The original Fallout, developed and published by Interplay Entertainment, was released on September 30th, 1997. The original game established pretty much everything we would know about the series going forward: the Vaults, Ghouls, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood of Steel. So, how it all started?
Few years before the Great War, some geniuses in the government decided that it might be a good idea to have a backup plan in case the worst should happen. They contracted the Vault-Tec company to build massive self-sustaining underground fallout shelters called “vaults” in order to preserve select segments of the American people centuries after a nuclear conflict. It is later revealed that the body snatchers belong to an organization called the Enclave, the remnants of the United States Government.
In the process of procuring the water chip, the Vault Dweller discovered a plot to unleash an army of grossly mutated humans (Super Mutants) upon the wastes.
84 years after a thermonuclear Armageddon (called “The Great War”), the first Fallout followed the adventures of an intrepid explorer from Vault 13. Fallout’s protagonist, the so-called “Vault Dweller”, emerged from such a vault to find a harsh and blasted wasteland once known as California. Vault 13 needed a new water chip if its inhabitants wanted to continue drinking clean water.
In the process of procuring the water chip, the Vault Dweller discovered a plot to unleash an army of grossly mutated humans (Super Mutants) upon the wastes. So the Vault Dweller would have to endure all the Raiders, Radscorpions, Technophiles, Mutophiles, and other deranged life forms the California wasteland has to offer. Moreover, the army’s leader, The Master, planned to use a Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) to create even more mutants.
Those of you who played other Fallout games have only heard of this guy. The Master is physically horrifying, and he speaks in some freakish sort of cyborg speech, so I'm not really sure if he is "he" or "it".. While Fallout would never get quite this twisted ever again, it would set the standard - Fallout is a mature experience. There's mutilation, extreme violence, drugs, and other risky material, and you used to be allowed to kill children.
The game played in an isometric perspective, and the Role-Playing elements were nicely crafted. If you were to pick very low intelligence, your character could only speak in monosyllabic words. The path itself was rather straightforward but still open-ended, and there was a very easy exploit in the game that let you do basically whatever you wanted. You could even wander out in the middle of nowhere in the desperate hope you'd find an alien spaceship.
Fallout was very fresh, the world it created was one that immediately got everyone's attention, and would effectively remain in the minds of those who played it forever..
While there were several possible endings, official canon holds that the Vault Dweller got the chip and defeated the Master, but was exiled from Vault 13 for his/her trouble – to keep the vault’s children from hearing the heroic tale and leaving the vault as well.
Fallout was very fresh, the world it created was one that immediately got everyone's attention, and would effectively remain in the minds of those who played it forever.. If you haven't already, I would personally recommend you to play the original Fallout, and I'm sure, despite the old graphic, you will deeply enjoy it.
Fallout is considered to be the spiritual successor to 1988 role-playing video game Wasteland. The game was critically acclaimed and inspired a number of sequels and spin-off games, that resulted in such Fallout universe as it is known today, with such a rich lore.
Fallout is considered to be the spiritual successor to 1988 role-playing video game Wasteland. The game was critically acclaimed and inspired a number of sequels and spin-off games, that resulted in such Fallout universe as it is known today, with such a rich lore.
by Angelo Horvath & Henry Lombardi