Fallout 2 for Bad People

it's very difficult to convey just how important the first Fallout was to see RPGs not only because now most people associate the series with bethesda's open world games but mainly because its influence is so widespread that it became almost invisible says the crpg book and that seems true you listen to people talk and it's always fall out this and fall out that but there is this nagging question if these games are so influential then how come they never made more than three of them is it because Todd Howard did a capitalism defiling the moral code of the franchise interest in your opinion and perhaps it's true but then how come this genre was never replicated in the independent scene steam is full of games that list Fallout among their Inspirations but none of them actually play like a classic Fallout game Invisible Presence indeed I could hear it but I can't see it let's just rip off the Band-Aid classic Fallout is not influential at all but what is influential is the conversation about Fallout and the philosophy we created to explain how this game works a philosophy that failed at what it was designed to do let's play the game and talk about all these things and the best place to start is the beginning come in Chosen One there are things you must know Northern California is experiencing the worst drought in decades our home the village of Arroyo is in danger a tribal Champion the strongest or the cleverest of them is to be sent into the wastes to search for a solution in order to prove our Worth to the villagers we need to go through the temple of Trials new players having trouble surviving the early game should tag unarmed that character creation or just run past the creatures the Temple of Trials is not the most fondly remembered location because it's basically a tutorial that takes a little too long and it's annoying to go through with a non-combat build we don't talk enough just how weird this place is or who built it it doesn't seem to be a pre-war Museum or what is this face the final trial is a duel against one of Arroyo's Warriors are all of your tribes so weak the battle is not to the death it's easier if you tag unarmed but perfectly doable even without it our great ancestor used to wear this we made it congratulations chosen one you have survived the Temple of Trials I didn't know this until recently but the Elder is our mom and the daughter of the Vault dweller the protagonist of the first game take this flask it is from the holy vault 13. Nick traitor and Klamath brought it to us find Vic the trader ask him about the ancestral Vol 13 find the Geck artifact in the vault it will save the village alright got it more weird heads and faces maroyan culture is strange and intriguing clearly there is an artistic side to it none of this is ever elaborated on which is of course Smart in a game about adventuring from place to place you don't want to spend too much time in the starting location and whatever is conjured in your imagination when you stand here listening to the ambient track will certainly be more convincing than any lower dump the chosen one is not a conventionally attractive man it goes beyond the looks people just feel uneasy around him my garden is well how is yours the only person to ever show kindness to us was hakunin the shaman this is why we are a little knowledgeable in the art of doctoring it's a nearly worthless skill you can play for dozens of hours without ever having a limb broken but it's critical for the story I want to tell we tag the big guns skill don't do this if if you are new to the game you won't get a big gun until many hours in finally I picked the fast shot trait this makes our ranged attacks cost one less action point but disables the powerful aimed shot ability we never felt we truly belong in this community and the feeling is mutual frankly the other tribals were relieved to see us gone into the wastes back in the saddle that's a shame conversation with a genuine mutant like you and it certainly paint me a picture of what life's like in that radioactive hell on the mainland claymath is a small town of gecko hunters and Brahmin herders the world sure has changed Fallout 1 was about fledgling communities surviving in the Wasteland the sequel takes place 80 years later more than enough time for the survivors to establish local cultures economies Lifestyles it's brilliant that after giving us a taste of exotic tribal culture the game shows us this claymeth the most normal place in Fallout 2. it's so normal it violates the theme there is no overarching ethical conflict in claymath the town has two establishments Buckner house and the golden Gecko and they offer mutually contradictory side quests but not like ideologically contradictory and sure the golden gecko people are a little rough but they don't have the grand design for the community to join the KKK in the end of their Quest Arc claimeth problems are Adventure game prop problems one of the hunters is missing go find him learn his craft a ghost is haunting a nearby Canyon the broken robot was protecting this beautiful Sprite that's perhaps foreshadowing something this guy was placed near the town's entrance and his purpose in life is to vomit Exposition about klamath's known problems Exposition and PCs are a classic sin of isometric RPGs there is no need for them you can tell a lot about the character of a place via mapping the ambient track the random barks preferably without semicolons voice actors can also contribute maida takes care of trade here when her mother Arden takes care of the rooms no Shaman in town but you may be able to trade for medicine one useful thing nearly everyone should do is to recruit sulik Fallout 2 is the first game in the franchise and