Online Series: Fallout (Amazon, April 10, 2024)

NyQuil

Big F$&*in Q
Jan 5, 2005
99,053
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Ottawa, ON
Isn't there several of these games? Wondering if you needed to play them all to get the story or do each have their own story?

They are pretty independent.

Fallout 1 and 2 are isometric perspective RPGs with turn based combat and a loose connection between them.

Fallout 3, 4 and NV are 1st person shooter type RPGs with bullet time to slow things down. There are Easter Eggs and lore connections between them but nothing concrete.

I like all of them, personally. A lot of people get worked up comparing them but I enjoyed every single one.

Have not played Fallout 76.

If you like a good story and a more adventure style pace, you'll like the original two games.

If you prefer a more action-oriented approach, you may prefer the latter ones.

The last 3 games as Bethesda/Obsidian games have been extensively modded.

It can be a bit of a learning curve to learn how to mod your games effectively but they can make a tremendous difference in gameplay and enjoyment if you have the time and the patience.
 

HoseEmDown

Registered User
Mar 25, 2012
17,539
3,754
They are pretty independent.

Fallout 1 and 2 are isometric perspective RPGs with turn based combat and a loose connection between them.

Fallout 3, 4 and NV are 1st person shooter type RPGs with bullet time to slow things down. There are Easter Eggs and lore connections between them but nothing concrete.

I like all of them, personally. A lot of people get worked up comparing them but I enjoyed every single one.

Have not played Fallout 76.

If you like a good story and a more adventure style pace, you'll like the original two games.

If you prefer a more action-oriented approach, you may prefer the latter ones.

The last 3 games as Bethesda/Obsidian games have been extensively modded.

It can be a bit of a learning curve to learn how to mod your games effectively but they can make a tremendous difference in gameplay and enjoyment if you have the time and the patience.

Fallout 4 is free on game pass so I'll download that and give it a try. I want to start or at least play the first one to get that perspective but it's like 25 years old, graphics have to be shit.
 
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Lehnerd Skinnerd

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Peak Goggins was in Justified IMO.
Good to know, that’s one of those shows that I’ve heard good things about but never got around to watching. I’ll have to make it a priority.

Fallout 4 is the only game in the series that I’ve actually played. Spent many hours on that game, and wondered why I hadn’t gotten into the series sooner. I’m not much of a gamer anymore though.
 
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Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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Isn't there several of these games? Wondering if you needed to play them all to get the story or do each have their own story?
Like Nyquil said, each has its own story. They pretty much all start with a new protagonist who's grown up in an underground nuclear bunker (or "vault") and never seen the outside world until something compels him or her to venture out for the first time. There are hundreds of such vaults, so potentially hundreds of stories, and each game is a new one. This show appears to follow that trend. So, no, you likely don't need to have played any of the games or be familiar with their stories to watch this series.
Fallout 4 is free on game pass so I'll download that and give it a try. I want to start or at least play the first one to get that perspective but it's like 25 years old, graphics have to be shit.
The graphics of the first two games are 2D and, I think, hold up relatively well compared to the early 3D games. What some modern gamers will probably have a harder time adjusting to are the point-and-click controls and turn-based combat. They're old-fashioned CRPGs and very different from the modern, first-person RPG/shooter hybrids that Fallout 3 & 4 are. Also, the games can be unforgiving and the UI clunky even for old school gamers. They're good games if you can get into them, though.
 
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Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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Fallout 76 (the online-only and most recent Fallout game) will be available for free to Amazon Prime subscribers on April 11th, the same day that the show drops. By going to primegaming.com, Prime subscribers can get a code to download the game from the Microsoft Store on PC or the Xbox store on Xbox. Since it's a one-time purchase (i.e. not subscription) game, this should mean that you'll be able to keep the game even after the Prime offer ends.
In celebration of the upcoming premiere of the Amazon Original series Fallout streaming on Prime Video, Prime Gaming will offer Fallout 76 to members on both Xbox and PC when the series premieres on April 11.
Prime Gaming Blog: Prime Gaming April Content Update: Fallout 76, Chivalry 2, Faraway 2: Jungle Escape and More
 
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Rodgerwilco

Entertainment boards w/ some Hockey mixed in.
Feb 6, 2014
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The wife is obsessed with Fallout, so I was watching her play some New Vegas over the weekend to get in the zone for the show.

