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Fallout 2 is a computer role-playing game published by Interplay in 1998. The second game takes place 80 years after the first Fallout, in 2241•. It tells the story of the original hero's descendant and his or her quest to save their primitive tribe from starvation by finding an ancient environmental restoration machine known as the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit," or GECK•. Although featuring completely new game world, stories, and adventures, the game mechanics are almost identical to Fallout, with few new features.
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Character Attributes
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Attributes
Fallout 2, like its predecessor, uses a character creation system called SPECIAL. SPECIAL represents Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. These are the seven basic attributes of every character in the game. They are used to determine the skills and perks of the given character.
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Skills
There are 18 different skills in the game. They are ranked from 0% to 300%. The starting values for those skills at Level 1 are determined by the player's 7 basic attributes, but most of those skill would fall between 0% and 50%. Every time the player gains a level, he will be awarded skill points to be used to improve his skills. The player may choose to specialize in 3 of the 18 skills. A specialized skill will improve at twice the normal rate.
6 combat skills: Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Unarmed, Melee Weapons, Throwing.
8 active skills: First Aid, Doctor, Sneak, Lockpick, Steal, Traps, Science, Repair.
4 passive skills: Speech, Barter, Gambling, Outdoorsman.
Books found throughout the gameworld can also improve some of those skills permanently; although books are scarce early game. Some skills can be also be improved while having certain items equipped. (E.g. equipping a lock pick would improve lock picking skills.) Stimulants can also temporarily boost player's skills; however, they often have adverse effects such as addiction and withdrawal.
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Traits and Perks
At character creation, the player may choose 2 traits for his character. Traits are special character background, most traits have profound effects on gameplay. A trait normally contains one beneficial effect and one detrimental effect. Those traits are optional. They are listed under perks in the character sheet.
Perks in the game are special elements of the level up system. Every 3 levels, the player would be granted a perk of his choosing. Perks grant special effects, most of which are not obtainable via normal level up in the game, such as letting the player have more turns per round. Unlike traits, perks are designed to be purely beneficial.
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Setting
At the end of original Fallout, the hero Vault Dweller was exiled by the Vault Overseer for his prolonged exposure to the outside world. Unable to return home, the Vault Dweller with a group of willing companions traveled far north. Eventually they started their own tribal village called Arroyo in what is modern day Oregon.• Decades have passed since the original Fallout, and the Vault Dweller has died.
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Story
During 2241, Arroyo suffered the worst drought on record. Faced with the difficulty, the village elders asked the direct descendent of the Vault Dweller, referred to as the Chosen One, to perform the quest of retrieving a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK) for Arroyo. The GECK is a device that can create thriving communities out of the post-apocalyptic wasteland.[ ]
The player, assumes the role of the Chosen One, is given nothing more than the Vault Dweller's jumpsuit, RobCo PIPBoy 2000 handheld device, a Vault 13 water flask, and some cash to start on his mission.
The player eventually acquires a GECK by finding Vault 13. Vault 13 was devoid of the majority of its former human inhabitants. He returns to find his village captured by the remnants of the United States government known as "The Enclave". The player, through variety of means, activates an ancient oil tanker. Steering this oil tanker, the player is able to reach Enclave's main base on an offshore oilrig.
It is revealed that the dwellers of Vault 13 were captured as well, to be used as test subjects for FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus). Vault 13 was supposed to be closed for 200 years as part of an Enclave experiment
The player frees both his village (Arroyo) and the Vault 13 dwellers from Enclave control, and destroys the Enclave's oilrig. In the ending, the inhabitants of Vault 13 and Arroyo villagers create a new prosperous community with the help of the GECK.
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Characteristics
The fact that in both Fallout and Fallout 2 player characters are raised in an isolated community works with the plot structure, allowing the character to be as ignorant about the game world as the player would be and explaining why the map the character starts with is almost completely unexplored.
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Recruitable Characters
Like the original Fallout, there are numerous NPC in Fallout 2 that the player can recruit to assist in his or her quest. Unlike the original Fallout, these characters are more customizable in combat AI and equipment. These characters can level up as the player gains more experience. Additionally, these NPCs have skills, such as repair and doctoring, which would come into play if the player is lacking in such skills. The appearance of the recruitable NPCs (except for their weapons) are at their default in-game visuals despite being issued different suits of armor and instructed to wear them.
The number of party members the player can recruit is based on the player character's charisma statistics. Most recruits also have personal preferences or qualifications for the player. The majority of the recruits require the player to have good karma standing and to have not committed atrocious acts such as becoming a slaver.
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Places
Fallout 2 takes place in what is modern day Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Nevada. Several locations in Fallout 2 are based on modern day cities. They include Klamath Falls, Modoc, Redding, Reno, and San Francisco.
Other town names are often derived from real-world references.
Arroyo, player-character’s home village, could be named for any number of different locations ranging from parts of Arizona, to different areas of Mexico.
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People and Culture
There are other cultural references, typically in the form of dialogue which occur throughout the game. Some examples are more overt than others.
