most disappointing is there were originally a few options that were more than that but 90% of them got axed prior to release. Like Junktown in fallout 1 originally was to have 2 distinct results. Killians but then also Gizmo. Youd leave junktown after sliding with fat boi and when you come back its flourishing more having become a gambling and entertainment hub along with rewards but was cut. It makes me wonder how many other similar choices were cut?
7:09 Wasn't Todd. Avellone was the one last I heard. He never liked the idea of talking animals including the Intelligent Deathclaws and wanted a lot of stuff that was in both Fallout 1 and 2 not to carry over into future entries. Wanamingos and Floaters for example. Meanwhile, the devs wanted talking Mutant animals to be in Fallout - the S'lanter are a good example - but they could never get them to work with the game's atmosphere, so you can only find left over references to them in 1 and 2. Also funny story - Gizmo was originally going to be the correct choice long term (Killian would end up becoming a paranoid sociopathy after taking over) and have more content related to either choice - but studio meddling occurred when the higher ups thought, unironically, that gamers won't get such a morally grey scenario, and had the team make it more black and white situation instead; Kilian is the good choice, Gizmo is the bad choice.
It was a good choice on their part. Having this MoRaLlY GrEY ending where the characters themselves aren't fully fleshed out would have been stupid. There's nothing in game indicating that Killian would become a paranoid sociopath or Gizmo gives a shit about the community instead of lining his own pockets and would have run contrary to what was already established about them. A two dimensional outcome is still just that despite it being inverted or reversed.
@@BlackCrossCrusader no, they were fleshed out. The higher ups thought it was too complicated and had the team boil them down to Gizmo being corrupt and evil and Killian being a good guy. In the original draft, Killian was a good guy but after all the assassination attempts by Gizmo he became paranoid and after taking Gizmo's place he started doing some really bad things because he started seeing everyone around him as a potential threat. Meanwhile, Gizmo on the surface seemed like he was only looking out for himself and was a typical corrupt politician, but in reality the deals he was working on were for the community's benefit and if you sided with him you would have seen the community flourish economically over time.
Yeah the devs made the correct choice on Junktown because absolutely nothing else in the area could lead to the player to reasonably come to the conclusion that such an outcome would occur. If a lot of people in the area had dialogue barks saying they liked the business Gizmo's casino brought or worried about Killian's mental health, then that outcome would have made some sense and it would be on the player to observe the finer details, but from what's in the game it just ends up being a twist of the knife at the end of the game to "subvert expectations" needlessly like certain hack writers too in love with their own genius like to do from time to time. Also, seeing as Avellone is the God Writer of CRPGs, I'm inclined to agree with him on that point.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe The reason all of that is not in the game is because it was removed in development because the higher ups in charge looked at the quest and believed it was too deep and nuanced for the average video gamer. The same higher ups I presume that insisted that the tutorial dungeon be added to Fallout 2.
*manipulates town into massacaring innocent ghouls, blows a septic pit up and covers the town in shit, releases a demonic beast that slaughters the guilt-ridden survivors before pissing off* "I have nothing but fond memories of this place"
It's strange to me how little games have mechanics related to persuasion where they don't just have a convenient dialogue option labeled basically "the right answer." I'd like a game that organically tests your knowledge or silver tongue through having a myriad of options, and you have to just understand the characters and the situation to manipulate or persuade them naturally.
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Not a full game of that, but Planescape Torment has that at times
That requires good high effort writing and in large quantities to support a speech focused playstyle. Most game devs are nerds that can’t write and most writers in the industry are ones who couldn’t make it in other more prestigious ones.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution had an interesting persuasion minigame. If you get an upgrade to your character, you would actually see what kind of rock-paper-scissors game it actually is under the hood, but the actual dialogue choices and the interlocuter's responses did seem to be spot on. I'm recalling the very first such scene where you catch a guy holding a hostage at gunpoint, it's why I actually preferred to play without the persuasion upgrade, so you could go in "blind" and pick the lines that you think actually resonate with the other person and seeing their reaction, without checking a meter in the corner of the screen.
Just a couple funny gamey things I remember from my Fallout 2 playthrough. 1) you can pick pocket the key off the tribal in the tutorial to skip the fight. 2) you can avoid getting your stuff stolen by those kids by entering combat before you walk through the doorways, then ending combat.
@@shotgunner2039 there is an option where you ask the guy why exactly you have to fight and tell him that it's stupid because either of you could die and he lets you pass
2) sounds like the same gimmick you can use to get into vault 8 without citizenship. Much easier and less annoying than baiting the urchins into stealing armed explosives off you
Here's a not so funny thing about those kids: in some versions of Fallout 2, all the child characters were removed from the game for censorship reasons... But despite being removed from the game, the pickpocketing still occured in The Den. So you could basically get inventory items stolen without having any knowledge of why or how. Ain't censorship great? 😆
@@sevenproxies4255 they were just invisible, so you would get speech bubbles showing up over nothing. I know this because I had the australian version, I made super-nerdy jokes about it when the Invisible Children activist group showed up years later. we later got an uncensored version off gog, at least the version I grabbed before it was off the store for a while, dunno if the new version has that too
I don't think that should be all that controversial. It kickstarted the late 90's boom in CRPGs but that genre largely died out, and today is mostly limited to indie titles or games made by the same people that worked on Fallout 1+2. Bioware went away from the formula and Bethesda never made games like it to begin with.
@@davidbaguetta127 baldur's gate 3 has nothing to do with fallout lmao, the game pushes you towards the "biowaren" way of doing things, with equally weighted moral options for you to chose and the different ways of solving quests being determined almost always by stat checks in dialogue boxes. For an example even if you manage to do enough fuckery to reach the dark elf trapped in the poison chamber in the underdark before choosing one of the ways of freeing him the game will not acknowledge your actions at all, and almost every non-combat challenge is like that, you have pre-determined narrative ways of dealing with the problem that are centered around stat checks
15:38 I am very happy that somebody so steeped in the 'boomer RPG' community is actually calling this out. So many people put forward these older games as being pinnacles of writing and quest design, while I've always found that there is pretty clearly a 'right' way to play, most of the time. You'll know you chose the wrong path when things feel like they're unfinished, and the content is of notably lower quality.
I'm not old enough to be a legit part of the Boomer RPG community, but my deep dives by Warlockracy and talking to others, and me being interested in RPG design myself, I think the 'Correct/Contarian' split is...kinda good? I think the latter option really is only there for the people who like being miserable (if that makes sense). If the creative team is like a Dungeon Master, they still allow for 'fun dumbass antics' but also factor in 'unfun dumbass antics for that one/two weirdoes'. It is like a surreal respect for free will, including respecting counterproductive choices/deliberately choosing the pointless option. It's fascinating!
Baldur's Gate 3 is a new example of this, so I guess the old ways are coming back. The contrarian option of helping the goblins instead of the refugees leads to significantly fewer quest opportunities and content. That could be another interpretation of the phrase, "the banality of evil."
“You'll know you chose the wrong path when things feel like they're unfinished, and the content is of notably lower quality.” You know, despite what the media tells you, gamers are actually good people working daily jobs to feed their families. One writer (can’t remember) highlighted this, writing a very detailed quest line where you could be the biggest piece of shit and get away with it, yet most gamers chose to be good guys, making the writer feel like he wasted his time. What does that tell you?
"I can honestly say, I never missed the primitive charm of Arroyo more, until this very moment." Yeah because he is the REAL bad guy. When he is out ruining everyone's life, that includes his own too.
uh....yea? You made me realize that unless I comment the specific part, no one knows what I am talking about, specially with a video longer than 4 minutes. Because thats how I feel reading your comment...uh yea?
@@lorddervish212quinterosara6 While it might make sense that on the radio Lanius is described as a complete brute for propaganda reasons, Lanius is also depicted as a straightforward, bloodthirsty barbarian in Legion endings where Caesar is dead and Lanius is in charge.
@@Churono I honestly don't think we get enough of the man himself to describe any of his depictions as inconsistent. When convincing him to retreat, you have to do so in a way that nearly capitulates to his world view, or plays into more of his own base fears and instincts than any sense long-term strategy. It's not as if he comes to the conclusion to retreat on his own through reason. Great generals don't necessarily make great statesmen, and *most* autocrats aren't very bright, even if they're capable field commanders with some degree of operational awareness and tact. I guess he's polite, but sociopaths and murderers can be polite.
@@coolguyjki That's fair and looking at his dialogue he does hint at the sort of indoctrination and brutality that is suggested when he is talked about while offscreen. It does feel weird that it's something we're mainly just informed about, and my sense of how it doesn't fit is mostly that when you talk to him he becomes very verbose in a way that doesn't quite gel with it, and regardless of the presentation it's odd to think that he can be speech-checked at all.
Horrigan's chumminess with his lackies can probably be boiled down to fear, more than anything else. While initially intelligent, he lost it overtime as his mental instability and faculties got worse.
Good to know you are still alive and definitely are not a secret FSB agent pretending to be Warlockracy so that we don't become suspicious of your whereabouts.
This is going to sound goofy as hell, but you’ve helped me fix my life. I haven’t been sleeping well in the past 2 years due to a lot of factors, most of which are related to living a noisy environment. I tried putting on audiobooks, music, and ASMR videos made specifically to help people sleep, but the vast majority of them just doesn’t work for me. I found your channel about a year or so ago when you uploaded the Fallout New Mexico video, and discovered that your videos put me to sleep the best. I don’t mean that it’s boring (I fully watch your videos at daytime too), but the tone + cadence of your voiceover and the lack of audio jumpscares in your editing helps me drown out the bullshit around my house. It also helps that I’m actually interested in what your videos are about. Almost every night of the week I’ll put on one of your videos (mostly Deus Ex, Arcanum, and the Fallout mod videos) when I’m in bed. Seriously, thank you Warlockracy for doing what you do. This channel means a lot to me. When I find stable work I’ll sub to your patreon. ❤
Ditto. I'll listen/watch while doing mundane work around the house, then replay the episode when it's time to sleep so I can drown out the anxiety du jour.
I love the critical approach you made on Fallout. For a lot of nerds it’s a holy cow of vidyacons (as I like to call them), pointing out quest design having „normal” and „contrarian” paths is kinda eye opening, I always just fell into whatever developer intended me to do.
It’s funny how it’s Baldur’s Gate that has far better evil playtrough. Sure Bioware has tendency to do „you are either a decent person or Hitler” but at least they reward you with stuff (best characters are evil, you either get better rewards or get a shortcut in quest).
@@dawidgnika636 Its definitely at least consistent. I never saw the appeal of being an evil psychopath in Fallout because generally you get less stuff to do and worse outcomes.
@@kushanblackrazor6614 It appeals to me simply because I love good old fashioned chaos and destruction. Screw the rewards, there's something so thrilling about destroying the lives of video game characters.
@@fairlywren3664 I usually follow through quest lines. But one Mob boss in Reno was talking too much shit and I just opened fire. With three companions it took my many save scummings to make it without losing a companion. But this is the first example i was taught of what you said. Sometimes just not giving a shit and DOING YOU is better than the end of the quest or its people.
