Fallout 2

Notice: Don’t forget to check out our latest update to this post, “The New Vegas Fallout“!

Thanks to Bethesda’s ingenious assessment of the gaming market in first pushing out the Oblivion-style Fallout 3 to an established player base (fans of the original are known to be a bit on the grumpy and sour side, for good reason too, and therefore harder to market to), it’s not at all difficult to get a strong double act vibe from the very latest screenshots of Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas.

Taking on some geographical and narrative cues from the unreleased Van Buren project, the game seems tailor-made for the fans of the original RPGs, these rather eccentric shots (do check out those psychedelic super mutant shades on the left) also suggest that the game looks to be playing the stooge to Fallout 3’s straighter man.

The comedy act parallel doesn’t end there: Chris Avellone, lead designer of New Vegas, is also responsible for the New Reno area of Fallout 2, a sprawling, teeming mob haven that players could complete at their own pace – and become prizefighting champions and porn stars while doing so. At the time of release, however, the area drew some criticism from fans of the original, mostly for being overly colourful and idiosyncratic. An Edge interview with Avellone acknowledges this fact:

…Avellone’s contributions to Fallout 2 – most notably the entire, Mafia-controlled city of New Reno, with its bountiful side-quests and other distractions – were warmly welcomed, even if some Fallout zealots considered them tonally out-of-step. ¹⁾http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/chris-avellone-dark-knight

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http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/chris-avellone-dark-knight

GOG.com have recently published two interesting Fallout editorials, full with commentary from original Black Isle Studios game designers: Tim Cain, Chris Taylor and Chris Avellone.

The first editorial discusses Fallout 1, and touches – among other diverse topics – on how the team ultimately settled on devising SPECIAL instead of utilizing GURPS or D&D, and how the team came to settle on the more transparent register:

“We picked up on the ‘less is more’ storytelling style, and didn’t fully explain everything,” confirms Taylor. “I was a little shocked to read some of the message boards when the game came out and players were filling in the bits that we purposely–or accidentally–left vague.”

Against this backdrop I find it very intriguing that Chris Avellone should have put out the incredibly interesting Fallout Bible series that detailed the game intricately and specifically. Elsewhere, Cain hits the nail on the head in describing the game, ultimately, as a binary construct: “…funny but dark, nostalgic but futuristic, optimistic but depressing”.

The second article, then, deals with the sequel.

Unsurprisingly, none of the interviewees find the second game better than the first – Taylor cites a lack of consistency, Cain believes both its humour and pacing were ‘off’. Lead designer Avellone nonchalantly states the obvious, that Interplay was already hurting badly for funding and that the staff at hand was simply too limited to produce a bug-free game of such immense scope in a ridiculously modest timeframe of 10 months, and endearingly reminisces how the team worked on

“…the boxing ring rules in New Reno literally in the last hour before the game was scheduled for its final submission.”

In an interesting turn of events, the latter piece also notes that Chris Taylor is still working on Interplay’s “V13” Fallout MMO – despite co-creator Jason Anderson recently leaving the project for inXile – and Bethesda delivering a claim to Interplay over an assumed breach of contract. Taylor has commented on the topic as late as April 15th, in a thread on the Interplay forums, stating, “We are still developing Project V13.”

For those interested, there are other editorials available on the site.

From New Reno to New Vegas

GOG.com Fallout Editorials

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