Looking forward to it. The casting looks great and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it. I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long for a Bethesda property to get made into a series. You'd think they would have re-sold Skyrim as a series/movie 5 or 6 times by now lol
 

Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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Classic Amazon. Set a delivery date only to repeatedly move it up to get you excited about receiving your item early.
 
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NyQuil

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Jan 5, 2005
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I finished it up last night.

Some of my initial takes:

1. It was nifty how they revealed that Cooper Howard was essentially the inspiration for the Fallout Boy including his thumbs-up pose.

2. The attention to detail for virtually every prop, from the wallpaper, to the lamps, to the doors, to the guns, to the armor, to the vertibirds, door controls, the Vault doors, everything was spot on. The same wood panelling in the overseers office. It's an incredible achievement to bring a virtual setting to life with such care.

3. I like how there is relatively little interaction with the plots of the other games. Better to establish its own canon without interference. Easter Eggs and some basic comparisons (leaving the Vault to find your Dad etc.) are fine, but they've managed to keep it its own thing.

4. The New Vegas teaser was a nice touch - having Robert House there as the representative of RobCo during the Vault Tec meetings is interesting. The young actor doesn't quite have the gravitas of the character in NV, which would be my only gripe, but it's understandable given how much time has passed since then. Robert House is one of those larger-than-life Captains of Industry with dubious morals and pure capitalistic inclinations that tend to be fascinating character studies (much like Andrew Ryan in Bioshock).

As far as the timing is concerned, the show is supposed to take place in 2296, which is 15 years after New Vegas (2281). It makes it a bit tricky because they'd potentially have to choose a canon ending to New Vegas to work with. But the elimination of Shady Sands and the fall of the NCR gives them a lot of room to play with politically. The House ending would probably be the best one for this show to work with, and I suspect the linkage between Vault Tec and House/RobCo was established for the viewer during the big meeting of the corporate entities and could explain why Lucy's Dad is headed there for safety.

5. The allusions to the "game" are wink-wink nudge-nudge but done in an amusing and bearable way. When Lucy is describing her Science and Speech skills to the council as a potential spouse, it earned a well-deserved smile.

6. The amount of CGI employed was restrained and bearable. It's hard to do fantastic creatures on a TV series budget but I think they did well enough.

7. It's a rare achievement to be equally vested in all of the storylines, even the pre-apocalypse setting. Lucy, Maximus, Cooper and Norm all had me equally interested in what they were doing, which was refreshing when it switches point of view - you don't feel annoyed or frustrated that you're going to a different angle.

8. The Brotherhood of Steel is always an interesting faction to interpret. There is so much latitude, from noble knighthood fighting evil monsters and helping the common folk, to xenophobic fascists who want to hoard all technology and eliminate anything they deem as abnormal from the face of the Earth.

It looks like Nolan and Joy are pushing more towards the latter type of behaviour, which to be honest, is more in keeping with the general outlook of the faction. Elder Owyn Lyons in FO3 was more of the exception to the rule, where he prioritized the health, safety and well-being of the people.

9. The soundtrack is so important for the show. It's crucial to establish that this is an alternate future where 40s and 50s pop culture remains ascendent despite all the technological advancements in atomic technology. Hearing a lot of the same songs brings you instantly back to your gaming experiences. There was even a moment where they played the Fallout 3 intro music, which was goosebumps inducing.

10. The show is gory, much like the game, but uses humour to try and make it a more bearable watching experience (much like the games themselves, or shows like the Boys). I think they hit that balance well. There are still shocking moments of horror that remind the viewer of how horrifying the Wasteland can be.

