You know, the one with the car
Fallout 2 has a lot of things that makes it “objectively” better than Fallout 1, however overall I find it to be one of my least favorite Fallout games. Its gritty edgy or edgy sake nature is a turn off for me. It almost seems like a parody of Fallout.
The world of Fallout 2 is over-the-top which is a pro and a con. It’s hyper sexual and much more bleak than the first game’s wasteland but if you have the explorer perk it’s also one of the goofiest wastelands you will visit in the series. Having a radscorpion beat you at chess, or become a famous porn star are just some of the quirky quests you can partake in. Having played the cut content mod most of the locations I found personally the most interesting were cut from the main game. Fallout 2 takes place around 80 years after the first title. You play as the first game’s protagonist’s descendant who must venture out into the wasteland to find a G.E.C.K (Garden of Eden Creation Kit). These kits were originally in vaults so that when vault dwellers come to the service they can build a town and thrive. Although the developers stated that they hated the time limit of Fallout 1 they added a time limit in Fallout 2. The game doesn’t tell you this but you have 13 years to bring the G.E.C.K back. It will feel like a much more pressing matter because after every major story beat you will get a “vision” of your tribe shaman telling you to hurry up. Fallout 2 also can’t decide if the protagonist for the first game is male or female. Not that it should matter in all honesty it should have been left ambiguous. Most of the game states male but in some instances like the game official manual it seems to be left ambiguous on purpose so that every playthrough from Fallout 1 can feel valid.
This game has much less “talking heads” then the previous entry and the heads they picked seem to be totally random. A lot of the heads seem to be recycled as well. It was nice that some of the companions have talking heads in this game, in fact I wish all of them did but I understand that the process of creating a talking head is extremely time consuming. The companions in Fallout 2 were much more interesting and fleshed out then the ones in Fallout 1. You can even have multiple in your party at once, a feature that hasn’t been in a Fallout game sense. Another cool forgotten feature is the ability to drive a car around the wasteland. The highwayman car in Fallout 2 is honestly the best part of the whole game. It makes moving around the overworld much faster and you get to listen to a sweet post rock tune while cruising. It has a 50% chance to avoid hostile encounters. The only downside is that it requires fuel cells, if it runs out you will have to abandon it somewhere on the map and go get more. The fact that this car can handle 6 people including a super mutant, Deathclaw and Robo-Brain is extremely funny to me, looks like a super cramped ride through the desert wastes.
Finally I want to discuss the games big bad, The Enclave. Set up as the boogeyman of the wasteland, the other games made the Enclave seem much more threatening than they ended up being. The opening cutscene to this game even had them shooting down innocent civilians as they left a vault. For the first half of the game they are mysterious and intimidating but as you interact with them more you realize how disorganized and dumb all the members are. For supposedly being great scientific minds they are easy to deceive and can easily be convinced to change their whole philosophy.
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