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- See Fallout series for the series as a whole.
| Fallout | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Interplay |
| Publisher(s) | Interplay |
| Designer(s) | Tim Cain |
| Series | Fallout series |
| Engine | Fallout engine |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Windows, Macintosh |
| Release | September 30, 1997 |
| Genre(s) | Post-apocalyptic RPG |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Fallout is a critically-acclaimed computer role-playing game produced by Tim Cain and published by Interplay in 1997. Although set in the late 22nd century, its story and artwork are heavily influenced by the post-World War II nuclear paranoia of the 1950s. The game is sometimes considered to be an unofficial sequel to Wasteland, but it could not use that title as Electronic Arts held the rights to it, and, except for minor references, the games are set in separate universes. It was also intended to use Steve Jackson Games's GURPS system, but that deal fell through, supposedly when Steve Jackson realized how violent the game was. It is also the prequel to the similarly acclaimed computer role-playing game, Fallout 2.
Plot
Setting
The background to which the game is set is a post-apocalyptic world mostly formed by radioactive wastelands. The world's current state is the aftermath of a nuclear war known as The Great War, which occurred on October 23, 2077 and lasted less than two hours, but reduced everything to ashes. The background to The Great War is the Resource Wars, where the United Nations is disbanded, a plague renders the United States paranoid and Canada is annexed.
The game takes place in 2161 in Southern California and begins in Vault 13, the protagonist's home. Vault 13's Water Chip, a computer chip responsible for the water recycling and pumping machinery, has broken, and the Vault Overseer tasks the protagonist with finding a replacement. He is given a portable device called the "PIPBoy 2000" which keeps track of mapmaking, quest objectives, and various bookkeeping aspects, and sent out into the remains of California.
Characters
- The player or protagonist of Fallout is an inhabitant of one of the government-contracted fallout shelters known as Vaults. In subsequent Fallout games, he is referred to as the Vault Dweller.
Fallout features a diverse selection of various recruitable NPCs can may be found to aid the player in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Unlike in Fallout 2's party member system, there is no limit to the number of NPCs that the player may recruit. NPCs stats and armor remain unchanged through the entire game, only their weapons may be upgraded.
- Ian can be found in Shady Sands and is the first recruitable NPC that the player meets. He is an experienced traveler and gunman. Ian can equip any pistol or SMG, and wears a leather jacket.
- The player first meets Tandi in Shady Sands. She is bored with the town, and yearns for excitement. She is eventually kidnapped by the Khans, and the player may choose to rescue her. After she is rescued, she will follow the player anywhere as long as she does not return to Shady Sands, thus functioning like a recruitable NPC, although not officially.
- Dogmeat is the only nonhuman NPC that the player may recruit. Dogmeat can be found in Junktown, outside of Phil's house, preventing him from entering his house. The player may attract Dogmeat by either wearing a leather jacket or feeding the dog an iguana-on-a-stick. After that, Dogmeat will follow the player. Dogmeat also re-appears in Falout 2 as an easter egg and a recruitable NPC.
- Tycho is a former Desert Ranger, now living in Junktown. He can wield rifles, shotguns, and spears.
- Katja may be recruited in the church in the Boneyard. She can wield unarmed weapons, pistols, and SMGs.
Story
The player initially has 150 days before the Vault's water supply runs out. This time limit can be extended by 70 days if he commissions merchants in the Hub to send water caravans to Vault 13. Upon returning the chip, the Vault Dweller is then tasked with destroying a mutant army that threatens humanity. A mutant known as "The Master" (previously known as Richard Grey) has begun using a pre-war, genetically engineered virus called Forced Evolutionary Virus to convert humanity into a race of "Super Mutants", and bring them together in the Unity, his plan for a perfect world. The player is to kill him and destroy the Military Base housing the supply of FEV, thus halting the invasion before it can start.
If the player does not complete both objective within 500 game days, the mutant army will discover Vault 13 and invade it, bringing an end to the game. This time limit is shortened to 400 days if the player divulged Vault 13's location to the water merchants. A cinematic cut-scene of mutants overrunning the vault is shown if the player fails to stop the mutant army within this time frame, indicating the player has lost the game. If the player agrees to join the mutant army, the same cinematic is shown.
