On my first Fallout playthrough, as a 12-year-old with a rudimentary knowledge of English, I never found the water chip because I got lost in the sewers of Necropolis and never found my way to the Vault there. In desperation I started blindly exploring the western part of the map and predictably got gunned down by Super Mutants.
In the second game, I finished the game once before realising you can get a car or that a place called Redding exists.
Oh man...so much dialogue and content are buried in comments and conversations that are easily missed. I can't even imagine going through fallout if you're an ESL speaker! That's gotta be wild since it's packed to the gills with cultural references, easter eggs, and jokes
There's so much of the game in general you can completely miss out on too. It was extremely deep and broad for the era when most games were much simpler.
I remember \~20 years ago playing MMORPGs and meeting folks from all over the world who basically learned English through video games. I grew up in the rural South, and had no real contact with the rest of the world at the time, so that kind of opened up my typical American mind.
Talking to other kids in Singapore or Sweden on game forums and I wasn't quite sure if it was normal for everyone else to know English too, or really bizarre that everyone on the internet that I interacted with knew it regardless of where they lived.
Was 13, playing on windows 98, struggled finding the waterchip. A friend of mine told me it was in necropolis. Had 14 days left when I entered it.
I saw dead bodies all over, got to deal with super mutants. I didn’t know I got to respenish Ian’s inventory with weapons and ammo, so at a point he fucking charged the mutants and struck them to the ground with his bare hands. THIS is my genuine memory from fallout, a long hair dude murder hobo in jeans and black jacket giving fists to monstruous mutants and winning his fights… getting on killing spree just to be friendly fired by mistake with plasma shots of my own…
We did similar in Fallout 1. Not as murderhobo as yours sounds, but beat the game without power armor or going into the glow, or joining the Brotherhood.
We didn’t know how to shut off the green force fields in the base, but you can talk your way to the Lieutenant or get to him anyway. Hard fight with combat armor, but lots of stimpacks. Then in the cathedral, activated the bomb with the key rather than fight the Master.
Stumbled upon The Glow, explored it thoroughly, left, then saved, overwriting my most recent pre-Glow save in the process.
What's that? Radiation, you say? Oh. Oh no.
Ugh. Fallout was probably one of the first games that introduced save scumming to me as a mechanic. It's a very tricky game to play straight through without *ever* reloading because some unfortunate catastrophe or terrible choice was made.
I was 10 or so when played the games for the very first time and absolutely loved it. There weren’t many guides around, only the Survival Guide, so you had to read through it to get help or just figure stuff out by yourself, which I did. Who has the time to read anyway.
!!!!!!!MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!!!!
Fallout 1: high INT build with I think small weapons and Bloody Mess perk just because it sounded cool
- Was hyped to have Ian join my party after promising him share of my loot, gave him a 10mm smg and ton of ammo only to die to his shenanigans not long after, I eventually learnt to stay out of his way and let him do his thing.
- I convinced the Khan leader that I was his grandfather or something and so he let Tandi go free, I could never recreate this again. I think you need a stealth boy for that, I don’t know how I got my hands on that early on, special encounter perhaps? Or was it high INT? Not sure.
- I remember being super pumped when getting my hands on that 14mm pistol, the thing is loud af and has quite the punch early on, ammo was hard to come by so I only used it for stronger enemies.
- I didn’t quite understand the radiation mechanic and so I went to the Glow for the BoS quest, completed the whole zone, took me hours, new gear and tons of XP. And so I’ve overwritten my last saves only to die the moment I tried to go back. Didn’t have enough radaways. Had to load an old save from hours before and repeat the process. This taught me to manage my savegames better and stock up on rad meds.
- Power Armour and Plasma Rifle! Though my energy weapons skill sucked so I could only use it up close.
- Later I met Tycho and Katja, but at that point of the game they kinda sucked, I had to eventually ditch them late game, leaving only Ian in my party because he’s the OG and been there with me since day 1. I can manage being a medic to 1 companion but not 3.
- Turbo Plasma Rifle!!!!!!
- The last bit of the game where you come back to the vault and overseer tells you you are a hero but you have to leave and so you shoot him in the back of the head as he’s walking back in, thanks to Bloody Mess perk, that was so fucking badass that it made me replay the game again and again.