The observation here that Fallouts 1 and 2 are designed around a "Correct or Contrarian" quest design is extremely apt, to the point that I have a hard time believing I've never heard anyone describe it that way before, and yet I haven't. This description gets behind the actual moral/philosophical frame that the devs were going for, I feel. Because sometimes, the contrarian choice *is* the more moral choice, like screwing over Lynette in Vault City by negotiating with the ghouls of Gekko and working with a different VC councilor. So "contrarian" isn't necessarily an evil playthrough, but it absolutely describes the attitude one would usually have when picking some of these options. Also, the closest game you've covered here that I think gets to a True Fallout Game status might be Wasteland 3. The main reason it isn't would have to be that the Wasteland games are *way* more combat focused and there's no way to get through them without lots of combat encounters and I doubt anyone would consider a game a "True Fallout Game" without the option to do a no kill run, whether that's by stealth or diplomacy. And while *most* of the options to get around problems are fairly obvious in their design, quite often they've come up with some fun alternatives that only observant players can pick up on, like the bit in Aspen where you will find a guy who has swallowed a key to a vault you may want and it will let you obviously kill him to get the key or let him live and forgo the rewards in the vault, or you can just use max lockpicking on the vault door, *or* you can find a book elsewhere in the building that describes the chemical formula for laxatives (but only if you the player actually reads it), elsewhere find a chemistry set in the building, then use the formula to make a laxative in order for you to feed him the laxative get him to crap it (and a week's worth of food, apparently) out. Non-obvious, player directed but designer catered to solutions to problems are definitely the heart of a lot of the appeal of Fallouts 1 and 2 that I don't think a lot of devs like to put in their games. It's *much* simpler just to give the player some options, make the options clear from the get go, then make those options the *only* options since you don't want to put in the extra work to allow for other solutions. And really, it's sad to say the some of the only games that have done this in recent years, and only occasionally at that, are the Wasteland games by inXile.
Great analysis of how Fallout 2 is actually structured. Was hoping you'd take a look at Fallout 2's MIB88 Megamod, it's a massive expansion to the original story that seemingly nobody online speaks of. Looking forward to the Vegas videos.
The way you described the structure of Fallout 2's quests actually made me think quite a lot about immersive sims, but at a higher level of abstraction. In particular the way you described the Den, with a very restricted set of ways to meet the core goal, but a huge variety of ways you can gain the capabilities (combat power/cash) to meet your goal, most of which were at least partly the result of organic mechanical interactions rather than explicit quest design. So maybe part of the thing that gives classic fallout it's distinct feel is that it accidentally arrived at a CRPG-imsim hybrid without anyone noticing?
The point is that: wrpgs are supposed to be like that, the stats, abilities and items are supposed to open or close different posibilities and options to do something like it happens in a dungeons and dragons session, is supposed to allow the player to take things however he wants within the actions their character can do in the game and its own creativity. Sadly people and companies nowadays think rpgs in general are about just grinding stats and levels, when the whole point of the genre is being well... a ROLEPLAYING experience.
@@veto_5762 Yep. You can grind all day but that just means you'll be going through the story at level 20. You will one shot most things and that's okay. I keep having to tell DM's this because they think every encounter needs to be a long winded life or death battle when in reality most combat is short and hideously one sided.
Yeah I never realized you could get the slavers in the Den drunk to lower their perception and make the fight easier. It’s fun when a game lets you have that much freedom to approach problems but doesn’t outright tell you that you can do those things.
Fallout 1, Fallout 2, New Vegas. Bethesda at least had the courtesy to put their games on the other side of the continent, as to not break established lore (or rather to not be bound by it), and allowed Obsidian to put theirs in the west, continuing the NCR story. And New Vegas did take a lot of the Van Buren Fallout 3 story.
@@HappyBeezerStudiosBethesda still managed to break things by dragging fractions over continent despite them being local ones. But i guess its lesser evil, they cant just cut iconic people out of the series, like supermutants and power armored steel bitches
This game is such a work of art. I've completed this game probably 4 times and every time has been wildly different. For anyone playing make sure to get Killaps unofficial patch which restores a lot of cut and broken content.
I would say start playing the game as it is and only on a later playthrough add restored content. Just to see the difference. Similar to how a first (and possibly second and 3rd) playthrough of 3D Fallout should better be as vanilla as possible.
Im dealing with a lost love one in my life right now, I love watching your videos on repeat as I work from home. Thank you so much for your awesome content warlockracy.
I liked how they mocked "chosen one hero, who saves the world" trope in this game - most characters had some laugh when we mention our title... btw that trooper near crashed verbird in Klamath have Adv Power Armor MK2, I remember playing the game with a mod that let you strip armors from enemies with high skill. Had to grind a lot to take it before visiting Oil Rig...
Bro, I've spent a lot of time in the last month playing JA2(For the first time in my life) and coincidentally also discovered your channel at the same time, and it has been great putting your content on my second screen whilst playing, I've watched through your entire catalogue of Videos and it's all great ... Thanks for the quality content... Gonna continue tradition right now
@@raevenrises7595 Not gonna lie, It is very difficult catching up 24 years of backlog, rummaging through the forums, English and Russian(Thank you Google Translate), and Discord to figure out how this whole thing fits together, because this is one wild , wide beast for a first timer, not only the versions of the game, but also all the fun story mods, like Urban Chaos, Deidranna's side ect ect, I literally even learned how to read a bit off C++(I'm not a programmer) to figure out how some of the shit works... But funny story, I started with WF, then only realized I'm wasting my time, then as time went on, just got deeper and deeper into what there is to explore... So basically, started with WF, then played Stracciatella like just a 1/3d way of the game to get a better understanding of how the core mechanics work, and then jumped into 1.13... But my god what a nightmare to navigate as a first time player... But I have been having a ton of fun along the way... After this playthrough(1.13) I actually want to play Sevenfm's AI+ with Bigmaps, from everything I've explored that seems to tickle my fancy the most...
@@cynicusnihilisticusparadox2 cool 🙂 I find 1.13 to be too feature heavy and unbalanced for my taste. I stick with Stracciatella. Glad you're enjoying it!
@@cynicusnihilisticusparadox2 You should play Jagged Alliance 1 if you haven't already. There are some rough edges you need to savescum around (like how your squad has to enter an area all squished together, which can lead to the enemy getting an interrupt and throwing a grenade that hits everyone) but it's fun and has a ton of charm (Ivan ONLY speaks Russian but is better than mercs who cost three times as much).
I'm such a good two shoes when I play these games. Thank you for letting my childhood self live vicariously through your slaughtering of the wasteland.
Except that Underrail is more competent with its combat, and so is heavily focused around combat. Which rather misses the point of the classic Fallouts, which are more like adventure games that happen to have a combat system.
After playing resurrection I finally realize the classic fallout divide between 1 and 2. Tbh ur channel revealed alot of community complexity in the classics(thanks for that), I know I'll be one of the many people in the line for fallout 5 but imma play some isometric war philosophy while I wait.
I gotta tell you, your videos always come across as very intelligent but also heartfelt. You seem to connect with a game on a level that you enjoy the good and take the bad personally. Don't change.
Thanks, that was a great video! I guess people try to recapture the original Fallout 1-2 atmosphere way too hard instead of trying to create something new. Although, the memory of hearing distorted children voices in Industrial Junk track while exploring the dead reactor of ghoul town is still fresh in my mind. Damn, what a game
most of the tracks were fantastic, though vats of goo is always a constant member berry fest even when I first played this game and went "hey that track from the end-game!" also every part of reno will live in my head forever, from the autistic guy in renesco's basement to salvatore's line about insults
I kept Sulik, and he became the ultimate companion for me. He survived throughout the entire damn game and was useful in attracting aggro and dishing out damage. He was all I needed.
@@krystofcisar469 He's nearly a god. I had to reload a save once when he got surrounded by those stupidly powerful xenomorph knock-offs and actually died.
Man, I've probably played Fallout 2 and beaten since I was around 10 ish to 13 years later now, probably more than 10+ times. And always found it to be fun, dark and crude which is pretty much what Fallout now days goes after but there was always a tone to it that newer Fallout games could never replicate. However, after watching this amazing video. I realized what you mean bout it having weird and even silly story writing, some parts of it does sound very silly when you explain it. Or how rushed some of it is (definitely makes a lot of sense though for that) I always thought it was just being crude intentionally since it felt like it fit the atmosphere of most locations and vibes. It was like wandering the wasteland was a dangerous hell hole but when you went into a town it changed the town of what I expected and subconsciously even. But some of the serious parts of the game do seem a bit lacking in some areas or too crude even for it. Like Frank Horrigan is a good example, Menacing as shit but his dialogue and every time he appears it feels goofy. There could've been so much more of an actual menacing threat like The Master in Fallout 1 with him. Considering how often he appeared there was definitely some intent of him being a menacing powerhouse figure but his dialogue never properly portrayed it when he's with his Enclave buddies. Makes me think of Full Metal Jacket. And I think that's what they're going for with even the Drill Sergeant. Since when he's being a soldier on his own, its menacing but with his friends he sounds like a soldier in FMJ hanging out with the other squaddies fuckin' around crudely. Not saying people don't do that still they definitely do. But here it feels deliberate. Definitely felt more of a dark, immersive atmosphere in Fallout 1 than Fallout 2. Fallout 2 is one of my favorite games of all time mainly just from how much I enjoyed and able to try multiple builds over the years. Fallout 1 definitely has the empty, apocalypse atmosphere while Fallout 2 is like "if Society is trying to rebuild. How Crude would it be?" Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I'm glad to have played Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics before I even got the touch Fallout 3 and New Vegas as a kid. Made me appreciate it as a series so much more, especially in FNV whenever I heard about past references like the Remnants, NCR and all I nerded out over it first time playing lol.
I played it countless times and, now 11 minutes in, you already gave me like 10 different ideas how to approach problems and solve them. And you didn't even mention the obvious one, as a woman you can sleep with Metzger and he drops the price from 1000 to $500. This is ridiculous, 10 different ways to get Vic out and none of them feel like exploit. Now I know exactly what I miss playing more modern cRPGs.
Your insight at the end is pretty solid. I think I'd describe it as RPGs focusing on a different part of the acronym. For Bioware games its all about the "role," you need the light/dark, paragon/renegade splits because the game is about filling a role in the world and story. Under-developing one of these options inherently robs the game of its core design, making only one role really viable or fulfilling. Modern Bethesda games, Fromsoft, and every "open-world with RPG mechanics" modern AAA schlock is about the "playing." Do the dungeon delve, find that next collectible, master the next boss, get that piece of loot with bigger number, they are games about improving how you play it. And lastly we have these old RPGs, ultimately they're about the "game." They are a story told through the interactive medium of a video game. There are right answers because there's a story to be told and that story is supported by doing the "right" things. The contrarian answers exist as failsafes, backups for mistakes or moments of expression. The biggest mistake is that we've allowed the role aspect of RPGs and the concept of "choices and consequences" to rewrite the intent of the games that came before. Also, to give Todd some credit I'd personally give Morrowind props for being the best "game" RPG I've ever played and Oblivion the best "role" RPG I've ever played. Bethesda is still kicking when many other RPG studios have died for a reason. It's just a shame they're the only major player around.
