Fallout 2 | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Developer(s) | Black Isle Studios |
Publisher(s) | Interplay Productions [a] |
Producer(s) |
|
Designer(s) |
|
Programmer(s) | Jesse Reynolds |
Artist(s) |
|
Writer(s) | Mark O'Green |
Composer(s) | Mark Morgan Rick Jackson |
Series | Fallout |
Platform(s) | |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Role-playing |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Fallout 2 (also known as Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game) is a 1998 role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Productions. It is a sequel to Fallout (1997), featuring similar graphics and game mechanics. The game's story takes place in 2241, 79 years after the events of Fallout and 164 years after the atomic war which reduced the vast majority of the world to a nuclear wasteland. [4] The player assumes the role of the Chosen One, the grandchild of the first game's protagonist, and undertakes a quest to save their small village on the West Coast of the United States. [5]
Fallout 2 was well received by critics, who praised its gameplay and storyline, and considered it a worthy successor to the original Fallout. Its bugs and limited updates to the formula of the first game attracted criticism. In 2008, it was followed by a sequel, Fallout 3 , developed by Bethesda Game Studios. [6]
Fallout 2 is a role-playing video game. The player begins by selecting one of three pre-made characters, or one with player-customized attributes. The protagonist, known as the Chosen One, has seven primary statistics that the player can set: strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. Each statistic may range from one to ten, provided their sum does not exceed 40. Two other statistics set during character creation are skills and, optionally, traits. All 18 skills are learned abilities, their effectiveness determined by a percentage value. Their initial effectivenesses are determined by the primary statistics, but three can be tagged and given a 20% boost. Traits are character qualities with both a positive and negative effect; the player can pick up to two from a list of sixteen. During gameplay, the player can gather experience points through various actions. For gathering experience points, the player will level up and may increase their skills by a set number of points. Every three (or four with the Skilled trait) levels, the player can optionally grant themselves a special ability, or perk. [7] There are 69 perks (plus ten "special" perks which can only be obtained through specific means), and each has prerequisites that must be met. For example, "Pickpocket", which makes it much easier to steal from people by removing the debuffs from pickpocketing them in their line of sight and from stealing larger items, requires the player to be level fifteen, have an agility of eight, and have a steal skill of 80%.
In Fallout 2, the player explores the game world from a trimetric perspective and interacts with non-player characters (NPCs). Characters vary in their amount of dialogue; some say short messages, while others speak at length. Certain characters are illustrated with 3D models, known as "talking heads", during conversations. The player can barter with other characters by trading unwanted valuables or by using gold coins produced by one of the game's major factions as currency. The game has fourteen companions that the player can recruit for exploration and combat and can be configured via a menu to determine their inventory as well as their preferred weapons, armor, and combat style, except for dog characters. Unlike the previous game, it is possible to continue playing after beating the main storyline, and the player has thirteen in-game years to explore the world before the game automatically ends due to engine limits.
A new mechanic is reputations, which dictates how the game's various factions and settlements view the player character. Having positive reputation with an entity will usually result in rewards from leaders of the community, as well as opening up new questlines or ways to complete certain quests that might not have been available otherwise. Negative reputation will result in many of the community's members shunning the player and refusing to work with them and may even cause them to turn hostile on sight.
There are two main quests where completion is required, although the first one can be mostly skipped. The main quests have no time limit unlike the first game, but the player's reputation in their hometown will slowly decrease the longer they take to complete the first quest. Some characters give the player side quests; if the player solves them, they receive experience points and occasionally a reward in the form of money and/or goods. The player can utilize the PIP-Boy 2000, a portable wearable computer that tracks these quests. Many quests feature multiple solutions; they can often be completed through diplomacy, combat, or stealth, and some allow solutions that are unconventional or contrary to the original task. Based on how they completed quests, the player can earn or lose karma, which determine how others treat them. The player's actions dictate what future story or gameplay opportunities are available and the ending.
Combat is turn based and uses an action-point system, the number of action points that are available depending on certain perks and the player's allocation in the agility statistic. During each turn, multiple actions may be performed by the player until they run out of action points. Different actions such as attacking, moving, reloading, interacting with objects mid-combat, and accessing the inventory consume different amounts of points. The player can rapidly switch between two equipped weapons, and may acquire a diverse range of weapons, many of which can target specific areas of enemies. Melee (hand-to-hand) weapons typically have two attacks: swing or thrust. If the player has equipped no weapon, they can punch or kick.