11. I had assumed that Dr. Wilzig was a synthetic humanoid like in Fallout 4 (and one character in Fallout 3). I wonder if that was meant to be a bit of a red herring given that he wasn't re-animated or put into a new body, but rather he was just the carrier of revolutionary tech. The head was a pure MacGuffin but it was sort of morbidly funny to see how deteriorated it had become after being swallowed, immersed in radioactive water, and carried across half the Wasteland.

12. The big reveal, that Vault Tec was responsible for starting the war, is a good one. It's a new revelation for the series, but unlike "Somehow, the Emperor returned", there's a cold, dispassionate logic to it. Imagine these people, spending their lives and endless resources building these rat traps, only never to use them? I think it speaks to the horrifying consequences of internal group think, where you can rationalize or even convince yourselves that the greatest crimes against humanity are actually in the interest of humanity after all.

13. It will probably be worth watching again to catch all the little details. I enjoyed how Cooper's ad for Vault-Tec involved the same scientists who were later seen barricading doors in Vault 4 because their utopian scientific community had essentially run amok.

14. I'll admit that Vault 31-32-33 being responsible for Shady Sands was a twist I saw coming very early on. But I figured that it was related to the desire to recolonize the surface without interference, not that it was more of a personal vendetta from Lucy's Dad.

15. Bad acting can ruin a science-fiction show, because you have to believe that the character believes where and when they are. I think all four main characters did a fine job.

Lucy had the difficult job of being naive yet inspiring and not whiny and silly, and I think she manages that crafty bit of acting.

Walter Goggins saunters through the show effortlessly, essentially playing two characters at the same time. A lot of parallels between Cooper and Nolan and Joy's "Man in Black" in Westworld - the morally ambiguous gunfighter with an intriguing past.

Maximus has the toughest role to play really - a warrior who is unsure of himself, eager to prove but lacking in skill and experience. It's an inherently unlikeable character, particularly at the beginning, but there's definitely room to grow. He has a bit of that Finn in SW role of being hapless for humour's sake on occasion. To be honest, he's probably the hardest character to believe because the BoS would have mustered him out if he was that incompetent. At the same time, the line about "we always have more squires" sort of shows how much they value their individual lives. The ludicrously giant golf bags that the squires tote around further adds to their lack of value.

Norm is a fun character in that he's clearly clever and intelligent while small and unassuming, lacks commitment to the high-minded ideals of Vault life, but also possesses a seeming dark side to his nature that might be cultivated in an intriguing way down the road. A character to watch over subsequent seasons (I hope).

16. One of the funny and unavoidable challenges of Fallout properties is the fact that they typically depict the Wasteland as cluttered and destroyed beyond recognition (with a few exceptions). This despite the fact that hundreds of years have passed. No one since has bothered with a broom. The odds of finding anything in a pre-war hospital after 3 or 4 generations of people have scrounged the heck of any obvious location for supplies are pretty remote, but they go looking anyway.
 
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Mikeaveli

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Sep 25, 2013
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Edmonton, AB
Seeing some stuff on Twitter about this and most of it sounds pretty terrible tbh as a fan of the franchise. I will check it out soon to see for myself but it seems like yet another Fallout project where the writers have no idea about anything regarding the lore or they just don't care enough to respect it.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
49,053
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Seeing some stuff on Twitter about this and most of it sounds pretty terrible tbh as a fan of the franchise. I will check it out soon to see for myself but it seems like yet another Fallout project where the writers have no idea about anything regarding the lore or they just don't care enough to respect it.
Couple of things.

First, I've been with Fallout since the beginning. I waited with baited breath for news about "Van Buren" before it was cancelled. I downloaded fanmade patches for Fallout 2 to add all of that wacky shit that was cut.

Who gives a shit about the "respect to the lore"? The lore gets shot up every new sequel and it's fine. It's an interesting setting with a world to play in.