I would love to see you do a video on Underrail, I'd even be down to buy it for you if you were interested. It describes itself as an old school turn-based isometric indie role playing game that focuses on exploration and combat. It's world and lore really pulled me in and I would love for it to be talked about some more.
For some reason I really really like how you described that the pop culture references don't exactly break immersion because their age makes them so far removed. Specifically the wording of "The past is another country."
I clicked on the video as it was suggested by YT, most likely due to recently watching some Fallout lore videos, but I have to say I'm so glad that I did. Your video was such a pleasant experience, possibly the first time ever that it felt good to me to watch other people playing, something I don't particularly appreciate as younger generations do (YT, Twitch etc.). What made the whole thing fun are your comments so I just want to say, just based on this one video, keep doing this. It's entertaining.
Thanks for making this. I played original fallout for the first time as a young 20’s man. Besides UI confusion since the game was made before I was born (I softlocked myself in a battle in The Hub and lost 3 hours of progress) there wasn’t much to the game. It was really cool and self-contained, but if you do one optimized run you don’t need to do any others, really.
“A fallout game with an dynamic economy” oh boy do I have the game for you! Caravaneer 2, a game where you can solve problems by decimating the economy of villages while enslaving any traders going to them :)
I didn't get to walk over to hakunin, I just walked in and then was immediately hit with half-dead hakunin talking to me, scared the shit out of me as a kid
Thank you for the content, your videos are always great. Your story telling capabilities Are one of the best ones on this platform. I hope you keep making content like this. ❤
The early Fallouts have an asthetic the new ones clearly lack. The ruins of the US looked brutalist, downright fascist at times. Faces carved into buildings, weapons somehow sleek and blocky at the same time. The assault rifle is a fine example of this. Seemingly built to save metal, the barrel shroud and stock are made of wood with only the internal components and receiver made of metal. Art direction needs a serious do over in future installments.
Funny how New Vegas sort of did this Most rifle or carbine length firearms have wooden handguards or stocks, generally few metal or even less so polymer Those that aren't are seen usually within factions' specialized units
This is a nuance that was completely lost after 2. I don't Bethesda picked up on it. The USA of Fallout is similar to our world, but certainly not the same, their culture developed quite differently and as you said, their aesthetic sensibilities show this well. It would have been a very oppressive place to live in the 21st century.
Fallout but with an economy and politics exists, albeit poorly in a flash game series called Caravaneer. The story is bare bones, it was mostly about being in an open world with trade and dangers, different towns had different industries and economies and understanding them was necessary for you to make money. It was also possible to saturate or otherwise screw up an economy, especially of the smaller places. Battles are clearly Fallout-inspired, and I'm 80% sure it was made by Slavs. Ultimately, it was a very ambitious flash game that had a great open world but little content. Having too much money and trading in too large volumes would flood and inflate smaller economies, pushing you to naturally move on and though the game world was open, it did the Fallout thing of places you were 'supposed' to go via resources. And while the narrative arc is paced fairly comfortably, so that a person playing normally would be naturally moving on and hitting the end, it also meant not being able to fully appreciate the simulated economy to it's extents for real payoff. You see, it's possible to start entire new industries, something that requires investment and changes economies since production needs raw materials, so a city where you start your own industries in gains new productions and new needs, but it becomes a 'too little, too late' sort of deal where the existing economy easily carries you to the endgame and you'd have to go out of your way to not win the game to build these industries and they don't give you anything, nor do they really integrate into pacing or content well. The game doesn't even really teach you how to do it, you'd have to accidentally discover the mechanic and figure out for yourself how it worked, though to be fair, figuring things out for yourself was a big part of the game. I'd have wished the game to be larger so that rebuilding post-apocalyptic wastes would have meant something, but alas. The political part has literally only 2 factions, the capitalist Enclave bad guys and the Desert Rangers, basically good guy NCR. They can be friendly or hostile to you, and their conflict is pretty much the entire endgame payoff. There are raider gangs, of which only the ninjas are tactically distinct by being always super fast and melee only, but they're all basically consigned to being mobs. I'd still say True Fallout has never been tried, but Caravaneer 2 'recruit everyone' runs has been a big thing for kid me.
Not sure if the game was made by slavs, but it was somewhat prominent on the Russian imageboards thanks to being associated with a legendary copypasta of some guy's pitch for a game where you could, among other things, rob corovans(sic) and get invaded by walking wooden houses.
@@randomanthustyrant5031 I think either you deleted it, or something in your copypasta caused that annoying TH-cam 'Shadowban' thingy (I do say dumb shit, but last got hit by it translating names from an Anime, so it's pretty wonky from what I can tell) where other people don't see your post. I'd have loved to read it.
@@XCal My bad, I wanted to add to the post but accidentally deleted it instead(my phone is a laggy piece of shit) then I got busy and forgot about the whole thing. Anyway, I just wanted to confirm that the game was indeed made by a slav developer by the name of Dmitriy Zheltobriukhov. Couldn't find much info on the guy unfortunately, seems like he dropped out of gamedev after C2.
Hello. My name is Kirill. I want you to make a 3D-action game so it would be like this: the user can play as the forest elves, the palace guard or the villain. If the user is playing the elves, the elves are in the woods, wooden houses rayd palace guards and villains. You can rob corovans... Since elfes are forest elfes then make it so the forest is really big... you can make the engine make the trees a picture when they are far away but transform into 3D trees when you come clozer. You can buy etc abilities like in Daggerfall. And the enemies are 3-dimensional, and the corpse is also 3D. You can jump etc. If you play as the palace guard, you need to obey the commander, and protect the palace from the evil guy (I haven’t come up with a name yet), spies and elf partisans, and go to raid some of those (elves, the villain...). Well if you play as the evil... that means that spies or elvish partisans attack sometimes, the user is his own boss, you can do what you want, you can order your troops to attack the palace and lead them into battle. The game has 4 main zones, 1 - zone of the humans (neutral), 2 - zone of the emperor (where the palace is), 3 - zone of the elves, 4 - zone of the villain... (in the mountains there is an old fort...) Also, in the game they don’t always kill you but they can chop your arm off and if the user is not cured they will die, also they can poke your eye out but the user may survive but just stop seeing half a screen until they acquire or buy a prosthetic, or if you lose a leg then you will either die or crawl around or roll in a wheelchair or, best case scenario... get a prosthetic. Saving is possible... P.S.I’ve been waiting for a game like this for tvwo years.
man I love your English delivery, it's kind of unique among YT video essayists. There's not enough variety in the kind of voice I want to choose to bounce around my skull for a whole evening.
It's HUGE. It would have taken decades to make most likely considering it's size and craftmanship. I always thought it was a converted movie theater with a "ancient ruins" motif myself. The traps always fail because they're just props; the pit in the corner room is just a painting on the floor with velvet rope separating it; stuff like that.
@@otakon17 I realize this makes me a huge hypocrite considering how much I rag on Fallout 3 for being nothing like what would make sense after 200 years, but the answer is "don't think about it."
@@otakon17 That said, the whole thing is really stupid and makes introducing people to the first game first almost mandatory, as in my experience nearly every person I tried to get into FO2 first got bored or frustrated and dropped the game before getting out of that dumb temple, or at best shortly afterwards. The mechanics of the original Fallout may be crude (and I may have rage-quit a couple times after getting trapped because that idiot Ian decided to stand in a doorway and my last save was several hours ago) but there's really something to be said for Fallout having the decency to just give you a pistol immediately from the start rather than make you punch ants and scorpions, then travel to a different town and punch your way through _three_ floors of rats before you even see a handgun. And that's _if_ you see it - it's very easy to miss - in which case, random encounters notwithstanding, you're stuck with that annoying one-shot pipe rifle until The Den.
Another good video from you. I finished Fallout 2 for like two, three times and I’m on my probably fourth run. Two points about the game and sorry for my english, I try my best: 1. In my opinion the writing was better in the first one. Just take Modoc as an example. The game says the villagers attacking the Slugs because of fear. Or at least it tells you in the endings slides if you didn’t help Modoc and the Slugs. Just be real, bro. Your village have problems with the crops because the lack of rain and you see a farm which isn’t affected by this. You send a villager to take control of the farm because nobody is there and from one day to another he disappeared and before that he tells everyone there are ghosts and shit. Nobody knows where he is gone or if he is even still alive. And out of the blue some people which live underground under the farm tells you they didn’t kill your buddy, but don’t know where he is. As a leader (and Jo is the major of Modoc if I remember correctly) you would believe this? Sure, they go too far to kill everyone there, but the reaction to gain control over the farm makes sense in this context. Where did the villagers act out of imagined fear or even because they are racist? And this is just an example for the mediocre writing in the game. Still better as in Fallout 3 or 4, but not on the same level as in the first one. And you also mentioned Frank Horrigan who also doesn’t make any sense tbh. PS: The writing in Vault City and Gecko is much better and makes more sense. 2. Without the powerarmor and some good weapons the game makes so much more fun because you need to be creative when it comes to solve a problem. Even at the hardest difficulty after you get your hands on a powerarmor the game is basically over because only Frank Horrigan, a few Enclave Soldiers, a few robots, and the bounty hunters can still be a pain in your ass. But the rest? Come on, they’re basically free EXP at this point. At least in the first game you only get your hands on a powerarmor at the end of the game, not basically in the middle. And you need to do the quest for the BoS. The difficulty in the game is broken tbh.
I never killed everyone in the game, but I did make an evil unarmed character who also joined the slavers. The RP aspect of it wasn't as good for an evil guy as I hoped, so it sucked. The only really good part was betraying Sulik, since it felt pretty evil. But the mechanics of punching guys out is fun. I also wound up tagging the Throw skill since the game gives you lots of free powerful grenades near the end.
I really wish they would explain how these people lived to their nineties in the most dangerous place in possibly the entire world. I also love your... Reviews? Whatever these are, because you don't just shit on a game you look at the good the bad and the janky.
1) Yes, it's a good genre. 2) Fallouts 1 and 2 and Arcanum, are not tactical RPGs. You can employ almost no tactics in FO 1 or 2 since you only control a single character in combat and the rest is AI driven. Fallout Tactics allows for this control, but it's also much weaker on the RPG elements.
52:03 "Interesting how the Brotherhood is different in every game in the Franchise" Actually its one of the most realistic things about the Brotherhood. When you have ideologically bound people who have no central state or authority they tend to drift. Best example I can think of is the Amish. There are sects that are zero tech, there are ones that all own cell phones and cars- alot of this has to do with their chosen path. Some are still heavily agricultural, others run farmers markets that make tens of millions of dollars annually. Its a matter of practical application of their values to their situation. It doesnt make them "bad" at being that, it just makes them realistic and is a reason they're able to hold on to a non-standard lifestyle seamlessly in a disagreeing world.
