Review

I'm disappointed in myself. How can I get bored playing Fallout 2? There's something wrong with me, right? Maybe I haven't been getting enough calcium, or vitamin E.

The inventory/party management has improved - it would almost have to, wouldn't it? The whole interface is still way too inefficient for my blood. There's too much wasted screen real estate. But the interface isn't what's giving me attention deficit problems when I play. For some reason, I just don't care about this one. It didn't help that I had to wade through a gajillion rats of varying sizes early in the game. The fun factor increased when I started waxing gangsters, but unfortunately that's when the frustration factor increased as well. I don't think I was pursuing quests out of the reach of my party, but I wound up doing way too much dying/restoring for my taste.

Another contributing factor is that I just don't give a damn about any of the NPCs. Sulik is basically a non-entity. Marcus is an asshole. What are my other potential companions? A dumpy trader. A fragile, old mutant. A pimply, amoral, drug chemist (I was so sick of him after a few minutes of conversation that I gave him an extra hole). Up to where I am in the game, I haven't run across anybody that makes me want to care. And most of the NPCs that aren't potential party members are just as worthless. That bitch president of Vault City, are you kidding me? It was all I could do to not go evil on her. My investment in the plot is about equivalent to Cassidy's: "What's that, you want me to roam the wasteland and kill stuff? Sure, what the hell."

I think I got about 2/3 of the way through the game. I peaked at a walkthrough, and if I'd been really close to the end, which I suspected I wasn't because I was still just mostly doing random stuff, then I would've stuck it out to the end. But as it was, it looked like I had another 15 hours or so, and that meant another 15 hours of frequent save/loads, grumpy party members, and a frustrating interface. Then I recalled that Fallout had kind of broken down for me during it's endgame because of how hard it was to keep party members alive when they're the only ones in combat not encased entirely in metal. The signs were pointing to the same thing for Fallout 2, and in a flash my game libido went south.

I'll keep my savegames. Maybe it'll sound appealing again someday.

[added 20030721 - I found some notes I'd made that were intended for the review]

• Did I mention there were a lot of rats?

• The inventory management mechanism has matured, but only barely. Although - THANK GOD - there is finally legitimate management for party members. That it can be rudimentary AND vastly improved at the same time speaks to how bad it was in Fallout.

• Sometimes the damage seems goofy. Case in point: 2 dmg against a gecko from a point-blank, targeted shot the head. But he scratches me for 8 dmg.

• Some instability problems. Occasional drop-out fatal crashes. Occasional problem with game getting r e a l l y s l o o o w processing a turn during combat.

• AI for party members is better, i.e. they shoot you accidentally much less often. Unfortunately, they don't have the same gun safety concerns for other party members.

• Stupid NPC's still walk right into the force fields.

• The non-linearity is nice. Unfortunately, if you've visited someplace or completed some quests out of the expected order, then often the NPC dialogue is no longer appropriate, and it is detrimental to the immersion.

• The pip boy map could be a lot better. As with the inventory, there is a lot of wasted screen space and additional information portrayed on the map would have been welcome.

• There's too many "culturalisms" in the writing. The writing is plenty witty (and more enjoyable) when it's original. They didn't need to pepper so many references and inuendos in the dialogue. There are X-files references, Animaniacs references, Dr. Lecter references. This is totally unnecessary and distracting, and worst of all - it shatters suspension of disbelief.

• The exploding floor plates are obnoxious. The graphics are too grainy to reliably pick them out. I don't want to play through the game straining to make out a slightly off color portion of a pixelated floor.