Fallout 2 - Definition and Overview

Fallout box art

Fallout is a computer role-playing game produced by Tim Cain and published by Interplay in 1997. The game is an unofficial sequel to Wasteland, but it could not use that title as Electronic Arts held the rights to it. There were two role-playing titles in the series and one squad-based tactical combat spinoff: Fallout and Fallout 2, both RPGs, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, respectively. Fallout 3 (codenamed "Van Buren") was in production in 2003, but was cancelled by Interplay when Black Isle, the RPG unit was closed. The Fallout franchise was acquired by Bethesda Softworks in 2004, and a new Fallout 3 project is currently in development.

Storyline

The background story of Fallout involves a "what-if" scenario where the United States tries to devise fusion power resulting in a hegemonic United States that has less reliance on petroleum. However, this is not achieved until 2077, shortly after an oil drilling conflict off the Pacific Coast pits the United States against China. It ends with a nuclear exchange resulting in the post-apocalyptic world the game takes place in—although it is said in Fallout 2 that nobody knew who sent the first missile.

Fallout

The protagonist of the first game is a descendant of those that managed to find solace in government contracted fallout shelters known as the Vaults. The year the game takes place is 2161, somewhere in Southern California in Vault 13. In it, the Vault's Water Chip, which controls the water recycling and pumping machinery for the vault, has malfunctioned. This results in the player character being selected to leave the vault with minimal supplies, a handgun and a small amount of ammunition to find a new water chip. Eventually, the main character learns of a graver threat to not only his vault, but the rest of civilization. A mutant by the alias "The Master" has begun using pre-war genetic modifiers to create a race of specifically designed mutants. The player defeats The Master and returns to his Vault. There, he is told that he has changed too much, and that his return would damage the isolated Vault world. He is exiled.

Fallout 2

The second game takes place 80 years after the first. It tells the story of the original hero's descendant and his or her quest to save their primitive tribe from starvation by finding an ancient environmental restoration machine known as the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit," or GECK.

The player does eventually acquire a GECK by finding Vault 13, less its former human inhabitants. He returns to find his village captured by the military remnants of the US Government known as "The Enclave." The player, through a variety of means, boards an ancient oil tanker to The Enclave's main base, an offshore oil derrick.

It is revealed that the Vault 13 citizens were captured as well. The Enclave has created an airborne disease to destroy all living people on Earth, in order to allow Enclave citizens—the only people not mutated at all—to take over the planet.

The player frees both his village and Vault 13 from Enclave control, and destroys The Enclave entirely.

The fact that in both games the character is raised in an isolated community works nicely with the plot structure, allowing the character to be as ignorant about the game world as the player would be and explaining why the map you start with is almost completely unexplored.

Mutations And Their Causes

According to the "Fallout Bible" (a series of files answering questions from players by designer Chris Avellone), it is interesting to note that most of the mutations in Fallout and Fallout 2 are not because of radioactive fallout. According to the Fallout plot, most of the mutations the player experiences are because of a pre-War biological serum, named the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). Some players feel that this reliance on FEV paints the story with a genetic engineering theme that a 50s-viewpoint game should not have.

Fallout 2 (European version) box art

Influences

Fallout draws much from 50s Pulp magazine science fiction and superhero comic books. For example, computers have no transistors and use vacuum tubes; energy weapons exist and resemble those used by Flash Gordon. The Vault Dweller's main style of dress is a blue skintight jumpsuit with a yellow line running down the center of the chest and along the belt area, though the main character's appearance changes while wearing armor.

Fallout also draws minor influences from other sources. One of the initial armors available in the game is the one sleeved leather jacket, which bears a resemblance to the jacket worn by Mad Max in The Road Warrior. Also, the armor featured on the cover of the game is powered armor.

The Fallout games are famous for their Easter Eggs. While the first game mostly had influences to the 1950s and 1960s pop-culture (Dr Who, Godzilla), in Fallout 2 there are many references to Star Trek, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and Monty Python; some fans of the first game think that there are too many of them in the sequel.

Trivia

• The song that plays during the introductory sequence in Fallout is entitled "Maybe" and is sung by The Ink Spots. The song in Fallout 2 is "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" by Louis Armstrong.

• Three key members behind the original Fallout (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson) left Interplay in 1998 and founded Troika Games.

• "RadAway" was a medicine in the original Fallout that lowered the game character's levels of radiation contamination. Supposedly it worked by bonding itself with radiation particles making it possible for them to "pass" through your system.

• In Fallout 2, the reason why Vault 13's water chip malfunctioned is explained, although it can be interpreted as merely a joke. In a random encounter, the Fallout 2 character discovers a portal similar to the Guardian of Forever. If he enters it, the player is transported to a small section of Vault 13, devoid of any other characters. When he interacts with the only computer he can, he breaks the Water Chip, ensuring the events of the player's past continue as they should.

• Fallout games feature well-known actors as NPC voice-talent. Notable appearances include Richard Dean Anderson (as Killian) and David Warner (as Morpheus) in Fallout, and Michael Dorn (as Marcus the Mutant and Special Agent Frank Horrigan) in Fallout 2.

External links

• Fallout Wiki (http://wiki.duckandcover.cx)
• Duck and Cover (http://www.duckandcover.cx) — Comprehensive Fallout fan site
• No Mutants Allowed (http://www.nma-fallout.com) — Another comprehensive Fallout fan site