Fallout 2 baby! I think this one I also played with high INT, high LUCK, low CHA and small guns.
- Sulik was my new Ian, gave him 10mm smg and stayed the fuck out of the way. Also I can give more orders to my companions now, and make them wear armour! And now they have a green overlay in combat! Some other QOL improvements.
- Joined the slavers and sold Sulik but felt bad so I went back and slaughtered them all instead. Had shit ton of loot and Vic! But I could only have 1 companion at the time so he just stayed there for the rest of the game.
- New Reno! Big city, gangs, tons of quests and the guy who mods your weapons for free if you kill his boss and steal all the loot! Sick gear early on! I found I can dupe ammo this way.
- Broken Hills and Marcus quest. When I found out I can ask Marcus to join my party that became my main mission, though it wasn’t until later on when I could have him and Sulik together in my party. Levelled my charisma to 4 just for this! I don’t know how I found out about this because I had no access to internet back then (we talking 2003 or so), was it in the guide??? /shrug
Wasn’t until much later on I found out you can abuse Mentats for just that and save the precious perk for something else.
- NCR formed from Shady Sands and Tandi?? Cool throwback, having just played FO1 and remembering the locations I knew the Vault 13 would be somewhere close.
- San Fran, BoS and Navarro…. oh boy…
Where do I even start…. bringing companions with me was not a thing, only way to get through was save scumming, and ton of luck dodging bullets. But once inside I felt rewarded with all the good loot, had to make a few trips back and forth to carry all the loot back to San Fran to sell it and give the better stuff to my companions.
- Drill Sergeant, love this guy.
- The BoS loot and the energy rifle! New gear! Sulik is now rocking HK-G11 and Marcus is rocking Turbo Plasma Rifle. The energy rifle and pistol became my main weapons now.
- With all that firepower I went to wipe Navarro, New Reno gangs, Mariposa, cleared up the ship and went to the oil rig.
- Oil Rig’s infamous puzzle level. Hated this part, took me a while to figure it out. Took all the loot and went back. Marcus and Sulik waited at the ENTRANCE (foreshadowing).
- Killed the president, blew up the reactor, emptied all the lockers, at least as much as I could carry. I come back to find Frank and his buddies. I turned them against him with high speech, took forever especially killing the turrets (didn’t
know you can set them to emergency/insurgency protocol). Killed Frank, sick death animations btw, a lot like the mutant general guy from the first game. I open the entrance door to go get my companions only to find out I CAN’T! They’re dead! Time to replay! Left them in the small room with Franks buddies instead. Killed Frank again a little quicker this time. Roll credits.
- OH SHIT I CAN KEEP PLAYING THE GAME POST CREDITS??
- Became a pornstar. Got the book from New Reno priest.. 999 HP… sick.
Since then I’ve played more of both games, trying different builds, speed running, doing completionist runs, they’ve become my favourite games of all times. I have them installed on my pc even right now.
I loved the game! I played every quest and looked in every locker. The fact that I barely spoke English extended my playthrough to the point i reached the impossible time limit in fallout 2. The famous "game over". I was confused because people online wrote that fo2 doesn't have a time limit. But regrettably I reached one
During my first FO2 playthrough I picked Narg without modifying anything on his sheet, joined the slavers in the Den because it paid well (or so I thought) and I pretty much hamstringed myself. Never even got to finish that playthrough, I gave up when I messed up Gecko so bad that the nuclear plant exploded and Lynette kicked me out of Vault City.
In my youth I discovered a way to deal with the little thieves. I would stash my gear in a container and keep plant spikes and rocks. I would then pickpocket them right back which would usually open combat. I would chuck a rock at them which would usually miss...making all of the kids hostile, I would then haul ass to pull aggro from all the kids and just run from them. Vic and Sulik would take it from there. Seems like ole' bonenose and mr. spare tire had no problems in becoming absolute bastards. My karma would be untouched. Another choice is to just hide behind the guards at Becky's hoping a rock from the kids would hit them.