Heck, just look at the myriad branches of Christianity. They all spring from the same source but have fought each other in hundreds of conflicts over otherwise pedantic differences.
@@warlordofbritannia Yeah, and it follows the idea of central authority. Catholics largely managed to stay together. Protestants vary wildly because they have a "doctrinal" obligation but no central authority to interpret it. Thats why the catholic branch looks like a neatly divided road and the protestant branch looks like the britles of a hair brush. Not trying to make a pro-catholic stance here btw I think they're more backwards than most of the protestants, but as far as the ideological argument goes you're absolutely right.
For some reason the EDAN kit reminds me of an episode of solar opposites where they’re trapped on the forest so they drop some technology that turns a chunck of the forest into homes with the livestock and trees around somewhat coming to life gives me that kind of feel
The CRPG Book is fantastic. I personally think the biggest influence of Fallout was the perk system. Fallout 3 adapted it, NV improved on it and when Skyrim came out, perks are literally everywhere.
I love how he shouts: "Justice for Modoc!!!" even though he was the one who caused the downfall :D Anyway - Fallout 2, the game I played a million times, but finished only once... and with a critical bug that prohibited me from viewing the finale slideshow. But I do remember starting and finishing it in one night. Just Fallout 2, a krata browarów and me. Question: Do you, WArlockracy, know anything about Fallout Boneyard? I'm pretty sure that the Obsidian boys talked about it after F:NV, but honestyl I may be suffering from the Mandela Effect in this case. Also - do The Witcher 1 please. Such a great game.
Fun fact. I did a FO2 run where I was a female with maxed out charisma and the sex appeal perk, so when I got to the slavers at the Den, I was able to sleep with the boss in exchange for Vic's freedom. Jesus, the things I had to do to free that man...
56:52 the second GECK is actually there because you can trigger the end game without actually going to Vault 13. Fallout 2 actually has a timer like Fallout 1, if you take too long getting to Vault 13, eventually the camp will be raided by the Enclave anyway starting the final act without you even collecting the GECK. This GECK is there for players who never found it.
It is literally impossible for Fallout to be influential because when it came out it wasn't that popular. Back in those days when a game came out everyone bought it because it was all so new but at the same time not everyone liked the games. Not to say they hated them they just didn't like them. Fallout was loved by a few, liked by even less and a big meh burger for everyone else. We didn't have Let's Plays and online videos we could watch to see if we liked the game first so often times everyone knew about the game and experienced back then. The internet simply galvanized people into groups because who would look for a Fallout forum unless they liked it? Then of course you see thousands of members and go, "Hey everyone must have loved this game!". When in reality those thousands of members are literally it.
hmm. I come from a different perspective. When fallout came out, I was working for a PC game company myself. The boss spent a LOT of his free time playing it, and extolling the virtues and concepts of fallout 1. So it definitely DID have a considerable amount of influence within the game industry even before it was fully released.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Yeah. So is it ok if I do Vegas in parts?
Yeah ofc. I think that it has a lot to be said about it. Makes sense to me.
Ye, whatever you want man.
I like that
Yeah dog of course we’ll still be there no matter what!
Of course daddy Warlockracy
I remember when I was a kid playing FO2 and realized the door kids were stealing my stuff. I quickly realized they always stole the top item of your inventory and set a brick of C4 for a 2 minute timer and set it neatly on top of my inventory. One pickpocketing later and I was one brick of C4 lighter.
Long story short the game knows you're up to some fuckery and will assign blame for the exploding children to you, awarding you the child killer reputation penalty.
I still think the little bastards deserved it.
The worst part is when you're trying to pickpocket your stuff back from them and they catch you and initiate combat.
Like, bro.
1: that's my shit, you stole it from me.
2: bring it you little twerp.
One of the benefits of having companions is that if they do the killing for you, you don't get the bad rep. But I think the explosives trick is too funny not to try (even if just to reload later).
K's man even in VIDEO games like Red Dead 2. I was ready and willing to put a hole in their MINECRAFT skins, the little shits.
I will do it don't test me I am a psycho don't fu with me.
Actually, if you hit them once with fist (just don't kill them) and end combat when they run they'll start running away next time they see you. Few slaps later and I could walk around Den without worrying about stealing little punks.
My personal favorite creative solution in F2 was the last Bishop mission to kill the NCR VP, What's-his-face. Had no special requirements for killing just had to do it.
The area was deep inside NCR and with guard everywhere. Lacking both ammo and the skills to gun my way out of the NCR i had to get creative. Which involved using his grandkid. He would be running around the tree in the compound and you can ask him to go talk to his grandpa that a stranger wanted to talk to him or whatever it was.
So I figured you can reverse pickpocket C4, so I turned the kid into an IED (after getting him drunk cause less perception means higher pickpockets chance) and had him go talk to his grandpa, only to explode and kill them both on the second try.
First try I had multiple blocks of C4 and I accidentally put the inert block on the kid and kept the active C4 on myself cause I had trouble differentiating between the two sprites. Imagine my surprise when I was the one who blew up...
Lmao
Hoisted by your own Petard!
they should've done this to beat hitler in ww2
This is some Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam level of technique
@@Tgungen jesus that's an obscure reference but apt nonetheless
20 goddamned years
"We are a walking, talking, monkey's paw... whatever, this place is dead" is the most accurate representation of fallout's evil builds
I've gotten so used to you doing total conversion mods for Fallout that I was really confused when it turned out you were actually talking about an official game 😂
Where is my Slavic Total Conversion only ever played by 2 people?
Yup took a while 🤣
same
Same here.
@@EricT01Fallout Online Reloaded and it's an MMO, pretty good one too. You can definitely feel the Slavic influence
Speaking of the power of Bozar: Back in 2003, after finishing the game for the first time, I was wandering the desert in post-game and randomly encountered a group of deathclaws. Thinking nothing of it, I pulled out a Bozar and burst-fired at a deathclaw the furthest away from me, at the very edge of the screen. The shot critted, and the deathclaw got obliterated with the sum damage of 1101 points. I still occasionally play Fallout to this day, but have never seen anything remotely close to this kind of damage. Ever since, I keep the screenshot of that encounter in a special folder on my hard drive.
You by any chance willing to share that photo?
@@sirosagaming8228 I tried to post the link multiple times, and YT just keeps deleting it. Is there any way to post an image link here in the comments?
@@phoenixfeiren7639 i posted a random imgur link which seems to work, why not try uploading the screenshot there and posting the link?
@@libenhagos9335 I tried the imgur itself and a link shortener - the comment stays up for the entirety of 5 seconds and then gets blasted by an automod or something.
Anyway, the screenshot is on imgur - just add a/8gkZZbi after the website address to see the image.
I didn't speak English back then, so I played a Russian localization - sorry about that. You can still see the number 1101 in the combat log, and the deathclaw I shot is in the bottom right corner of the location.
@@phoenixfeiren7639 Это база
I've got a dumb story about this game from way back in the day. A friend of mine was playing this game three years after it was released. He had just figured out the trick of abusing gambling by placing a heavy object resting on the 1 key, creating an infinite loop of "bet 5$, play again, bet 5$...". Suddenly his brother barged in the room "Hey bro, a plane just flew into the World Trade Center!" They spent the next couple of hours glued to the TV screen and when he got back to the computer he had something ridiculous like millions of dosh and the game's economy had kinda broken down.
It was God's plan
I always do that when I play fo2. Cept I try to get it to 100 first then weight down the 5 key instead. Or whatever key it was for the max bet.
Funny story, but the planes hit the towers at 8:46 AM & 9:03 AM EST on a Tuesday. Presumably, your friend and his brother would be sleeping, in school, or at work.
@@glitchinthesystem4798 I live in Finland and our time zone is GMT+2, so a 7 hour difference.
@@parokki I stand corrected.
"northern California is experiencing the worst drought in decades" - truly, war never changes
Climate changes.
Many people are saying this
Actually Klamath falls is in Oregon so it's souther Oregon
@Yithmaster There is real CA town Klamath on Klamath river, 101 hwy😉
@Alex true but the devs said its the one in Oregon
I remember taking the mutant 'cure' syringe all the way to Horrigan to see if it would one-shot him and all it did was crash my game. So much for creativity :)
you should have shown him the cats paw magazine. He starts talking about how he misses his Johnson and that he would use him jimmy every day with the local school girls back when he was a snot nose brat himself...he talks about how all he wanted was just his weiner, they could make everything else robotic, computerized but for the love of his country, leave his pecker! It is why he thinks he turned gay.
^_^ lol
They expect you to be creative, just not THAT insanely creative.
"My brilliance destroyed Horrigan..... and the game"
That seems like such an oversight that I'm kind of shocked that I can't find a mod to make that an option.
Sounds like you beat the game to me lol
I always found it interesting how the temple of trials is this elaborate stone structure, clearly taking the efforts of professional masons and artisans to construct... Yet the villagers of Arroyo, who supposedly built the thing live in tents outside of it.
I guess they ran out of stone for their habitats? 🤔
And that would also mean they are mechanical engineers as there is working metal slide doors inside...
@@antonakesson Yeah, the temple of trials is definitely not the game's best designed portion.
I believe we don't have to think about it too much. It's just there because the developers liked the concept, even if it turns out completely ridiculous and out of place in the end.
It wasn't supposed to be there to begin with. I believe publishers demanded a "tutorial section" at very late development. Authors wanted it to be like in Fallout 1, dumped into the world, "off with you, motherfucker, don't come back without the GECK". Read the goddamn paper manual if you want to learn how the game's played, that's why it was added in the box.
Blame corporate meddling.
It was said to be a museum in the Fallout Bible
15:44 The best example is actually 'Ghost Town Gunfight' in New Vegas, where you're given the option to either assist the small community of farmers and traders who dug you out of the ground, stitched your head up pro-bono, and taught you essential survival skills for your upcoming revenge quest, or the dynamite-happy raiders who only get two side quests afterwards and then disappear from the game.
And Goodsprings has 0 quests afterwards and 0 presence outside the starting town. Siding with Cobb also gives a discount with the store while siding with the town gives a discount with the bartender which is clearly inferior. There's nice loot in the town as well. Which you can steal anyway, but I always feel wierd playing a character who acts all paragon and then rob people of everything they own when they're not looking.
I agree it's a morally obvious choice to help Goodsprings, but staying friends with the Powder gangers and then betraying them later down the line for the NCR is the power move in my opinion. One thing New Vegas did right is reward you appropriately for being an asshole.
Man these fallout nv fan boys 😂😂
@@Ibustanut710 Why are you here? You mock people for talking about their favorite games, in an hour long video talking about fallout 2, yet offer no viable critique or constructive criticism. Like bruh your comment is a waste of bytes
@@Odysseus_Dagoth your comment also posses no criticism or reason, also a waste of bites. Im not mocking anyone, if you consider that mocking, then you really got to grow up.
@@Ibustanut710 Mocking probably wasn't the right word. Either way you my boy, are a weird ass troll.
I think Fallout 2 is one of those things that really just set an example in a time when video games were still unpopular to most people. You really cant replicate what made it so fun because it came out in essentially a different era in technology, culture, and overall is just so significantly different from what most would even consider a videogame like a platformer or an FPS.