When a player uses up all of their action points, they end their turn and enemies start theirs. If the player survives, they have their action points restored. Injuries and poisons can reduce the number of action points semi-permanently until the player heals themselves with stimpaks, doctor's bags, from an actual doctor, or by resting for a substantial period of time.
Organized crime, prostitution, and slavery are major elements of the setting.
In 2241, the primitive town of Arroyo suffers the worst drought on record. Faced with the calamity, the village elder asks the direct descendant of the Vault Dweller, referred to as the Chosen One, to retrieve a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK) for Arroyo. The GECK is a device that can create thriving communities out of the post-apocalyptic wasteland. [5] The player, assuming the role of the Chosen One, is given the Vault Dweller's jumpsuit, a RobCo PIPBoy 2000, a Vault 13 water flask, a spear and some cash to start on their mission.
After a year of searching and following clues in various major settlements, the Chosen One finds Vault 13, the supposed location of a GECK, devoid of the majority of its former human inhabitants and instead inhabited by genetically modified intelligent Deathclaws. The Chosen One returns to find their village captured by the remnants of the United States government known as "The Enclave". The Enclave terrorizes the inhabitants of the continental United States with their supreme arsenal of advanced technology. The Chosen One, through various means, activates an ancient oil tanker and engages its autopilot, thus allowing them to reach the Enclave's main base on an offshore oil rig. It is revealed that the dwellers of Vault 13 were captured as well, to be used as test subjects for the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) recovered from the excavation of Mariposa Military Base, which was destroyed by the Vault Dweller eighty years prior. Vault 13 was supposed to be closed for 200 years as part of a government experiment, making them perfect test subjects. The Enclave modified the FEV into an airborne disease, designed to attack any living creatures who weren't inoculated or in airtight environments. With all genetic impurities removed, the Enclave (who remain protected from radiation) could take over and recolonize the Earth.
The Chosen One frees both their fellow villagers from Arroyo and the Vault 13 dwellers from Enclave control and subsequently destroys the Enclave's oil rig, killing Dick Richardson, the President of the United States, and Frank Horrigan, a cybernetic super mutant working for the Enclave's Secret Service. In the end, the inhabitants of Vault 13 and the Arroyo villagers usher in a new era of prosperity to the dying village with the help of the GECK, turning Arroyo into a flourishing city.
Tim Cain announced Fallout 2 via a Usenet posting in December 1997, and wrote that it "should take 11 months". [8] Cain later clarified that the sequel entered development before the launch of Fallout, as the previous game had "really caused a buzz in the studio about six months before it was released". [9] According to co-founder of Black Isle Studios Feargus Urquhart, Interplay was experiencing financial difficulties at the beginning of 1998, which according to Urquhart, gave the studio "basically nine months to make the whole game". [10] In order to reach this deadline, many staff were taken from the Planescape: Torment development team and made to work on Fallout 2. Additionally, the development team were also made to work crunch time to make up for a lack of manpower and time. [11]
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
GameRankings | 87% [12] |
Metacritic | 86/100 [13] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
AllGame | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Computer Gaming World | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
GamePro | 5/5 [16] |
GameSpot | 8.8/10 [17] |
IGN | 8.9/10 [18] |
PC Gamer (US) | 89% [19] |
Computer Games Strategy Plus | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Next Generation | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
PC Gaming World | 9.5/10 [22] |
Fallout 2 received positive reviews, according to the review aggregators Metacritic and GameRankings. It was a finalist for "PC Role-Playing Game of the Year" during the AIAS' 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, along with nominations for role-playing game of the year awards from Computer Gaming World , GameSpot , CNET Gamecenter , and IGN ; all were ultimately given to Baldur's Gate . [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] The editors of GameSpot wrote, "A bigger, better Fallout, this sequel to 1997's RPG of the Year was populated with more characters, more places to go, and more things to do." [24]
Positive reviewers praised the gameplay, storyline, and worthiness as a successor to the original Fallout, while detractors criticized frequent bugs and lack of improvement over the first game. Daniel Morris of GamePro praised the mix of action and character interaction as well as the non-linear gameplay. [16] IGN applauded the developers for the sizable game world, the writing, and "not fixing something that wasn't broken." [18] Game Revolution praised the game's depth and storyline but criticized its graphics and interface. [28]