Fans are the worst. The MCU era has somehow made them more insufferable then they were prior. Before "fans" of IP were generally happy to get anything. MCU made them spoiled brats.
 

NyQuil

Big F$&*in Q
Jan 5, 2005
99,053
65,311
Ottawa, ON
Seeing some stuff on Twitter about this and most of it sounds pretty terrible tbh as a fan of the franchise. I will check it out soon to see for myself but it seems like yet another Fallout project where the writers have no idea about anything regarding the lore or they just don't care enough to respect it.

Coming from someone who played the original Wasteland on Commodore 64 and every Fallout game since (aside from Fallout 76), it’s the respect for the setting and the lore that makes it stand out.

I can’t believe there are fans of the series trashing the show. What the hell did they expect? Every tiny detail to match up exactly?

So far I’ve seen an issue about where a city is located and an issue around timeline continuity and both are relatively inconsequential.

The dedication to the look and feel of the series is astounding. The reception has been almost universally positive.

Sometimes you have to trust the mainstream opinion over the neckbeards who are looking for things to gripe about.

8.7 for IMDb. 93% RT.
 
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Blender

Registered User
Dec 2, 2009
52,604
46,338
Coming from someone who played the original Wasteland on Commodore 64 and every Fallout game since (aside from Fallout 76), it’s the respect for the setting and the lore that makes it stand out.

I can’t believe there are fans of the series trashing the show. What the hell did they expect? Every tiny detail to match up exactly?

So far I’ve seen an issue about where a city is located and an issue around timeline continuity and both are relatively inconsequential.

The dedication to the look and feel of the series is astounding. The reception has been almost universally positive.

Sometimes you have to trust the mainstream opinion over the neckbeards who are looking for things to gripe about.

8.7 for IMDb. 93% RT.
I finished watching it and it was really good, and I'm a huge fan of the series and New Vegas especially as well.

There are some questionable lore issues and I'm really interested to see how they explain which ending from NV is canon in season 2.
 

NyQuil

Big F$&*in Q
Jan 5, 2005
99,053
65,311
Ottawa, ON
I finished watching it and it was really good, and I'm a huge fan of the series and New Vegas especially as well.

There are some questionable lore issues and I'm really interested to see how they explain which ending from NV is canon in season 2.

Having House there at the Vault Tec meeting makes me think he was the winner.

Either that or they simply make it abandoned and leave it ambiguous.

I think people might get mad if they make up a completely new ending.
 

NyQuil

Big F$&*in Q
Jan 5, 2005
99,053
65,311
Ottawa, ON
6EEAC76C-E5D6-47E6-9A76-FC9C2AB83EEC.jpeg
 

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
99,202
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Las Vegas
I never got around to playing Fallout 1-3 or 76 but I did play all of New Vegas and 4 and the DLCs.

I couldn't be on Twitter without people spoiling New Vegas stuff, but I do not care about the lore decisions they made. Not one bit.

Watched the first episode last night and thought it was terrific. Some of the action in the Raider attack was a little goofy but it was still fun to watch.
 
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Blender

Registered User
Dec 2, 2009
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46,338
I never got around to playing Fallout 1-3 or 76 but I did play all of New Vegas and 4 and the DLCs.

I couldn't be on Twitter without people spoiling New Vegas stuff, but I do not care about the lore decisions they made. Not one bit.

Watched the first episode last night and thought it was terrific. Some of the action in the Raider attack was a little goofy but it was still fun to watch.
I actually like how much they are leaning into the style of the games (at least 3, 4, and NV). One of the opening scenes even has Lucy choosing her stats and starting skills.

Minor spoiler from an episode you haven't watched:

For example The Ghoul is very clearly using VATS and has the bloody mess perk, he also started eating some food after getting hit to get a health regen boost. It felt exactly like in the games when you walk into a raider camp as a high level player and just easily dispatch them with precision critical hits using VATS.
 
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