A modern classic!

Scratchy black and white images of wars past flicker across the screen as a clunky transistor radio tunes in an old single by the Inkspots. "War. War never changes." With those iconic words, thus begins the best computer game I've ever played. Like the best movies, Fallout pulls you in from the beginning with an all-encompassing combination of art design, soundtrack, and storyline that makes you wish you lived in this Post-Apocalyptic retro-future. Not just for RPG fans, it really deserves to be played by anyone interested in a good story and an unforgettable game experience. In terms of gameplay, this game was quite innovative for it's time. You'll start out with a familiar character creation screen. A few added bonuses like the selection of "perks" (special character traits that usually boost some skills at the expense of others) and specialized skills allow you to cater the gameplay to your preferred style. Would be diplomats should take note, however, that the open-endedness of this design does presuppose a certain amount of combat so don't expect to talk your way out of every situation, no matter how high you boost your negotiation skills. The real choice in gameplay is rather limited to whether you'd prefer using handguns and rocket launchers or spears, knives, and good old fashioned fists. Once this limitation is understood, however, the choices you make here really do affect the game. Most of the game is played from an isometric overhead perspective. Breaks from this view occur only when you travel long distances on a static area map or enter conversation with key characters. The background environments you travel through are rendered in exacting detail and are absolutely gorgeous. They still hold up pretty well compared to more modern games. When the game does zoom in for a headshot during conversations with key characters, it's a real treat. The quality of animation in these sequences is the best in the game. It's not exactly photo-real, but it's very good and the quirkiness of the characters makes up for any lack of detail. Some caveats-- the game can be very violent. There's an option to turn down the graphic violence (or turn it up, if you'd prefer) so it might be this is less of a problem, but it is something to be aware of. Wandering the wastelands, evidently, can be a pretty grissly affair. As I alluded to before, combat makes up a large portion of the game. The story points you're required to carry out will often pit you against armed adversaries with no way to win but to shoot your way out, or in. Once you get past all the combat, however, the intriguing characters you meet and the story developing around them more than makes up for any tedium. Tedium's probably not the right word, because I enjoyed the combat in the game quite a bit. By the end, you'll find yourself fighting the same sorts of armed mutants and giant scorpians a lot though. If that's not your thing, I can reassure you that the storyline is good and worth playing for. There's not much else I can say, I think I covered all the bases. If you can get this game with the original manual and box art, do it! Print manuals and gamebox art seem to be a dying breed, which is a shame because the ones originally included with this game were gorgeous. You can hang them on your wall. Games this complete and original and fun to play don't come along all that often, it really set the bar for computer RPGs at the time it came out and remains to this day a classic.Read full review