It being replicated again and again .Just check all the insane retro game mods
Its pretty amusing this playthrough was basically the same as I finished it for the first time, as an eastern european teen with very limited understanding of english
disco elysium did a pretty good job. definitely the closest modern game to og fallout. and the way they frame written/read text makes it look like you're reading text messages from a smartphone and makes the reading process a lot faster. that's something I thought was really cool. But now apparently they've added voice acting.
Yeah. Videogames were overall better when they weren't designed to have mass appeal.
@@lopiklop Good news, audio options exist. If you don't like it you can turn it off.
"A correct option, and a contrarian option" That is startlingly accurate. As much as I like (some of) the Fallout games, the ethical dilemmas presented in them usually just come down to that scorpion and the frog shitpost. There's no equally valid choices with moral implications other than "Do you want to do the quest or do you want to fuck everyone else and yourself over for laughs y/n"
Except his first example ends with gizmos making a wealthy thriving city over just staying a dusty shitty town. Most choices don't have true outcomes until the game is over.
@@Bourikii2992 I believe that was planned but changed before the game came out, because there was basically no hint Gizmo would make the town prosper. The sheriff guy has the good ending.
@@amelieoresky884 It's under gizmos alt ending slide.
What I find most disappointing is there were originally a few options that were more than that but 90% of them got axed prior to release.
Like Junktown in fallout 1 originally was to have 2 distinct results.
Killians but then also Gizmo. Youd leave junktown after sliding with fat boi and when you come back its flourishing more having become a gambling and entertainment hub along with rewards but was cut.
It makes me wonder how many other similar choices were cut?
@@Bourikii2992 which isn't actually in the game.
7:09 Wasn't Todd. Avellone was the one last I heard. He never liked the idea of talking animals including the Intelligent Deathclaws and wanted a lot of stuff that was in both Fallout 1 and 2 not to carry over into future entries. Wanamingos and Floaters for example. Meanwhile, the devs wanted talking Mutant animals to be in Fallout - the S'lanter are a good example - but they could never get them to work with the game's atmosphere, so you can only find left over references to them in 1 and 2.
Also funny story - Gizmo was originally going to be the correct choice long term (Killian would end up becoming a paranoid sociopathy after taking over) and have more content related to either choice - but studio meddling occurred when the higher ups thought, unironically, that gamers won't get such a morally grey scenario, and had the team make it more black and white situation instead; Kilian is the good choice, Gizmo is the bad choice.
It was a good choice on their part. Having this MoRaLlY GrEY ending where the characters themselves aren't fully fleshed out would have been stupid. There's nothing in game indicating that Killian would become a paranoid sociopath or Gizmo gives a shit about the community instead of lining his own pockets and would have run contrary to what was already established about them. A two dimensional outcome is still just that despite it being inverted or reversed.
@@BlackCrossCrusader no, they were fleshed out. The higher ups thought it was too complicated and had the team boil them down to Gizmo being corrupt and evil and Killian being a good guy. In the original draft, Killian was a good guy but after all the assassination attempts by Gizmo he became paranoid and after taking Gizmo's place he started doing some really bad things because he started seeing everyone around him as a potential threat. Meanwhile, Gizmo on the surface seemed like he was only looking out for himself and was a typical corrupt politician, but in reality the deals he was working on were for the community's benefit and if you sided with him you would have seen the community flourish economically over time.
Yeah the devs made the correct choice on Junktown because absolutely nothing else in the area could lead to the player to reasonably come to the conclusion that such an outcome would occur. If a lot of people in the area had dialogue barks saying they liked the business Gizmo's casino brought or worried about Killian's mental health, then that outcome would have made some sense and it would be on the player to observe the finer details, but from what's in the game it just ends up being a twist of the knife at the end of the game to "subvert expectations" needlessly like certain hack writers too in love with their own genius like to do from time to time.
Also, seeing as Avellone is the God Writer of CRPGs, I'm inclined to agree with him on that point.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe The reason all of that is not in the game is because it was removed in development because the higher ups in charge looked at the quest and believed it was too deep and nuanced for the average video gamer. The same higher ups I presume that insisted that the tutorial dungeon be added to Fallout 2.
@@BlackCrossCrusader never ever side with the company
*manipulates town into massacaring innocent ghouls, blows a septic pit up and covers the town in shit, releases a demonic beast that slaughters the guilt-ridden survivors before pissing off*
"I have nothing but fond memories of this place"
It's strange to me how little games have mechanics related to persuasion where they don't just have a convenient dialogue option labeled basically "the right answer."
I'd like a game that organically tests your knowledge or silver tongue through having a myriad of options, and you have to just understand the characters and the situation to manipulate or persuade them naturally.
Not a full game of that, but Planescape Torment has that at times
That requires good high effort writing and in large quantities to support a speech focused playstyle. Most game devs are nerds that can’t write and most writers in the industry are ones who couldn’t make it in other more prestigious ones.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution had an interesting persuasion minigame. If you get an upgrade to your character, you would actually see what kind of rock-paper-scissors game it actually is under the hood, but the actual dialogue choices and the interlocuter's responses did seem to be spot on. I'm recalling the very first such scene where you catch a guy holding a hostage at gunpoint, it's why I actually preferred to play without the persuasion upgrade, so you could go in "blind" and pick the lines that you think actually resonate with the other person and seeing their reaction, without checking a meter in the corner of the screen.
I feel like this is what Arcanum did? To be fair I never did a full charisma/speech playthrough of that game
but you're supposed to use character's speech skill, not your own
Just a couple funny gamey things I remember from my Fallout 2 playthrough.
1) you can pick pocket the key off the tribal in the tutorial to skip the fight.
2) you can avoid getting your stuff stolen by those kids by entering combat before you walk through the doorways, then ending combat.
1. Is not very gamey and seems legitimate.
@@shotgunner2039 there is an option where you ask the guy why exactly you have to fight and tell him that it's stupid because either of you could die and he lets you pass
2) sounds like the same gimmick you can use to get into vault 8 without citizenship. Much easier and less annoying than baiting the urchins into stealing armed explosives off you
Here's a not so funny thing about those kids: in some versions of Fallout 2, all the child characters were removed from the game for censorship reasons... But despite being removed from the game, the pickpocketing still occured in The Den.
So you could basically get inventory items stolen without having any knowledge of why or how.
Ain't censorship great? 😆
@@sevenproxies4255 they were just invisible, so you would get speech bubbles showing up over nothing. I know this because I had the australian version, I made super-nerdy jokes about it when the Invisible Children activist group showed up years later. we later got an uncensored version off gog, at least the version I grabbed before it was off the store for a while, dunno if the new version has that too
Just started watching, dude drops the bomb "Fallout was not influential".
As a lifelong Fallout fan, I am so hyped to watch the rest of this.
I don't think that should be all that controversial. It kickstarted the late 90's boom in CRPGs but that genre largely died out, and today is mostly limited to indie titles or games made by the same people that worked on Fallout 1+2. Bioware went away from the formula and Bethesda never made games like it to begin with.
@@taxevasioncleric and then there is baldur gate 3
@@davidbaguetta127 baldur's gate 3 has nothing to do with fallout lmao, the game pushes you towards the "biowaren" way of doing things, with equally weighted moral options for you to chose and the different ways of solving quests being determined almost always by stat checks in dialogue boxes. For an example even if you manage to do enough fuckery to reach the dark elf trapped in the poison chamber in the underdark before choosing one of the ways of freeing him the game will not acknowledge your actions at all, and almost every non-combat challenge is like that, you have pre-determined narrative ways of dealing with the problem that are centered around stat checks
15:38 I am very happy that somebody so steeped in the 'boomer RPG' community is actually calling this out. So many people put forward these older games as being pinnacles of writing and quest design, while I've always found that there is pretty clearly a 'right' way to play, most of the time. You'll know you chose the wrong path when things feel like they're unfinished, and the content is of notably lower quality.
And yet the writing still tends to be miles better than most games that come out nowadays
I'm not old enough to be a legit part of the Boomer RPG community, but my deep dives by Warlockracy and talking to others, and me being interested in RPG design myself, I think the 'Correct/Contarian' split is...kinda good? I think the latter option really is only there for the people who like being miserable (if that makes sense). If the creative team is like a Dungeon Master, they still allow for 'fun dumbass antics' but also factor in 'unfun dumbass antics for that one/two weirdoes'. It is like a surreal respect for free will, including respecting counterproductive choices/deliberately choosing the pointless option.
It's fascinating!
Baldur's Gate 3 is a new example of this, so I guess the old ways are coming back. The contrarian option of helping the goblins instead of the refugees leads to significantly fewer quest opportunities and content. That could be another interpretation of the phrase, "the banality of evil."
It's the same with any game. That's not much of a point. It's been that way for decades.
“You'll know you chose the wrong path when things feel like they're unfinished, and the content is of notably lower quality.”
You know, despite what the media tells you, gamers are actually good people working daily jobs to feed their families.
One writer (can’t remember) highlighted this, writing a very detailed quest line where you could be the biggest piece of shit and get away with it, yet most gamers chose to be good guys, making the writer feel like he wasted his time.
What does that tell you?
"I can honestly say, I never missed the primitive charm of Arroyo more, until this very moment."
Yeah because he is the REAL bad guy. When he is out ruining everyone's life, that includes his own too.
uh....yea? You made me realize that unless I comment the specific part, no one knows what I am talking about, specially with a video longer than 4 minutes. Because thats how I feel reading your comment...uh yea?
Theres something about Warlockracy's voice recording that makes him sound like an AI, but not all the time.
in this video it seems like the audio is bugged somewhat
@@skrymebruh1401 yes it's oddly compressed
Have you never wondered why he's so fond of cyborgs and games featuring them? He's augmented.
@@skrymebruh1401 Yeah it does sound a bit off in this vid. Thought I was going crazy
@@deadbolt602 Same here, same here!
Frank Horrigan's extremely inconsistent depictions would be referenced with Legate Lanius in New Vegas. A reference, that's what it was.
Exept that in New Vegas he's more of a Legend, a propagand figure made by Caesar
@@lorddervish212quinterosara6 While it might make sense that on the radio Lanius is described as a complete brute for propaganda reasons, Lanius is also depicted as a straightforward, bloodthirsty barbarian in Legion endings where Caesar is dead and Lanius is in charge.
@@Churono I honestly don't think we get enough of the man himself to describe any of his depictions as inconsistent. When convincing him to retreat, you have to do so in a way that nearly capitulates to his world view, or plays into more of his own base fears and instincts than any sense long-term strategy. It's not as if he comes to the conclusion to retreat on his own through reason. Great generals don't necessarily make great statesmen, and *most* autocrats aren't very bright, even if they're capable field commanders with some degree of operational awareness and tact. I guess he's polite, but sociopaths and murderers can be polite.