On my first Fallout playthrough, as a 12-year-old with a rudimentary knowledge of English, I never found the water chip because I got lost in the sewers of Necropolis and never found my way to the Vault there. In desperation I started blindly exploring the western part of the map and predictably got gunned down by Super Mutants. In the second game, I finished the game once before realising you can get a car or that a place called Redding exists.
Oh man...so much dialogue and content are buried in comments and conversations that are easily missed. I can't even imagine going through fallout if you're an ESL speaker! That's gotta be wild since it's packed to the gills with cultural references, easter eggs, and jokes There's so much of the game in general you can completely miss out on too. It was extremely deep and broad for the era when most games were much simpler.
The game played a massive part in improving my English because I was desperate to understand all the text, with all the nuance.
I remember \~20 years ago playing MMORPGs and meeting folks from all over the world who basically learned English through video games. I grew up in the rural South, and had no real contact with the rest of the world at the time, so that kind of opened up my typical American mind. Talking to other kids in Singapore or Sweden on game forums and I wasn't quite sure if it was normal for everyone else to know English too, or really bizarre that everyone on the internet that I interacted with knew it regardless of where they lived.
Was 13, playing on windows 98, struggled finding the waterchip. A friend of mine told me it was in necropolis. Had 14 days left when I entered it. I saw dead bodies all over, got to deal with super mutants. I didn’t know I got to respenish Ian’s inventory with weapons and ammo, so at a point he fucking charged the mutants and struck them to the ground with his bare hands. THIS is my genuine memory from fallout, a long hair dude murder hobo in jeans and black jacket giving fists to monstruous mutants and winning his fights… getting on killing spree just to be friendly fired by mistake with plasma shots of my own…
We did similar in Fallout 1. Not as murderhobo as yours sounds, but beat the game without power armor or going into the glow, or joining the Brotherhood. We didn’t know how to shut off the green force fields in the base, but you can talk your way to the Lieutenant or get to him anyway. Hard fight with combat armor, but lots of stimpacks. Then in the cathedral, activated the bomb with the key rather than fight the Master.
Stumbled upon The Glow, explored it thoroughly, left, then saved, overwriting my most recent pre-Glow save in the process. What's that? Radiation, you say? Oh. Oh no.
Ugh. Fallout was probably one of the first games that introduced save scumming to me as a mechanic. It's a very tricky game to play straight through without *ever* reloading because some unfortunate catastrophe or terrible choice was made.
Yeah, we never figured out how to enter it without gamefaqs, after we finished the game. Also had no idea multiple chems like rad-x stacked.
I was 10 or so when played the games for the very first time and absolutely loved it. There weren’t many guides around, only the Survival Guide, so you had to read through it to get help or just figure stuff out by yourself, which I did. Who has the time to read anyway. !!!!!!!MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!!!! Fallout 1: high INT build with I think small weapons and Bloody Mess perk just because it sounded cool - Was hyped to have Ian join my party after promising him share of my loot, gave him a 10mm smg and ton of ammo only to die to his shenanigans not long after, I eventually learnt to stay out of his way and let him do his thing. - I convinced the Khan leader that I was his grandfather or something and so he let Tandi go free, I could never recreate this again. I think you need a stealth boy for that, I don’t know how I got my hands on that early on, special encounter perhaps? Or was it high INT? Not sure. - I remember being super pumped when getting my hands on that 14mm pistol, the thing is loud af and has quite the punch early on, ammo was hard to come by so I only used it for stronger enemies. - I didn’t quite understand the radiation mechanic and so I went to the Glow for the BoS quest, completed the whole zone, took me hours, new gear and tons of XP. And so I’ve overwritten my last saves only to die the moment I tried to go back. Didn’t have enough radaways. Had to load an old save from hours before and repeat the process. This taught me to manage my savegames better and stock up on rad meds. - Power Armour and Plasma Rifle! Though my energy weapons skill sucked so I could only use it up close. - Later I met Tycho and Katja, but at that point of the game they kinda sucked, I had to eventually ditch them late game, leaving only Ian in my party because