Fallout 2 was a commercial success. [29] In the United States, it secured third place on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for the first week of November 1998. It was absent from the weekly top 10 by the following week, but debuted at #20 for the month of November overall. [30] [31] Fallout 2 sold 123,000 copies in the United States by March 2000. GameSpot writer Desslock considered these "very good sales, especially since the overall [worldwide] figures are likely double those amounts." [29] According to Keza MacDonald of Eurogamer , Fallout 2 was unsuccessful in the United Kingdom; she noted that the game and its predecessor totaled just over 50,000 sales combined in the region. [32]
In 2013, GamesRadar ranked Fallout 2 number 68 on their list of top video games of all time. [33] That same year, IGN ranked it as the 28th best role-playing video game ever. [34] In 2015, PC Gamer ranked the game #3 on its list of best RPGs of all time. [35]
In retrospect, the designers of Fallout 2 expressed reservations about the game, with Chris Avellone calling it "a slapdash project without a lot of oversight". Retro Gamer described Fallout 2 as "an impressive feat, yet still one that rubbed Fallout diehards the wrong way." [9]
Fallout 2 was the first game to feature same sex marriage, [36] and one of the first games to include LGBT representation in general. [37]
Planescape: Torment is a 1999 role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment for Windows. The game takes place in locations from the multiverse of Planescape, a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy campaign setting. The game's engine is a modified version of the Infinity Engine, which was used for BioWare's Baldur's Gate, a previous D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms.
Fallout is a media franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games created by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, at Interplay Entertainment. The series is set during the first half of the 3rd millennium, and its atompunk retrofuturistic setting and artwork are influenced by the post-war culture of the 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. Fallout is regarded as a spiritual successor to Wasteland, a 1988 game developed by Interplay Productions.
Icewind Dale is a role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and originally published by Interplay Entertainment for Windows in 2000 and by MacPlay for the Macintosh in 2002. The game takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting and the region of Icewind Dale, and uses the 2nd edition ruleset. The story follows a different set of events than those of R. A. Salvatore's The Icewind Dale Trilogy novels: in the game, an adventuring party becomes enlisted as a caravan guard while in Icewind Dale, in the wake of strange events, and eventually discover a plot that threatens the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale and beyond.
Darkstone: Evil Reigns is an action role-playing video game developed by Delphine Software International for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation. In 2014, the French publisher Anuman Interactive launched a remake available on iPad, iPhone and Android, with the cooperation of the original game's author Paul Cuisset.
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal is a 2001 expansion pack for the role-playing video game Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. It adds a multi-level dungeon called Watcher's Keep to the game and completes the main plot. There are several new weapons, a higher level cap, a further refined Infinity graphics engine, and new class-related features and magical skills. The novelization of the game was written by Drew Karpyshyn and released in September 2001.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a 2002 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the third installment in The Elder Scrolls series, following 1996's The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, and was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox. The main story takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the Dunmer province of Morrowind, part of the continent of Tamriel. The central quests concern the demigod Dagoth Ur, housed within the volcanic Red Mountain, who seeks to gain power and break Morrowind free from Imperial reign.
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven, commonly abbreviated to Might and Magic VI or simply MM6, is a role-playing video game developed by New World Computing and published by 3DO in 1998. It is the sixth installment in the Might and Magic series, the sequel to Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen and the first of the Might and Magic titles to take place on the same planet as Heroes of Might and Magic. It continues the storyline of Heroes of Might and Magic II, and takes place at the same time as Heroes of Might and Magic III in the series chronology. The game was compared favorably to its peers, role-playing video games such as The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Critics praised it for its non-linear, user-friendly premise, an interactive, detailed game world and a polished, bug-free initial release. A Limited Edition version of the game was also released, including a cloth map of Enroth, a strategy guide and the first five games of the series on CD-ROM. It was followed by three sequels, with Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor directly continuing the story arc.