In version 1.1 of the game, the time limit for the mutant attack on Vault 13 is eliminated, allowing players to explore the game world at their leisure.
The player can defeat the Master and destroy the Super Mutants' Military Base in either order. When both threats are eliminated, a cut-scene ensues in which the player automatically returns to Vault 13. There he is told that he has changed too much and his return would negatively influence the citizens of the Vault as a negative role model. Thus he is rewarded with exile into the desert, for, in the Overseer's eyes, the good of the vault. There is an alternate ending (available if the player has the "Bloody Mess" trait, or has accrued significant negative karma throughout the game) in which the Vault Dweller draws a handgun and shoots the Overseer after he is told to go in exile.
Game locations
Vault 13
Vault 13 is the Vault Dweller's home. The first quest in the game is to find a replacement for the Vault's broken water purification chip. None of the inhabitants are permitted to leave the vault, under the leadership of the Vault's overseer, who is dedicated to protecting and sheltering them. Vault 13 was probably located under Mt. Whitney, as it roughly matches the location of the mountain.
Vault 15
Vault 15 was once occupied by an enormous quantity of people of very different ideologies and cultures. The overcrowding and the diversification led to the leaving of four different groups, three of them forming each one raiding group - the Khans, the Vipers and the Jackals - and one of them settling down and founding Shady Sands. The Vault 15 is now lair to several mutated animals. This is (probably) the Dweller's first attempt to find a water purification chip, although it is nowhere to be found here.
Shady Sands
A group of former Vault 15 inhabitants have founded a small village between Vault 13 and Vault 15. Shady Sands is ruled by Aradesh, who asks the Vault Dweller to help get rid of the radscorpions who are threatening the village. Here, the Vault Dweller can recruit Ian, an experienced traveler and gunman, to his group. It is also possible to "recruit" Tandi, the daughter of Aradesh, by failing to return her to town after her kidnapping. An obelisk in the center of the city has the inscriptions "In remind of hope and peace".
Khans Raider Camp
A clan of raiders known as the Khans, led by a man named Garl, have set up a camp near Shady Sands. Tandi, Aradesh's daughter, is eventually kidnapped by the camp's raiders, and it is up to the Vault Dweller to save her, choosing from a variety of methods.
Junktown
Surrounded by junk heaps of cars, Junktown is run by the shop owner Killian Darkwater, who is also the sheriff and grandson of the town's founder. Junktown's gates are closed in the night, and drawing weapons is not allowed except in self-defense. Gizmo, the town's casino owner, wants Killian dead, because he "cramps business". The player can choose to either help Killian or Gizmo. The Vault Dweller can also recruit Tycho, a ranger, and Dogmeat, a wild dog, to his group.
Hub
As a major commercial town, The Hub is the most quest-filled location in the game. It is divided in several districts, each one controlled by a powerful group of people: the Water Merchants, the Crimson Caravan and the Far Go Traders. Here the Vault Dweller can send water merchants to Vault 13 to extend the time limit in which he must find the water chip. The Hub's approximate location corresponds to the Barstow city, in California.
Necropolis
A destroyed city landscape built upon the remains of Bakersfield, overrun by ghouls and containing a vast sewer system, Necropolis is the aftermath of Vault 12, whose actual purpose was to keep the doors open regardless of the condition. This led to the transformation of all inhabitants into ghouls after the Great War. The ghouls were divided in three groups: the surface dwellers, who are the most numerous, paranoid about non-ghouls and outsiders; the Glowing Ones, heavily irradiated ghouls, rejected even by their own kind; and the so-called underground ghouls, living in the city's sewers. Here the Vault Dweller finds the water chip while observing an unusual super-mutant invasion, which may hold serious threats to the world's safety.
Boneyard
The Boneyard, also known as The Angel's Boneyard, is the remaining portion of the Los Angeles cityscape. This is one of the later towns that the Vault Dweller may visit, receiving upgrades for end game equipment: the Turbo Plasma Rifle and Hardened Power Armor. He may also recruit Katja here.