@@coolguyjki That's fair and looking at his dialogue he does hint at the sort of indoctrination and brutality that is suggested when he is talked about while offscreen. It does feel weird that it's something we're mainly just informed about, and my sense of how it doesn't fit is mostly that when you talk to him he becomes very verbose in a way that doesn't quite gel with it, and regardless of the presentation it's odd to think that he can be speech-checked at all.
Horrigan's chumminess with his lackies can probably be boiled down to fear, more than anything else. While initially intelligent, he lost it overtime as his mental instability and faculties got worse.
Good to know you are still alive and definitely are not a secret FSB agent pretending to be Warlockracy so that we don't become suspicious of your whereabouts.
But if he was actual secret FSB agent all along?
This is going to sound goofy as hell, but you’ve helped me fix my life. I haven’t been sleeping well in the past 2 years due to a lot of factors, most of which are related to living a noisy environment. I tried putting on audiobooks, music, and ASMR videos made specifically to help people sleep, but the vast majority of them just doesn’t work for me. I found your channel about a year or so ago when you uploaded the Fallout New Mexico video, and discovered that your videos put me to sleep the best.
I don’t mean that it’s boring (I fully watch your videos at daytime too), but the tone + cadence of your voiceover and the lack of audio jumpscares in your editing helps me drown out the bullshit around my house. It also helps that I’m actually interested in what your videos are about. Almost every night of the week I’ll put on one of your videos (mostly Deus Ex, Arcanum, and the Fallout mod videos) when I’m in bed.
Seriously, thank you Warlockracy for doing what you do. This channel means a lot to me. When I find stable work I’ll sub to your patreon. ❤
I want to second your sentiments here. Though for me jagged alliance 2 video is my go to sleep assistance.
Dude same hear!
Seconded. To quote Killface: "He could just read the phone book, and we would pay money to watch it"
Ditto. I'll listen/watch while doing mundane work around the house, then replay the episode when it's time to sleep so I can drown out the anxiety du jour.
I do this with Vinny Vinesauce VODs on his Fullsauce channel. Always sleep great
I love the critical approach you made on Fallout. For a lot of nerds it’s a holy cow of vidyacons (as I like to call them), pointing out quest design having „normal” and „contrarian” paths is kinda eye opening, I always just fell into whatever developer intended me to do.
It’s funny how it’s Baldur’s Gate that has far better evil playtrough. Sure Bioware has tendency to do „you are either a decent person or Hitler” but at least they reward you with stuff (best characters are evil, you either get better rewards or get a shortcut in quest).
@@dawidgnika636 Its definitely at least consistent. I never saw the appeal of being an evil psychopath in Fallout because generally you get less stuff to do and worse outcomes.
@@kushanblackrazor6614 It appeals to me simply because I love good old fashioned chaos and destruction. Screw the rewards, there's something so thrilling about destroying the lives of video game characters.
@@fairlywren3664 Okay there incel basement dweller with a edge lord complex.
@@fairlywren3664 I usually follow through quest lines. But one Mob boss in Reno was talking too much shit and I just opened fire. With three companions it took my many save scummings to make it without losing a companion. But this is the first example i was taught of what you said. Sometimes just not giving a shit and DOING YOU is better than the end of the quest or its people.
Walking talking monkey’s paw is such a good description to the shenanigans you can do in the older Fallouts.
The observation here that Fallouts 1 and 2 are designed around a "Correct or Contrarian" quest design is extremely apt, to the point that I have a hard time believing I've never heard anyone describe it that way before, and yet I haven't. This description gets behind the actual moral/philosophical frame that the devs were going for, I feel. Because sometimes, the contrarian choice *is* the more moral choice, like screwing over Lynette in Vault City by negotiating with the ghouls of Gekko and working with a different VC councilor. So "contrarian" isn't necessarily an evil playthrough, but it absolutely describes the attitude one would usually have when picking some of these options.
Also, the closest game you've covered here that I think gets to a True Fallout Game status might be Wasteland 3. The main reason it isn't would have to be that the Wasteland games are *way* more combat focused and there's no way to get through them without lots of combat encounters and I doubt anyone would consider a game a "True Fallout Game" without the option to do a no kill run, whether that's by stealth or diplomacy. And while *most* of the options to get around problems are fairly obvious in their design, quite often they've come up with some fun alternatives that only observant players can pick up on, like the bit in Aspen where you will find a guy who has swallowed a key to a vault you may want and it will let you obviously kill him to get the key or let him live and forgo the rewards in the vault, or you can just use max lockpicking on the vault door, *or* you can find a book elsewhere in the building that describes the chemical formula for laxatives (but only if you the player actually reads it), elsewhere find a chemistry set in the building, then use the formula to make a laxative in order for you to feed him the laxative get him to crap it (and a week's worth of food, apparently) out.
Non-obvious, player directed but designer catered to solutions to problems are definitely the heart of a lot of the appeal of Fallouts 1 and 2 that I don't think a lot of devs like to put in their games. It's *much* simpler just to give the player some options, make the options clear from the get go, then make those options the *only* options since you don't want to put in the extra work to allow for other solutions. And really, it's sad to say the some of the only games that have done this in recent years, and only occasionally at that, are the Wasteland games by inXile.
Great analysis of how Fallout 2 is actually structured. Was hoping you'd take a look at Fallout 2's MIB88 Megamod, it's a massive expansion to the original story that seemingly nobody online speaks of. Looking forward to the Vegas videos.
WHAAT! DLING NOW
The way you described the structure of Fallout 2's quests actually made me think quite a lot about immersive sims, but at a higher level of abstraction. In particular the way you described the Den, with a very restricted set of ways to meet the core goal, but a huge variety of ways you can gain the capabilities (combat power/cash) to meet your goal, most of which were at least partly the result of organic mechanical interactions rather than explicit quest design. So maybe part of the thing that gives classic fallout it's distinct feel is that it accidentally arrived at a CRPG-imsim hybrid without anyone noticing?
The point is that: wrpgs are supposed to be like that, the stats, abilities and items are supposed to open or close different posibilities and options to do something like it happens in a dungeons and dragons session, is supposed to allow the player to take things however he wants within the actions their character can do in the game and its own creativity.
Sadly people and companies nowadays think rpgs in general are about just grinding stats and levels, when the whole point of the genre is being well... a ROLEPLAYING experience.
@@veto_5762 Yep. You can grind all day but that just means you'll be going through the story at level 20. You will one shot most things and that's okay. I keep having to tell DM's this because they think every encounter needs to be a long winded life or death battle when in reality most combat is short and hideously one sided.
Played this game through at least four times and I never knew you could just take off your armor to get into vault city.
Goddam this game is awesome
stfu...seriously??? I played this game for about a decade and never figured that out.
Yeah I never realized you could get the slavers in the Den drunk to lower their perception and make the fight easier.
It’s fun when a game lets you have that much freedom to approach problems but doesn’t outright tell you that you can do those things.
@@johnpenwell6402 you can steal their ammo
and if they don't have their guns out you can steal their guns
making the fight even easier
Man, I have never enjoyed a kill everything run this much. It’s unreal how good your narrative commentary is. ❤
i didnt even notice it was until you mention it, it felt so natural
"Now most people associate the series with Bethesda's open-world games."
"They are, of course, painfully and spiritually misguided."
Hear, hear.
That’s a very accurate
Fallout 1, Fallout 2, New Vegas.
Bethesda at least had the courtesy to put their games on the other side of the continent, as to not break established lore (or rather to not be bound by it), and allowed Obsidian to put theirs in the west, continuing the NCR story. And New Vegas did take a lot of the Van Buren Fallout 3 story.
@@HappyBeezerStudiosBethesda still managed to break things by dragging fractions over continent despite them being local ones. But i guess its lesser evil, they cant just cut iconic people out of the series, like supermutants and power armored steel bitches
@HappyBeezerStudios Too bad Todd now let Hollywood and Amazon do his dirty work to butcher Westcoast lore
This game is such a work of art. I've completed this game probably 4 times and every time has been wildly different. For anyone playing make sure to get Killaps unofficial patch which restores a lot of cut and broken content.
I would say start playing the game as it is and only on a later playthrough add restored content. Just to see the difference.
Similar to how a first (and possibly second and 3rd) playthrough of 3D Fallout should better be as vanilla as possible.
Im dealing with a lost love one in my life right now, I love watching your videos on repeat as I work from home. Thank you so much for your awesome content warlockracy.
I liked how they mocked "chosen one hero, who saves the world" trope in this game - most characters had some laugh when we mention our title...
btw that trooper near crashed verbird in Klamath have Adv Power Armor MK2, I remember playing the game with a mod that let you strip armors from enemies with high skill. Had to grind a lot to take it before visiting Oil Rig...
All these years playing classic Fallout, it never occured to me Beer and Liquor could be useful combat items
Me either
Modoc music theme always gives me chills... love it. Music in Fallout is one of a kind.
It's made by Mark Morgan who also made soundtracks for Wasteland 2 and 3. Definitely a unique style.
Bro, I've spent a lot of time in the last month playing JA2(For the first time in my life) and coincidentally also discovered your channel at the same time, and it has been great putting your content on my second screen whilst playing, I've watched through your entire catalogue of Videos and it's all great ... Thanks for the quality content... Gonna continue tradition right now
Nice! I hope you're going vanilla or Stracciatella for your first run... You can always do 1.13 later. One of my all time faves!
Always glad to see a new recruit in the JA2 community or at least someone who played the damn game.
@@raevenrises7595 Not gonna lie, It is very difficult catching up 24 years of backlog, rummaging through the forums, English and Russian(Thank you Google Translate), and Discord to figure out how this whole thing fits together, because this is one wild , wide beast for a first timer, not only the versions of the game, but also all the fun story mods, like Urban Chaos, Deidranna's side ect ect, I literally even learned how to read a bit off C++(I'm not a programmer) to figure out how some of the shit works... But funny story, I started with WF, then only realized I'm wasting my time, then as time went on, just got deeper and deeper into what there is to explore... So basically, started with WF, then played Stracciatella like just a 1/3d way of the game to get a better understanding of how the core mechanics work, and then jumped into 1.13... But my god what a nightmare to navigate as a first time player... But I have been having a ton of fun along the way... After this playthrough(1.13) I actually want to play Sevenfm's AI+ with Bigmaps, from everything I've explored that seems to tickle my fancy the most...
@@cynicusnihilisticusparadox2 cool 🙂 I find 1.13 to be too feature heavy and unbalanced for my taste. I stick with Stracciatella. Glad you're enjoying it!
@@cynicusnihilisticusparadox2 You should play Jagged Alliance 1 if you haven't already. There are some rough edges you need to savescum around (like how your squad has to enter an area all squished together, which can lead to the enemy getting an interrupt and throwing a grenade that hits everyone) but it's fun and has a ton of charm (Ivan ONLY speaks Russian but is better than mercs who cost three times as much).
*causes nothing but untold suffering on the people of Modoc* "I have nothing but good memories of this place!"
I'm such a good two shoes when I play these games. Thank you for letting my childhood self live vicariously through your slaughtering of the wasteland.
might be a little strange to see such a modern and technologically advanced game like new vegas featured on this channel
Uh, he recently played Wasteland3?
That's way newer than FNV.