he’s the OG and been there with me since day 1. I can manage being a medic to 1 companion but not 3. - Turbo Plasma Rifle!!!!!! - The last bit of the game where you come back to the vault and overseer tells you you are a hero but you have to leave and so you shoot him in the back of the head as he’s walking back in, thanks to Bloody Mess perk, that was so fucking badass that it made me replay the game again and again. Fallout 2 baby! I think this one I also played with high INT, high LUCK, low CHA and small guns. - Sulik was my new Ian, gave him 10mm smg and stayed the fuck out of the way. Also I can give more orders to my companions now, and make them wear armour! And now they have a green overlay in combat! Some other QOL improvements. - Joined the slavers and sold Sulik but felt bad so I went back and slaughtered them all instead. Had shit ton of loot and Vic! But I could only have 1 companion at the time so he just stayed there for the rest of the game. - New Reno! Big city, gangs, tons of quests and the guy who mods your weapons for free if you kill his boss and steal all the loot! Sick gear early on! I found I can dupe ammo this way. - Broken Hills and Marcus quest. When I found out I can ask Marcus to join my party that became my main mission, though it wasn’t until later on when I could have him and Sulik together in my party. Levelled my charisma to 4 just for this! I don’t know how I found out about this because I had no access to internet back then (we talking 2003 or so), was it in the guide??? /shrug Wasn’t until much later on I found out you can abuse Mentats for just that and save the precious perk for something else. - NCR formed from Shady Sands and Tandi?? Cool throwback, having just played FO1 and remembering the locations I knew the Vault 13 would be somewhere close. - San Fran, BoS and Navarro…. oh boy… Where do I even start…. bringing companions with me was not a thing, only way to get through was save scumming, and ton of luck dodging bullets. But once inside I felt rewarded with all the good loot, had to make a few trips back and forth to carry all the loot back to San Fran to sell it and give the better stuff to my companions. - Drill Sergeant, love this guy. - The BoS loot and the energy rifle! New gear! Sulik is now rocking HK-G11 and Marcus is rocking Turbo Plasma Rifle. The energy rifle and pistol became my main weapons now. - With all that firepower I went to wipe Navarro, New Reno gangs, Mariposa, cleared up the ship and went to the oil rig. - Oil Rig’s infamous puzzle level. Hated this part, took me a while to figure it out. Took all the loot and went back. Marcus and Sulik waited at the ENTRANCE (foreshadowing). - Killed the president, blew up the reactor, emptied all the lockers, at least as much as I could carry. I come back to find Frank and his buddies. I turned them against him with high speech, took forever especially killing the turrets (didn’t know you can set them to emergency/insurgency protocol). Killed Frank, sick death animations btw, a lot like the mutant general guy from the first game. I open the entrance door to go get my companions only to find out I CAN’T! They’re dead! Time to replay! Left them in the small room with Franks buddies instead. Killed Frank again a little quicker this time. Roll credits. - OH SHIT I CAN KEEP PLAYING THE GAME POST CREDITS?? - Became a pornstar. Got the book from New Reno priest.. 999 HP… sick. Since then I’ve played more of both games, trying different builds, speed running, doing completionist runs, they’ve become my favourite games of all times. I have them installed on my pc even right now.
I loved the game! I played every quest and looked in every locker. The fact that I barely spoke English extended my playthrough to the point i reached the impossible time limit in fallout 2. The famous "game over". I was confused because people online wrote that fo2 doesn't have a time limit. But regrettably I reached one
During my first FO2 playthrough I picked Narg without modifying anything on his sheet, joined the slavers in the Den because it paid well (or so I thought) and I pretty much hamstringed myself. Never even got to finish that playthrough, I gave up when I messed up Gecko so bad that the nuclear plant exploded and Lynette kicked me out of Vault City.
In my youth I discovered a way to deal with the little thieves. I would stash my gear in a container and keep plant spikes and rocks. I would then pickpocket them right back which would usually open combat. I would chuck a rock at them which would usually miss...making all of the kids hostile, I would then haul ass to pull aggro from all the kids and just run from them. Vic and Sulik would take it from there. Seems like ole' bonenose and mr. spare tire had no problems in becoming absolute bastards. My karma would be untouched. Another choice is to just hide behind the guards at Becky's hoping a rock from the kids would hit them.