which companions can play a major role if you build your character to support this playstyle that's not us but sure we'll take him he's a tribal we are brotherly peoples the main event in Klamath is this large three-level dungeon full of rodents culminating in a fight against a huge rat with glowing eyes that speaks human Master Todd the custodian of the franchise would later retcon this lore in his RPG sensation Fallout 3. the story reason for us to visit claymoth is Vic the traitor who lives here or lived here looks like no one been home for a long time one of the locals tells us to look for him in the nearby place called The Den your bad news walking crappy bones say we be stacking up the Bad Karma just being near you a town of junkies and gangsters the den is the closest thing this part of the world has to a commercial hub it appears Vic the traitor got himself in trouble with the slaver's guild the Elder said he might know where vault 13 is so we need to bust him out this is a classic Fallout problem in terms of quest scripting everything is very simple we can either purchase Vic for a considerable sum or we can kill all the slavers that's it there is no convenient persuasion check to set the gangs of the den and the slavers against one another we are given a task and it's up to us to figure out how to use the skills and the items we have to solve it the first solution we should consider is violence see this door somewhat unintuitively using the lockpick skill on an unlocked door would lock it which is useful for separating the slavers into two manageable groups another important tool is thievery these guys hold their weapons in their hands so they are impossible to disarm this way however this slaver here has a potent combat drug in his inventory something we can use but the cleverest thing you can do is to get them drunk alcohol lowers the perception stat which affects ranged accuracy plenty of alcohol to be found in claymath and it's near worthless to Traders there are other strategies it's possible to attack after dark with a weapon equipped with a night sight or to plant bombs in their inventories but we don't have access to that kind of equipment or perhaps you are not into violent Solutions in that case we can work on acquiring the necessary sum to purchase the kidnap Trader there are plenty of side quests for us to do you know I can't explain it but there is something degrading about side quests in the den we can Farm Random Encounters on the world map but that takes too long instead let me share my favorite get rich quick scheme this here is flick the game describes him as a thin and greasy man flick is in charge of this treat kids in the den they hang around popular establishments and pickpocket the passerbys they can even steal Quest items if you are lucky these will end up in Flix inventory ready to be bought back but that is not my way make sure you place your character in the door frame so that flick has nowhere to run as he's being physically dismembered by sulik he should have hired guards this business plan was quite flawed that's Flick's entire stock guns bullets armor drugs things useful for economic activity in post-apocalyptic conditions Capital makes more Capital an imminent Drive they say so we take our new guns to the nearby store and ventilate tubby the trader and his bodyguards he was actually smart enough to have guards that's competent entrepreneurship our tribals have enough Firearms between them to equip a small militia perhaps the orions should do this instead of looking for a stupid ass gag just March into the den take it over shoot all the gangsters Troy aiming at me next time alright the consequence of all this is that the town no longer has Merchants we can sell our loot to but claymath is next door The slaver's Guild is how we maximize our profits madsgar the leader of the slavers offers almost 2 000 bucks for sulik he was a good man what an excellent return on investment an even bigger decision is joining The Guild the new members are branded with a tattoo so everyone we meet will recognize that we are a slaver this has huge repercussions many potential companions will refuse to join with us not that we give a damn and many individuals will outright refuse to talk to slavers at all so what are the benefits of being a slaver there aren't a whole lot we can go on these raids what happens is that the slavers find a bunch of tribals or refugees or people down on their luck and send a squad after them our job is to put down anyone who resists afterwards the slavers go from person to person beat the [ __ ] out of them with cattle prods and handcuff them the scripting is elaborate a successful raid pays around a thousand bucks provided none of the slaves were harmed Ron it's a slaver huh I crack myself up but there are only 4 four of these raid missions and the other slaver entities elsewhere in California have even less content in any case we acquired more than enough money to buy Vic who will hopefully tell us what to do next because so far we've learned precious nothing about vault 13 but we did learn a whole lot about how the minute-to-minute gameplay of classic Fallout works you know that feeling when you play a game and it says all the right words and it does all the right things and yet something is missing a secret ingredient that made old fallouts magical the secret ingredient is that the classic games were designed to take advantage of the real life skill of creativity many of the pretenders delegate the choice making to dialogue windows and contextual UI elements so instead of thinking how to solve a problem you just pick an option from a list [Music] Vic says he has never been to a vault but he knows of a place called Vault city which he marks on