I would say Underrail plays a fair bit like a classic fallout game, definitely worth the play if you haven't tried it yet.
Except that Underrail is more competent with its combat, and so is heavily focused around combat. Which rather misses the point of the classic Fallouts, which are more like adventure games that happen to have a combat system.
After playing resurrection I finally realize the classic fallout divide between 1 and 2. Tbh ur channel revealed alot of community complexity in the classics(thanks for that), I know I'll be one of the many people in the line for fallout 5 but imma play some isometric war philosophy while I wait.
I gotta tell you, your videos always come across as very intelligent but also heartfelt. You seem to connect with a game on a level that you enjoy the good and take the bad personally. Don't change.
Thanks, that was a great video!
I guess people try to recapture the original Fallout 1-2 atmosphere way too hard instead of trying to create something new.
Although, the memory of hearing distorted children voices in Industrial Junk track while exploring the dead reactor of ghoul town is still fresh in my mind. Damn, what a game
most of the tracks were fantastic, though vats of goo is always a constant member berry fest even when I first played this game and went "hey that track from the end-game!"
also every part of reno will live in my head forever, from the autistic guy in renesco's basement to salvatore's line about insults
I kept Sulik, and he became the ultimate companion for me. He survived throughout the entire damn game and was useful in attracting aggro and dishing out damage. He was all I needed.
sulik with powerarmor and supersledge is a god :D
@@krystofcisar469 He's nearly a god. I had to reload a save once when he got surrounded by those stupidly powerful xenomorph knock-offs and actually died.
Warlockracy acting simply nefarious in this video. Truly on his villain arc.
Man, I've probably played Fallout 2 and beaten since I was around 10 ish to 13 years later now, probably more than 10+ times. And always found it to be fun, dark and crude which is pretty much what Fallout now days goes after but there was always a tone to it that newer Fallout games could never replicate.
However, after watching this amazing video. I realized what you mean bout it having weird and even silly story writing, some parts of it does sound very silly when you explain it. Or how rushed some of it is (definitely makes a lot of sense though for that)
I always thought it was just being crude intentionally since it felt like it fit the atmosphere of most locations and vibes. It was like wandering the wasteland was a dangerous hell hole but when you went into a town it changed the town of what I expected and subconsciously even.
But some of the serious parts of the game do seem a bit lacking in some areas or too crude even for it.
Like Frank Horrigan is a good example, Menacing as shit but his dialogue and every time he appears it feels goofy. There could've been so much more of an actual menacing threat like The Master in Fallout 1 with him. Considering how often he appeared there was definitely some intent of him being a menacing powerhouse figure but his dialogue never properly portrayed it when he's with his Enclave buddies. Makes me think of Full Metal Jacket. And I think that's what they're going for with even the Drill Sergeant.
Since when he's being a soldier on his own, its menacing but with his friends he sounds like a soldier in FMJ hanging out with the other squaddies fuckin' around crudely. Not saying people don't do that still they definitely do. But here it feels deliberate.
Definitely felt more of a dark, immersive atmosphere in Fallout 1 than Fallout 2. Fallout 2 is one of my favorite games of all time mainly just from how much I enjoyed and able to try multiple builds over the years. Fallout 1 definitely has the empty, apocalypse atmosphere while Fallout 2 is like "if Society is trying to rebuild. How Crude would it be?" Some of it works, some of it doesn't.
I'm glad to have played Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics before I even got the touch Fallout 3 and New Vegas as a kid. Made me appreciate it as a series so much more, especially in FNV whenever I heard about past references like the Remnants, NCR and all I nerded out over it first time playing lol.
Seeing his sprite appear on screen with narrowed, cruel eyes when he vaguely explains the next atrocity is just TH-cam gold
Everyone talks about fallout but no one asks "How's Fallout?" :(
"Some media is simply more engaging as a foreigner"
Hispanic Dragon Ball Community
I played it countless times and, now 11 minutes in, you already gave me like 10 different ideas how to approach problems and solve them. And you didn't even mention the obvious one, as a woman you can sleep with Metzger and he drops the price from 1000 to $500. This is ridiculous, 10 different ways to get Vic out and none of them feel like exploit. Now I know exactly what I miss playing more modern cRPGs.
Your insight at the end is pretty solid. I think I'd describe it as RPGs focusing on a different part of the acronym. For Bioware games its all about the "role," you need the light/dark, paragon/renegade splits because the game is about filling a role in the world and story. Under-developing one of these options inherently robs the game of its core design, making only one role really viable or fulfilling. Modern Bethesda games, Fromsoft, and every "open-world with RPG mechanics" modern AAA schlock is about the "playing." Do the dungeon delve, find that next collectible, master the next boss, get that piece of loot with bigger number, they are games about improving how you play it. And lastly we have these old RPGs, ultimately they're about the "game." They are a story told through the interactive medium of a video game. There are right answers because there's a story to be told and that story is supported by doing the "right" things. The contrarian answers exist as failsafes, backups for mistakes or moments of expression. The biggest mistake is that we've allowed the role aspect of RPGs and the concept of "choices and consequences" to rewrite the intent of the games that came before. Also, to give Todd some credit I'd personally give Morrowind props for being the best "game" RPG I've ever played and Oblivion the best "role" RPG I've ever played. Bethesda is still kicking when many other RPG studios have died for a reason. It's just a shame they're the only major player around.
I would love to see you do a video on Underrail, I'd even be down to buy it for you if you were interested. It describes itself as an old school turn-based isometric indie role playing game that focuses on exploration and combat. It's world and lore really pulled me in and I would love for it to be talked about some more.
Seems you got your wish
For some reason I really really like how you described that the pop culture references don't exactly break immersion because their age makes them so far removed.
Specifically the wording of "The past is another country."
Oh man, a Warlockracy video on a stormy, relaxing day? I’ve been blessed!
I clicked on the video as it was suggested by YT, most likely due to recently watching some Fallout lore videos, but I have to say I'm so glad that I did. Your video was such a pleasant experience, possibly the first time ever that it felt good to me to watch other people playing, something I don't particularly appreciate as younger generations do (YT, Twitch etc.). What made the whole thing fun are your comments so I just want to say, just based on this one video, keep doing this. It's entertaining.
Thanks for making this. I played original fallout for the first time as a young 20’s man. Besides UI confusion since the game was made before I was born (I softlocked myself in a battle in The Hub and lost 3 hours of progress) there wasn’t much to the game. It was really cool and self-contained, but if you do one optimized run you don’t need to do any others, really.
I always have fun replaying tbh, I notice details I didn't before or approach it differently. Optimized runs aren't always the most fun imo.
Every new Warlockracy video is a blessing from the gods of Arroyo.
I played this game in middle school on my crappy desktop my uncle made me, absolute memory of a game. I love it. Always go for the Bozar.
After all these years, I never realized the elder lady in the fallout opening cinematic had that massive bong next to her!
“A fallout game with an dynamic economy” oh boy do I have the game for you! Caravaneer 2, a game where you can solve problems by decimating the economy of villages while enslaving any traders going to them :)
Oh no...A cyril dream have been realised
"We are a walking, talking, monkey's paw" God I love this line.
Just discovered your channel bro. Appreciate the vibes, the memes and the storytelling very much. Time for some bingewatching.
Hearing your take and knowing now that Tim Cain didn’t want the temple of trials (at least wanted it skippable) is hilarious
"I remove them like toilet paper from roll" - A very powerful Warlock
This is FANTASTIC, always wanted a video like this from you
I didn't get to walk over to hakunin, I just walked in and then was immediately hit with half-dead hakunin talking to me, scared the shit out of me as a kid
Out of all these breakdown/review channel's yours is by far the most unique, i love your style and your humor keep it up man.
"I remove them like toilet paper from roll!" - Warlockracy, 2023
It's a quote from Jagged Alliance 2.
@@JollyOldCanucki was thinking it was a Putinism from some wierd war in the 80s
This Channel never disappoints
Thank you for the content, your videos are always great. Your story telling capabilities Are one of the best ones on this platform. I hope you keep making content like this. ❤
The early Fallouts have an asthetic the new ones clearly lack. The ruins of the US looked brutalist, downright fascist at times. Faces carved into buildings, weapons somehow sleek and blocky at the same time. The assault rifle is a fine example of this. Seemingly built to save metal, the barrel shroud and stock are made of wood with only the internal components and receiver made of metal. Art direction needs a serious do over in future installments.
Funny how New Vegas sort of did this
Most rifle or carbine length firearms have wooden handguards or stocks, generally few metal or even less so polymer
Those that aren't are seen usually within factions' specialized units
This is a nuance that was completely lost after 2. I don't Bethesda picked up on it. The USA of Fallout is similar to our world, but certainly not the same, their culture developed quite differently and as you said, their aesthetic sensibilities show this well. It would have been a very oppressive place to live in the 21st century.
Damn you really fucked over Modoc 😂😂 I had no idea that you could just leave and have the Deathclaw kill everyone 😂
Fallout but with an economy and politics exists, albeit poorly in a flash game series called Caravaneer. The story is bare bones, it was mostly about being in an open world with trade and dangers, different towns had different industries and economies and understanding them was necessary for you to make money. It was also possible to saturate or otherwise screw up an economy, especially of the smaller places. Battles are clearly Fallout-inspired, and I'm 80% sure it was made by Slavs.
Ultimately, it was a very ambitious flash game that had a great open world but little content. Having too much money and trading in too large volumes would flood and inflate smaller economies, pushing you to naturally move on and though the game world was open, it did the Fallout thing of places you were 'supposed' to go via resources. And while the narrative arc is paced fairly comfortably, so that a person playing normally would be naturally moving on and hitting the end, it also meant not being able to fully appreciate the simulated economy to it's extents for real payoff. You see, it's possible to start entire new industries, something that requires investment and changes economies since production needs raw materials, so a city where you start your own industries in gains new productions and new needs, but it becomes a 'too little, too late' sort of deal where the existing economy easily carries you to the endgame and you'd have to go out of your way to not win the game to build these industries and they don't give you anything, nor do they really integrate into pacing or content well. The game doesn't even really teach you how to do it, you'd have to accidentally discover the mechanic and figure out for yourself how it worked, though to be fair, figuring things out for yourself was a big part of the game. I'd have wished the game to be larger so that rebuilding post-apocalyptic wastes would have meant something, but alas.
The political part has literally only 2 factions, the capitalist Enclave bad guys and the Desert Rangers, basically good guy NCR. They can be friendly or hostile to you, and their conflict is pretty much the entire endgame payoff. There are raider gangs, of which only the ninjas are tactically distinct by being always super fast and melee only, but they're all basically consigned to being mobs.
I'd still say True Fallout has never been tried, but Caravaneer 2 'recruit everyone' runs has been a big thing for kid me.
Not sure if the game was made by slavs, but it was somewhat prominent on the Russian imageboards thanks to being associated with a legendary copypasta of some guy's pitch for a game where you could, among other things, rob corovans(sic) and get invaded by walking wooden houses.
