Get Hole in Head. Big Hole. VERY Big. Huge! Let's Play Fallout 2!

[Cullen]

It's like a kiss to build a dream on.

The Game

Released in 1998 when I wasn't even in Kindergarten yet, Fallout 2 is naturally the sequel Black Isle Studios' Fallout: A Post Nuclear Roleplaying Game. Fallout 2 is an iterative sequel in the purest sense, HEAVILY reusing existing assets from the previous game plus a few new things here and there to create a bigger and more fleshed out experience. And boy is it, I'd say this is about 4-5 times the amount of game that Fallout 1 is. It is also a complete mess from top to bottom, with a myriad of bugs, terribly balanced gameplay that's arguably worse than the first game, scripting errors out the wazoo that can result in quests breaking in unpredictable ways and quite possibly the worst random encounters I've ever seen in an RPG. And despite all that, there's something about it a'int there? This LP will not be using any mods and will mostly be a vanilla experience, in as much as the Steam version running through its SFall player is accurate to the original release of the game. Based on my experience compared against old guides, the unmodded Steam version is just as broken as the officially patched versions of when the game was new, just with faster load times, so this'll be relatively close to a pure Fallout 2 experience.

The LP

This isn't going to be anything too fancy, we'll mostly be focusing on a single character's playthrough optimized towards clearing as many quests as possible. There are surprisingly few mutually exclusive questlines in Fallout 2, often you can follow an evil questline to its near conclusion where you then roll on your insidious benefactors for a bigger payout plus positive Karma (somehow). Shameless opportunism is the name of the game in Fallout 2. When there are multiple resolutions to a questline that yield the same or similar rewards, I'll do my best to acknowledge or address them as we go. We may occasionally switch off to a separate file to show off more specific things my main character can't properly address. And while I won't be doing too much with it, famously playing as a low intelligence character modifies the progression of the game pretty heavily, so I'll try to fit in at least a bit of that.

The Videos

Part 1, The Chosen Blunder

Full LP Playlist

Like old CRPGs? My Screenshot LP of Lands of Lore may be to your liking. If you enjoy games that are beautiful, broken messes, then Fear & Hunger will also tickle your fancy. Or tickle your something at least.

[Cullen]

Our journey begins with quite possibly the worst tutorial level of all time! The amount of stuff there is to learn in the Temple of Trials is so understated that frankly you'd be better served just reading the manual (assuming you bought this when it was new) rather than slamming your head against this mess of a level. Thankfully once you know what to do and how ineffectual trading blows is in this game compared to Fallout 1, you can dash through here in just a couple minutes, but we're trying to do as much as we can so I figured I'd engage with the level in mostly how it was intended.

If I weren't running Gifted, I would instead take Small Frame and still max out my Agility while reducing my Strength and Endurance to 4 and 3 respectively. Intelligence would have to settle for 7 since that's adequate for most quests that check it while Perception, Charisma and Luck could comfortably chill at 6. This stat spread would still allow me to relatively easily engage and complete every quest, though we'd need to stock up and utilize Mentats more often. More on that later!

If I weren't using Finesse, I'd pick Good Natured instead. A bunch of Skill points in useful skills with only 2 skills we care about actually losing anything is a more than worthwhile trade.

One thing I didn't mention about Endurance is that it also provides bonuses to your Poison and Radiation resistances. I didn't mention it because barely anything in the game inflicts Poison or Radiation on you, and these things do not apply amounts worth worrying about. A slightly more useful aspect of Endurance is that high levels of it increases your Healing Rate stat, allowing you to recover more HP when time passes which can be a handy way to save on Stimpacks while traveling. It's still not worth investing much into the stat for.

I like to tag Unarmed as it's used in several quests down the line and it gives us an immediately useful offensive option for the early game, which is quite hellish if you don't engage in sequence breaks. Many people will point out that you can raise Unarmed to 100% for free, and I'd counter that 100% in a skill is still really unreliable in Fallout 2 in comparison to Fallout 1, and you don't really get reliable hit rates until the 130% marker. Also most of the free raises are in the endgame if you're on a conventional route, and I need a good fighting option now. One nice thing is that most of those free boosts can still be gotten even after you clear the 100% marker with no reduction in the efficacy, which is really nice as it essentially gives us double skill points compared to investing our level up points.

Were I to tag something other than Unarmed, then Lockpicking is the obvious one as that allows us to get a number of goodies in one of the first major areas. I can do without those much more than I could do without being able to actually hit my enemies, so I usually pass on it. You only really need around 80% Lockpicking to clear most of the locks in the game anyway, so the Tag becomes irrelevant for it very early on.

Of the shitty skills, Barter, Gambling and Sneak are easily the most useless and should never be invested in. Gambling and Barter got nerfed HARD in the transition to 2 and take ridiculous amounts of investment to actually do anything. Barter also only discounts the goods you are purchasing, it does not boost the sale value of your own items. Sneak can be used in a few areas, but most places where Sneak is an obvious thing to do usually has independent Perception checks from the NPCs in the area that prevent Sneak from working. It also does not give any bonus to your Steal skill if you're Sneaking while Stealing. I'd toss Throwing on here (heh) as well, but there are actually a couple things Throwing can do that make me hesitate to say it's completely useless. But it's not worth investing in.

You unfortunately cannot skip the Temple of Trials when starting a new game, but you can run through it within a matter of a few minutes if you just run from all the Ants and Scorpions.

If you miss the chance to talk down Cameron, just walk behind him, quicksave, and attempt to Steal the key until it finally works.