our map the journey takes weeks and on our way there we stumble upon a small farming community you may bear the mantle of the chosen but your Dark Soul Cries From Within welcome to Modoc a dying town of Brahmin headers and agriculturalists this is a rare instance of the game actually allowing us to use the doctor's skill to complete a side quest let get up Bess she is gonna follow us around the town and even engage in combat on our behalf I call her sulik too curious RPG facts Fallout 2 was the first Western RPG to include gay marriage and it takes place in this church it's also possible to do a straight marriage mordoch is in trouble the locals have the same problems as Arroyo the crops are dying but it's the strangest thing there is a farm not far from here that seems to be flourishing despite the drought when the residents of Modoc went there to investigate they saw horrible things crucified bodies everywhere not a living person in sight we quickly discover that the bodies are fake dummies covered in Brahmin innards the reason the ghost farm is prospering is because of the efforts of the slags a group of cave dwellers who live below the farm the slags are a mixed community of humans and ghouls The Twist is that there isn't one they are friendly and willing to trade with the Surfacers but the people of Modoc are not in any hurry to trust them if you want a good ending for this place you need to convince the two groups to work together this is the outcome that grants most XP and item rewards but I have no intention of doing extra work Modoc is a pit stop we have a vault to find in the village to save you might have heard about a feature called choices and consequences and that the classic Fallout supposedly has this feature and that it's important but something I have noticed by following these conversations is that when individuals say choices and consequences they almost always mean the biowarian model which is when the game would present us with two or more options that have a similar narrative weight light side or dark side Paragon or Renegade Shadow thieves versus the vampires in a biowarian system you are supposed to at least consider the options given but this is not how Fallout Works in a Fallout game you are usually presented with one correct option and a contrarian option the best example of this is junktown from Fallout 1. do we side with Killian who is handsome and not a sociopath and is a victim of an attempt on his life and siding with him leads to an elaborate quest with unique items and there is a scripted boss battle and in the end of the battle you are rewarded with a unique hyper violent death animation a beautiful element of the game's aesthetic or you know we can side with Gizmo and get none of these things you get nothing there is a battle against generic Sprites and he is also so supposed to be physically repulsive but it's whatever because he's beautiful to me a correct option and a contrarian option for exotic playthroughs gather The Men We Are Gonna Take the ghost farm by force instead of us going through an elaborate Quest chain the merchants and Quest givers of Modoc will solve the non-existent slag Problem by physically killing them all my strategy was to eat a bunch of psycho drugs that Grant damage resistance and then just tank for a long enough time for our allies to reduce the slag numbers we didn't personally do any of this but it suggested that the slag women and children were slaughtered off camera by the farmers who are just now realizing that they took it too far the soul of Modoc is now Rotten and without the cooperation agreement with the ghost farm this community will soon die why not expedite this while exploring the town we discover that it's possible to climb inside the local toilet there is an overwhelming smell of methane gas in here just one tiny spark the explosion demolishes the Outhouse covering the northern Modoc with fecal matter I bet this was a nightmare to script the locals are now covered in [ __ ] in both ethical and physical sense but I'm not done ruining this place yet the Modoc Diner has a special recipe extra large extra delicious omelets if this sounds Vaguely Familiar it's probably because there is a reference to this quest in New Vegas the mystery of the Modoc omelette is hidden inside this Hen House guard dogs to deal with them leave the door open exit the map and come back the dogs will be gone use steroids if you are not strong enough to remove the rocks and that's what the secret is the omelettes are made out of deathclaw eggs very industrious I like that there is a reason to intentionally breed death claws once again leave the door open exit the map and come back the deathclaw escapes and kills all the residents of the shit-covered northern Modoc the creature is now the master of these streets anyway the biowarian and the Fallout style choices and consequences are two different ideas the advantage of the Fallout style CNC is how over-the-top dramatic it is I have nothing but good memories of this place onwards to Vault City the problem is that all Outsiders wish to join our society which is simply not feasible we would undoubtedly sink into the same Anarchy which plagues the outside this place is strikingly different from anything we've seen before in this game or the previous pavement uniformed guards laser gun turrets Vault city has nothing to do with our ancestral Vault but it's important to the story of the wandering tribal for a different reason in order to get inside Vault City proper non-citizens need to go through bureaucracy and acquire a day pass a vault Visa naturally there are about a dozen different ways to get it we can simply buy a Visa or speech skill the clerk into providing it for free but that's boring