The Glow
Formerly known as West Tek Research Facility, The Glow is now all radiated ruins. Here were conducted experiments on laser and plasma weapons, and were developed the FEV and the Power Armor. The Glow is controlled by a mainframe called ZAX. It is the Vault Dweller's objective to retrieve a piece of evidence for the Brotherhood of Steel, which is a holodisk left by a fallen Brotherhood of Steel member, that proves he entered the location. The difficulty in the assignment is that The Glow is highly radiated, and the player must consume anti-radiation drugs to survive. A player unaware of the zone's radiation level will find himself dying mysteriously to radiation poisoning.
Mariposa Military Base
The former Military Base is where researches were conducted on the FEV (those were previously conducted in the West Tek Research Facility). This is where new Super Mutants are created.
The Cathedral
The Children of the Cathedral organization is a facade for the Master's plans. Beneath the Cathedral lies a secret vault, wherein the Master resides.
Reception
Fallout made #4 on the list of top games of all time produced by PC Gamer in 2001. It made #55 on the list of the top 100 games ever by IGN (IGN's List), and is usually placed in similar lists. It also won the award of RPG of the Year from GameSpot. It has received four 10s, eleven 9s, two 8s from user reviews at GameFAQs, mostly applauding the gameplay and story elements while only denouncing the dated graphics. It is notable that all review scores for Fallout are consistently high and none are lower than an 8, with the only criticism involving its graphics.
Influences and references
Fallout draws much from 50s pulp magazines, science fiction and superhero comic books. For example, computers use vacuum tubes instead of transistors; energy weapons exist and resemble those used by Flash Gordon; the Vault Dweller's main style of dress is a blue jumpsuit with a yellow line going down the center of the chest and along the belt area, though the main character's appearance changes while wearing armor (the number on the back might differ from the Vault the dweller represents, but it's usually "13", or in other cases, missing).
Fallout's menu interfaces are designed to resemble advertisements and toys of the same period; For example, the characters sheet cards and perks available, look like those of the board game Monopoly. The lack of this retro stylization was one of the things the Fallout spin-offs were criticized for, as retro-futurism is a hallmark of the Fallout series.
The Fallout games are famous for their Easter eggs. While the first game mostly had references to the 1950s and 1960s pop-culture (Doctor Who, Godzilla), in Fallout 2 there are many references to Star Trek, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python.
In Fallout, your character meets an NPC named Tycho, who mentions that he is a Desert Ranger and, under the right conditions, will talk of his grandfather, who told him about Fat Freddy, a character from Las Vegas in Wasteland, implying that his grandfather was one of the PCs in Wasteland, who were named the Desert Rangers. Although the time frame of Wasteland is completely different from Fallout, and Fallout game designers deny that Fallout 1 or 2 takes place in the same universe as Wasteland, this is one of many references to the events and the style of Wasteland in the Fallout series, which is why Fallout is sometimes regarded as the spiritual successor to Wasteland.
There are many references to post-apocalyptic science fiction, such as Mad Max or the infamous post-apocalyptic musical and detective movie Radioactive Dreams. One of the first available armors is a one-sleeved leather jacket that resembles the jacket worn by Mel Gibson in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. A player wearing this jacket can get a dog, named Dogmeat for Mad Max’s dog, to join the party in Junktown (in Fallout 2 if the player character damages Dogmeat an NPC with the curious name of Mel will show up to defend the dog).
Like Fallout 2, many of the references to other material can be found in random encounters, which include a vanishing TARDIS à la Doctor Who complete with sound effect, and a massive footprint that resembles Godzilla's, referring to the short animation "Bambi Meets Godzilla". Another reference comes in the form of a quotation; in the Old Town district of The Hub, an insane man named Uncle Slappy wanders in perpetual circles calling out non-sequiturs, one of which is "Let's play Global Thermo-Nuclear War!", a reference to a similar line in the 1983 film WarGames. The game also refers to other pieces of fiction, including Robin Hood.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles. |
- "War. War never changes" is the famous phrase uttered in the intro of Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics by Ron Perlman. The phrase is one of the foremost iconic catch-phrases of the game.
- The song that plays during the intro sequence is titled "Maybe" and is sung by The Ink Spots. The original theme was going to be "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire", also by The Ink Spots, but apparently Black Isle was unable to get the license, so it was scrapped.
- The song "Maybe" that appears in the opening cinematic of Fallout is originally by Allan Flynn & Frank Madden and is copyright 1935 by Robins Music Corporation.