The Temple of Elemental Evil is a 2003 role-playing video game by Troika Games. It is a remake of the classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure The Temple of Elemental Evil using the 3.5 edition rules. This is the only computer role-playing game to take place in the Greyhawk campaign setting, and the first video game to implement the 3.5 edition rule set. The game was published by Atari, who then held the interactive rights of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
Arx Fatalis is a 2002 action role-playing game developed by Arkane Studios and released for Windows and Xbox. The game is played from a first-person perspective and is set on a world whose sun has failed, forcing the above-ground creatures to take refuge in caverns. The game's mechanics include the use of mouse gestures to cast spells. Arx Fatalis received mostly positive reviews from critics but was not commercially successful. In 2011, Arkane Studios released the game's source code under the GNU General Public License (GPL), though the game assets remain proprietary.
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is a turn-based real-time tactical role-playing game set in the post-apocalyptic Fallout universe. Developed by Micro Forté and published by 14 Degrees East, Fallout Tactics was released on 14 March 2001 for Microsoft Windows. It had sold over 300,000 units worldwide by 2008.
Baldur's Gate is a role-playing video game that was developed by BioWare and published in 1998 by Interplay Entertainment. It is the first game in the Baldur's Gate series and takes place in the Forgotten Realms, a high fantasy campaign setting, using a modified version of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) 2nd edition rules. It was the first game to use the Infinity Engine for its graphics, with Interplay using the engine for other Forgotten Realms-licensed games, including the Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment. The game's story focuses on a player-made character who travels across the Sword Coast alongside a party of companions.
Fallout is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions, set in a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic world, decades after a nuclear war between the United States and China. Fallout's protagonist, the Vault Dweller, inhabits an underground nuclear shelter. The player must scour the surrounding wasteland for a computer chip that can fix the Vault's failed water supply system. They interact with other survivors, some of whom give them quests, and engage in turn-based combat.
Fallout 3 is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the Fallout series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring the rights to the franchise from Interplay Entertainment. The game marks a major shift in the series by using 3D graphics and real-time combat, replacing the 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat of previous installments. It was released worldwide in October 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny is a 1997 action role-playing game, second installment of the Lands of Lore series, a sequel to Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos. It brought about a drastic change in gameplay style from its predecessor, opting away from the original's D&D turn-based style in favor of more action elements. A sequel, Lands of Lore III, was released in 1999.
Borderlands is a 2009 action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K. It is the first game in the Borderlands series. The game was released worldwide in October 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, with a Mac OS X version being released on December 3, 2010 by Feral Interactive. The game's story focuses on a group of four "Vault Hunters", who travel to the distant planet of Pandora to search for the "Vault", which is rumored to contain advanced alien technology and other priceless riches. The hunters piece together clues to find the Vault while battling the savage wildlife of Pandora, local bandits that populate the planet, and ultimately banding together to prevent the Atlas Corporation and its privately funded paramilitary forces from reaching the Vault first.
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy real-time strategy computer game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows in 1995 and Mac OS in 1996 by Blizzard's parent, Davidson & Associates. A sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the game was met with positive reviews and won most of the major PC gaming awards in 1996. In 1996, Blizzard released an expansion pack, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, for DOS and Mac OS, and a compilation, Warcraft II: The Dark Saga, for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The Battle.net edition, released in 1999, included Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, provided Blizzard's online gaming service, and replaced the MS-DOS version with a Windows one.
Emil Pagliarulo is an American video game designer who works at Bethesda Game Studios.
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity is a hybrid point-and-click adventure and action-adventure video game developed and published by Sierra Studios in 1998. It was the eighth official game in the King's Quest series, the first and only game in the main series where the main character is neither King Graham nor a member of his family, as well as the first in the series to use a full 3D engine as opposed to the 2D cartoon or pixel style of the earlier games and the first to omit the sequel numbering system on box artwork and title screen.
Fallout 4 is a 2015 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fourth main game in the Fallout series and was released worldwide on November 10, 2015, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game is set within an open world post-apocalyptic environment that encompasses the city of Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts region known as "The Commonwealth".
Fallout 76 is a 2018 action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is an installment in the Fallout series and a prequel to previous entries. Initially set in the year 2102, players control a resident of Vault 76 who must venture out into the dilapidated open world known as "Appalachia" in order to re-colonize the region, and uncover a mysterious plague that has killed off its inhabitants.