@@randomanthustyrant5031 I think either you deleted it, or something in your copypasta caused that annoying TH-cam 'Shadowban' thingy (I do say dumb shit, but last got hit by it translating names from an Anime, so it's pretty wonky from what I can tell) where other people don't see your post. I'd have loved to read it.
@@XCal My bad, I wanted to add to the post but accidentally deleted it instead(my phone is a laggy piece of shit) then I got busy and forgot about the whole thing.
Anyway, I just wanted to confirm that the game was indeed made by a slav developer by the name of Dmitriy Zheltobriukhov. Couldn't find much info on the guy unfortunately, seems like he dropped out of gamedev after C2.
Hello. My name is Kirill. I want you to make a 3D-action game so it would be like this: the user can play as the forest elves, the palace guard or the villain. If the user is playing the elves, the elves are in the woods, wooden houses rayd palace guards and villains. You can rob corovans... Since elfes are forest elfes then make it so the forest is really big... you can make the engine make the trees a picture when they are far away but transform into 3D trees when you come clozer. You can buy etc abilities like in Daggerfall. And the enemies are 3-dimensional, and the corpse is also 3D. You can jump etc. If you play as the palace guard, you need to obey the commander, and protect the palace from the evil guy (I haven’t come up with a name yet), spies and elf partisans, and go to raid some of those (elves, the villain...). Well if you play as the evil... that means that spies or elvish partisans attack sometimes, the user is his own boss, you can do what you want, you can order your troops to attack the palace and lead them into battle. The game has 4 main zones, 1 - zone of the humans (neutral), 2 - zone of the emperor (where the palace is), 3 - zone of the elves, 4 - zone of the villain... (in the mountains there is an old fort...)
Also, in the game they don’t always kill you but they can chop your arm off and if the user is not cured they will die, also they can poke your eye out but the user may survive but just stop seeing half a screen until they acquire or buy a prosthetic, or if you lose a leg then you will either die or crawl around or roll in a wheelchair or, best case scenario... get a prosthetic. Saving is possible...
P.S.I’ve been waiting for a game like this for tvwo years.
man I love your English delivery, it's kind of unique among YT video essayists. There's not enough variety in the kind of voice I want to choose to bounce around my skull for a whole evening.
According to the Fallout Bible, the Temple of Trials was constructed by the Vault Dweller and most likely was built using the remains of a church.
It's HUGE. It would have taken decades to make most likely considering it's size and craftmanship. I always thought it was a converted movie theater with a "ancient ruins" motif myself. The traps always fail because they're just props; the pit in the corner room is just a painting on the floor with velvet rope separating it; stuff like that.
@@otakon17that implication is that the legends of the hidden temple set made of wood and like styrofoam could outlive the actual building it was in
@@otakon17 I realize this makes me a huge hypocrite considering how much I rag on Fallout 3 for being nothing like what would make sense after 200 years, but the answer is "don't think about it."
@@heinrichagrippa5681 I mean yeah, the MST3K motto holds true for a lot of fiction: It's just a *blank*, I really should relax.
@@otakon17 That said, the whole thing is really stupid and makes introducing people to the first game first almost mandatory, as in my experience nearly every person I tried to get into FO2 first got bored or frustrated and dropped the game before getting out of that dumb temple, or at best shortly afterwards.
The mechanics of the original Fallout may be crude (and I may have rage-quit a couple times after getting trapped because that idiot Ian decided to stand in a doorway and my last save was several hours ago) but there's really something to be said for Fallout having the decency to just give you a pistol immediately from the start rather than make you punch ants and scorpions, then travel to a different town and punch your way through _three_ floors of rats before you even see a handgun. And that's _if_ you see it - it's very easy to miss - in which case, random encounters notwithstanding, you're stuck with that annoying one-shot pipe rifle until The Den.
Another good video from you. I finished Fallout 2 for like two, three times and I’m on my probably fourth run. Two points about the game and sorry for my english, I try my best:
1. In my opinion the writing was better in the first one. Just take Modoc as an example. The game says the villagers attacking the Slugs because of fear. Or at least it tells you in the endings slides if you didn’t help Modoc and the Slugs. Just be real, bro. Your village have problems with the crops because the lack of rain and you see a farm which isn’t affected by this. You send a villager to take control of the farm because nobody is there and from one day to another he disappeared and before that he tells everyone there are ghosts and shit. Nobody knows where he is gone or if he is even still alive. And out of the blue some people which live underground under the farm tells you they didn’t kill your buddy, but don’t know where he is. As a leader (and Jo is the major of Modoc if I remember correctly) you would believe this? Sure, they go too far to kill everyone there, but the reaction to gain control over the farm makes sense in this context. Where did the villagers act out of imagined fear or even because they are racist? And this is just an example for the mediocre writing in the game. Still better as in Fallout 3 or 4, but not on the same level as in the first one. And you also mentioned Frank Horrigan who also doesn’t make any sense tbh. PS: The writing in Vault City and Gecko is much better and makes more sense.
2. Without the powerarmor and some good weapons the game makes so much more fun because you need to be creative when it comes to solve a problem. Even at the hardest difficulty after you get your hands on a powerarmor the game is basically over because only Frank Horrigan, a few Enclave Soldiers, a few robots, and the bounty hunters can still be a pain in your ass. But the rest? Come on, they’re basically free EXP at this point. At least in the first game you only get your hands on a powerarmor at the end of the game, not basically in the middle. And you need to do the quest for the BoS. The difficulty in the game is broken tbh.
I never killed everyone in the game, but I did make an evil unarmed character who also joined the slavers. The RP aspect of it wasn't as good for an evil guy as I hoped, so it sucked. The only really good part was betraying Sulik, since it felt pretty evil. But the mechanics of punching guys out is fun. I also wound up tagging the Throw skill since the game gives you lots of free powerful grenades near the end.
MARCUS
I really wish they would explain how these people lived to their nineties in the most dangerous place in possibly the entire world.
I also love your... Reviews? Whatever these are, because you don't just shit on a game you look at the good the bad and the janky.
Luck and privilege. Even in the post-apocalypse, being a nepo-baby helps a lot.
The explanation of the secret ingredient will help me explain why Underrail is so good to people in the future. Creative problem solving.
Shoutout to tactical rpgs, gotta be my favourite genre of rpg videogame
So what else is tacitcal?
@@danieladamczyk4024 jagged alliance 2 is the best of the genre.
@@raevenrises7595 What genre? How you describie it?
@@danieladamczyk4024 tactical rpg lol
1) Yes, it's a good genre.
2) Fallouts 1 and 2 and Arcanum, are not tactical RPGs. You can employ almost no tactics in FO 1 or 2 since you only control a single character in combat and the rest is AI driven. Fallout Tactics allows for this control, but it's also much weaker on the RPG elements.
52:03 "Interesting how the Brotherhood is different in every game in the Franchise"
Actually its one of the most realistic things about the Brotherhood. When you have ideologically bound people who have no central state or authority they tend to drift. Best example I can think of is the Amish. There are sects that are zero tech, there are ones that all own cell phones and cars- alot of this has to do with their chosen path. Some are still heavily agricultural, others run farmers markets that make tens of millions of dollars annually. Its a matter of practical application of their values to their situation. It doesnt make them "bad" at being that, it just makes them realistic and is a reason they're able to hold on to a non-standard lifestyle seamlessly in a disagreeing world.
Heck, just look at the myriad branches of Christianity. They all spring from the same source but have fought each other in hundreds of conflicts over otherwise pedantic differences.
@@warlordofbritannia Yeah, and it follows the idea of central authority. Catholics largely managed to stay together. Protestants vary wildly because they have a "doctrinal" obligation but no central authority to interpret it. Thats why the catholic branch looks like a neatly divided road and the protestant branch looks like the britles of a hair brush.
Not trying to make a pro-catholic stance here btw I think they're more backwards than most of the protestants, but as far as the ideological argument goes you're absolutely right.
God, this channel is great
There's something oddly comforting about hearing a slav bodybuilder talking about 20 year old RPGs for an hour or so.
For some reason the EDAN kit reminds me of an episode of solar opposites where they’re trapped on the forest so they drop some technology that turns a chunck of the forest into homes with the livestock and trees around somewhat coming to life gives me that kind of feel
I played this so damn much as a kid. Fallout 1 was my first PC game as a kid so these 2 games were like crack to me
The CRPG Book is fantastic.
I personally think the biggest influence of Fallout was the perk system. Fallout 3 adapted it, NV improved on it and when Skyrim came out, perks are literally everywhere.
Love the JA2 reference to Fidel, "I remove them like toilet paper from roll."
"it's critical to the story > I < want to tell" - i love this about your videos. You're telling YOUR story in the game you're showing us.
I love how he shouts: "Justice for Modoc!!!" even though he was the one who caused the downfall :D Anyway - Fallout 2, the game I played a million times, but finished only once... and with a critical bug that prohibited me from viewing the finale slideshow. But I do remember starting and finishing it in one night. Just Fallout 2, a krata browarów and me. Question: Do you, WArlockracy, know anything about Fallout Boneyard? I'm pretty sure that the Obsidian boys talked about it after F:NV, but honestyl I may be suffering from the Mandela Effect in this case. Also - do The Witcher 1 please. Such a great game.
the bloody mess death animation for the vault 13 overseer in the original is my favorite death animation in the series
20 years passed and I did not even know about these outcomes. This truly shows the genious of these games.
I like how the giant heads have made it even into the most recent games as well.
Fun fact. I did a FO2 run where I was a female with maxed out charisma and the sex appeal perk, so when I got to the slavers at the Den, I was able to sleep with the boss in exchange for Vic's freedom. Jesus, the things I had to do to free that man...
Worth it since he's one of the best companions.
56:52 the second GECK is actually there because you can trigger the end game without actually going to Vault 13. Fallout 2 actually has a timer like Fallout 1, if you take too long getting to Vault 13, eventually the camp will be raided by the Enclave anyway starting the final act without you even collecting the GECK. This GECK is there for players who never found it.
Fallout 2 is a full conversion mod the seeks to make the expierience more inline with the fallout 2 expierience
Can tell you got a new mic Warlock, keep up the good work. I greatly enjoy your videos, ideas, and especially your commentary!
It is literally impossible for Fallout to be influential because when it came out it wasn't that popular. Back in those days when a game came out everyone bought it because it was all so new but at the same time not everyone liked the games. Not to say they hated them they just didn't like them. Fallout was loved by a few, liked by even less and a big meh burger for everyone else. We didn't have Let's Plays and online videos we could watch to see if we liked the game first so often times everyone knew about the game and experienced back then. The internet simply galvanized people into groups because who would look for a Fallout forum unless they liked it? Then of course you see thousands of members and go, "Hey everyone must have loved this game!". When in reality those thousands of members are literally it.
hmm. I come from a different perspective. When fallout came out, I was working for a PC game company myself. The boss spent a LOT of his free time playing it, and extolling the virtues and concepts of fallout 1. So it definitely DID have a considerable amount of influence within the game industry even before it was fully released.
The "sneaky method" to get into Vault 8 is to initiate combat, run past the guards into the map exit zone in a single round, and then end combat.