- As the camera zooms out of the television screen, we find out the television set is a "Radiation King" This is a reference to the television Grampa and Homer Simpson find in their old farmhouse in Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy
- While most of the towns in Fallout are not present in the real world (Junktown, Shady Sands, The Hub, etc), Los Angeles is in its correct place. The town of Necropolis is officially described as being the city of Bakersfield, although some fans have compared it to maps and found that it more accurately resembles Barstow.
- Killing Deputy Kenny in The Hub causes the message "Oh my god, they killed Kenny! You bastards!" to appear, an obvious reference to South Park.
- Holding the Shift key and clicking the Credits button in the beginning game menu brings up a series of humorous/lewd comments by members of the Interplay team that developed the Fallout games.
- "RadAway", in Fallout, was a medicine that lowered the game characters level of irradiation. Supposedly it worked by bonding itself with radiation particles making it possible for them to "pass" through your system, as some form of radiation chelation therapy.
- "Mentats", a drug in the series that temporarily raises your intelligence, is named after the Mentat, an intelligence-enhanced being in the Dune universe, and the Mentos candy, which the drug physically resembles.
- "Brahmin", the two-headed cows, share their name with the Hindu priestly caste. The possibility of this name usage being purely coincidental is diminished when considering that cows are sacred in Hinduism. The name is also similar to the Brahman breed of cattle which are found in India.
- An early version of the game had a Goodies folder on the CD; this included a Windows screensaver and 1994 prototype version of the game.
- Three key members behind Fallout (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson) left Interplay in 1998 and founded Troika Games. Troika was closed down in February 2005 due to financial problems.
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura by Troika Games has a reference to the two-headed cows (Brahmin) that appeared originally in Fallout. They are said to come from a "far away desert".
- Among the random encounters, it is possible to find a crashed UFO containing alien corpses. A Ray-Gun weapon and a portrait of Elvis can be found near the ship, and the phrase "You always knew they existed!" appears on screen.
- In another random encounter the player can come across the remains of a whale and a pot of petunias, both of which seem to have fallen out of the sky, referencing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- "Nuka Cola" is a cola in a blue Coca-Cola shaped bottle, in the game, obviously a reference to Coca-Cola. In fact, at one point when 4 bottles of Nuka Cola are received as a reward for completion of a quest, they are simply called "cokes".
- The Red Ryder BB Gun makes an appearance in both series of Fallout. This is a reference to the classic computer game, Wasteland, on which the Fallout series itself is loosely based. In turn, Wasteland was referencing the Christmas movie A Christmas Story (1983), in which the movie's main character wants nothing more for Christmas than a Red Ryder BB gun.
- At one point in Fallout's development, in Junktown, if the player aided local sheriff Killian Darkwater in killing the criminal Gizmo, Killian would take his pursuit of the law much too far to the point of tyranny, and force Junktown to stagnate. However, if the player killed Killian for Gizmo, then Gizmo would help Junktown prosper for his own benefit. The game's publisher did not like this bit of moral ambiguity and had the outcomes changed to what they are now.
- A .223 Pistol can be received from completing a quest given by a man named Irwin. The quest involves ridding Irwin's old farm of brigands, after which Irwin gives the player the pistol. The graphical representation of this weapon is an almost exact replica of the pistol used by Blade Runner's protagonist, Rick Deckard. The .223 pistol makes use of .223 FMJ ammo, which is usually reserved for rifles in the game.
- Fallout feature well-known actors as NPCs voice-talent. Notable appearances include:
- Richard Dean Anderson as Killian
- David Warner as Morpheus
- Tony Shalhoub (credited as Tony Shalub) as Aradesh
- Brad Garrett as Harry
- Keith David as Decker
- Richard Moll as Cabot
- Ron Perlman as Narrator
References
External links
Official
- Fallout Product Help - Interplay Self Help
- Fallout Hints and Cheats - Interplay Self Help
- Mirrors of the original Fallout website: Internet Archive No Mutants Allowed
Fan Sites
Others
- The Vault, a Fallout wiki
- Fallout at MobyGames
- Fallout at IMDb
- FIFE, an open source Fallout-like engine
- The Nearly Ultimate Fallout Guide
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