World of Fallout

I really enjoy the Fallout universe. An alternate universe with a fifties vision of the future which then had nuclear bombs dropped on it by the Chinese. The post-apocalyptic retro-future is a brilliant setting and one which I've spent many hours in. I didn't play the original Fallout game as soon as it was released. Back in 1997 the Internet was still quite new and I was just about to head off to university. You still needed to read magazines for your news then and I wasn't paying attention. It wasn't until a few years later that I discovered Fallout, by which point Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics were already released as well.

I don't remember the exact details, but I suspect it was when Bethesda Softworks picked up the license to the Fallout series and began work on Fallout 3 that I first became aware of the franchise, so that would have been around 2006-ish. As I was already a fan of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series I thought I should see what Fallout was all about and immediately fell in love. Of course the graphics were a little dated at that point but the story and game play were excellent and sucked me right in to the world. Fallout 2 was basically more of the same but unfortunately the version I had at the time always crashed at a certain point so to this day I've still never completed that one.

The majority of my Fallout hours have been spent in Fallout 3 and the capital wasteland of Washington DC. The game has a huge playable area and an enormous amount of things to do. Also it's nicer looking as it's the most recent incarnation of the series (until Friday). I've been playing it again this week as the anticipation for Fallout: New Vegas builds. It's a little annoying the US get to play today but here in the UK we have to wait until Friday. I'm sure there's a bizarre marketing reason why games are always released on Fridays here but I don't know what it is.

What's interesting about Fallout: New Vegas is it has not actually been developed by Bethesda (although I think they're still the publishers). The development was licensed to Obsidian to work on while Bethesda plan for Fallout 4. What's interesting about that which non-fans probably don't know is that Obsidian were formed out of the remnants of Black Isle studios who made Fallout 1 & 2 and a lot of the key people are still there. So the franchise has actually gone home in a way. Obsidian seem to be making a name for themselves creating sequels to existing games. They've done Neverwinter Nights 2 & Knights of the Old Republic 2 and are now working on Fallout: New Vegas and Dungeon Siege 3. There is a small problem here though. Both KOTOR2 and NWN2 were not a well received as the originals and their one original IP Alpha Protocol did not sell in particularly large numbers. Even though I enjoyed those games myself you could still see they were not as polished. Basically they seemed a little rushed with a lower budget. So the worry is that this will be the same with Fallout: New Vegas. I've not read a lot of reviews or anything yet as I've been wanting to avoid spoilers so I don't know if the game is an improvement on Fallout 3 or not. I'll find out on Friday, I do have hope though.

The other part of the Fallout story is of course the legal battle over the MMO version Fallout Online. I've not been paying as much attention to this although it's still early days. The last news I remember seeing was that it was mostly settled and Interplay were working on it again, I think that's right. However I was thinking about it earlier and I wonder if it would work as well as an MMO. Part of the feel of Fallout is the loneliness and isolation. It's a nuclear wasteland with an extremely low human population. If you fill it up with thousands of noobs shooting at Radscorpians I don't think it will feel the same unless they make the map particularly huge so people can spread out. If you can't go for two minutes without running into another player it won't feel like a desolate wasteland anymore.

Still Friday and Fallout: New Vegas cannot come soon enough.