The Hubologists that the player encounters in Fallout 2 resemble the modern Scientologists in many respects, including the presence of "celebrities" named Juan Cruz and Vikki Goldman, likely meant as references to real life scientologist Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Also, in a datadisk given to the player at one point in the game, it outlines the hubologists view of the afterlife, which is almost exactly the same as Scientology•.
A NPC found in the town of Gecko named "Gordon of Gecko", reference to Gordon Gekko. The player can undertake a quest from him, and the dialogue leading up to this paraphrases Gordon Gekko’s "Greed is Good" speech from the film Wall Street.
In the mining town of Redding, one of the Mines is run by a character named "Dangerous Dan McGrew" - the victim in Robert Service's well-known poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew". The name also was Rimmer's alias in the Western AI game featured in the Red Dwarf episode "Gunmen Of The Apocalypse."
There are recurring posters of Maynard James Keenan of the band Tool. They were taken from the liner notes of their album, Undertow, and appear in almost every town/city in the game.
In New Reno on poster on the wall of the Shark Club (the first right from the entrance) is from the japanese BDSM themed movie "Tokyo Decadence".
The reason why Vault 13's water chip malfunctioned is "explained" in a special encounter, in which the player discovers a portal similar to the Guardian of Forever. If the player enters it, he is transported to a small section of Vault 13, devoid of any NPCs. When he accesses the only computer he can, he breaks the Water Chip, ensuring the events of the player's past continue as they should in a predestination paradox.•
Vault 8 received several thousand water chips from an accidentally mixed-up shipment that sent Vault 13 the secondary GECK.
When entering the town of Redding, one of the musical selections that play whenever a town is entered is drawn from the TV miniseries The Stand--specifically, a track titled "Project Blue."
The NPC Vic is probably named after the restauraunt owner Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr who was nicknamed Trader Vic.
There are two extremely mutated mice in Fallout 2. One of them is named "Brain". Brain hides in the city of Gecko and is planing a world domination. This is a reference to the Pinky and the Brain cartoon series.
In a random dialogue initiated by the NPC Cassidy, he mentions that his father named him after a character from a comic book. His name alludes to Proinsias Cassidy, the Irish vampire from the comic book Preacher.
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Items
Many of the in-game items and weapons and other entities that the player encounters are based on real-life objects.
"Nuka Cola" is a blue cola in a coke bottle in the game, obviously a reference to Coca Cola•.
"Mentats", a drug in the series that temporary raises your intelligence, is named after the human computers Mentat in the Dune universe.
The Red Ryder BB Gun makes an appearance in both series of Fallout•. This reference is inherited from the classic computer game Wasteland, on which the Fallout series is loosely based. In turn, Wasteland was referencing the movie A Christmas Story In the movie, the main character wants nothing more for Christmas than a Red Ryder BB gun.
The Chrysalis highwayman is modelled after a gas turbine engine series of cars that Chrysler produced starting in the 1950's.
After beating the game, if the player visits the priest in New Reno, the priest will give the player the Fallout 2 Hintbook•. This item permenantly boosts all of player's stats and skills to max. The book is ironically labelled with the text "Well, THIS would have been good to have at the beginning of the goddamn game." This item is obviously a reference to the official Fallout 2 strategy guide•
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Trivia
The song that plays during the intro sequence is Louis Armstrong's "A Kiss to Build a Dream On". The Fallout intro song "Maybe" reappears in the sequel, being sung by a minor character as floating text.
Holding Shift and clicking the Credits button in the beginning game menu brings up a series of humorous/lewd comments by members of the Interplay team that developed the Fallout games.
"War. War never changes" is the famous phrase uttered in the intro by Ron Perlman. The phrase is one of the foremost iconic catch-phrases of the game.
Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin, secretly included one of his tracks from his album Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2. Untitled Disc 2 Track 6 "Windowsill" can be heard clearly in some parts of the game. He may have done this under the pseudonym EFX which appears in the game credits. It is unknown why he chose to do this, and what relationship he had with Black Isle, or even if such a relationship existed. Some speculation runs that James did not choose to include the song on the soundtrack, but rather it was chosen for him by Black Isle.
The music playing when you enter the town of Redding changes, but one track you will hear comes from the soundtrack to the TV miniseries The Stand from the book by Stephen King, which was about a world devastated not by nuclear war, but by a supercharged version of the flu. The name of the track is titled, "Project Blue," and it played at the beginning of the miniseries. The artist's name is W.G. Snuffy Walden.
Serbian alternative rock band Jewy Sabatay recorded their album "Nihilist" in their home studio called Vault 013, naming it after the game and their hometown dial number.
In the online webcomic, Ctrl+Alt+Del, one of the main characters, Ethan, had to be taken to a psychologist to remove all traces of Fallout 2 from his mind, because he wouldn't ever stop playing it. Whenever he is reminded of Fallout 2, he goes on a rampage to find a copy of the game and play it, because he is obsessed with it. He has also, at numerous times, tried to acquire a beta copy of Fallout 3.
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