it's possible to pickpocket the document of a vault dweller or steal it from the locker at night the Vault City NPCs have schedules they go to bed after dark this is uncommon in classic Fallout we can get inside by temporarily lowering our intelligence with drugs which will lead to the tribal getting enslaved by Vault dwellers but the easiest and smartest way of obtaining a day pass is by simply removing your armor revealing a vault suit underneath the first citizen would want to talk to us personally I prefer to get fake citizenship papers by bribing the officials this is superior to a Visa as Citizens are not searched by guards the central Council no no we do not live in the vault they were a temporary measure to protect a Chosen Few from the war and Aid them in the subsequent construction of a new world Lynette is a great character well hated as an outsider you are in a unique position to resolve a difficult situation for us you will regret saying these words you know Gekko is a community of ghouls who live around us still operating nuclear power plant that pollutes the groundwater with dangerous radiation Lynette wants them gone hello there smooth skin that aims Harold I help keep this town running not unlike the slags of Modoc the ghouls of Gekko are just normal as dudes it's up to us to bring the two communities together or further apart you see they are immune to radiation they don't care that they are slowly killing us with their poisons reactor number five the reactor room is flooded with radiation we trick one of the ghouls into disabling the coolant system for us Lynette will be pleased we are getting a volt green card for sure this here is Vault 8 by the way no wastelanders allowed and the guards won't take bribes but it's possible to get inside via sneaky [ __ ] we exited the Vault 120 years ago and with the help of our Eden kit began construction of Vault City Ten Years Later the overseer retired and a council of citizens was established in the vault mad lab we learned that people here don't get pregnant from intercourse instead they are artificially inseminated I'm afraid to ask but I will anyway oh we'd welcome your contribution Vault City could use some fresh genetic material the screen Fades to black as our character jacks off into auto dock I can honestly say I have never missed the Primitive charm of Arroyo more until this very moment the Vault residential area is used as a warehouse nobody lives here anymore there is quite a number of rare high-tech items to be stolen the doctor's skill unlocks additional conversation options with the world physician resulting in us getting the Vault City Medical Training perk but the real reason for us being here is this computer deep in the database we discover a series of older archives that contain schematics for some sort of combat implants the procedure is only available for characters with high doctor skill and it unlocks an elaborate unmarked quest to turn yourself into a cyborg this is done by acquiring sets of combat armor finding a qualified medical specialist to operate on us and then paying them large sums of money this adventure is the main reason to even have money in this game what we are a walking talking monkeys paw whatever this place is dead back in the vault we managed to download additional map information from the central computer so we have an idea where to go next now we became friends headed off together then other people started following us guess they figured if they weren't safe with a Muti in a steel Knight safe just wasn't going to happen broken Hills is a sizable multi-species settlement built around a uranium mine the master died many decades ago super mutants are a part of society now it's useful to have mutes they're big strong and can do tough manual labor like work in the mine but they are also different and differences Drive conflict because war never changes let me make this clear nothing's going to happen here unless you started just stay civilized while you're in my town our reputation precedes us after the master and the Vats were destroyed I wanted a bit no place to go one day got attacked by this fool wearing power armor broken Hills was found dead by a Brotherhood of Steel Knight and his unlikely friend the Super Mutant Marcus the town's story arc is about resolving tensions between human and mutant inhabitants we all live in fear of the mutant rage each day there are fewer and fewer humans it's hard to think of a reason to join whatever the hell this ideology is called in most playthroughs the tribal would have never met a mutant until arriving here and talking to Marcus who is very nice to us super mutants are basically just big people who can't breed like untested athletes IRL again this is a Fallout style choice between a correct option and a contrarian one the dev team clearly put a lot of effort into designing titanium to voice acting markers and they put no effort into the bad people I already forgot their names in order to join them we need to bust two mutinists out of jail which is done by lockpicking the door while in sneak mode and then you just use the explosive device on the air purifier in the mine the miners are buried alive but wasn't it like the economic engine of broken Hills the super mutants are gone I doubt all of them were laborers they must have been killed off camera the local gun store owner was working with the mutinists our reward is a cache of weapons holy [ __ ] this is pathetic two early game guns for comparison this is what flick had on his body back in the den I'd kill all the humans too but it's a waste of time since without the mind the town is doomed anyway [Music] don't let anyone who's got the presidency or hear that you'll be making cattle runs to new Reno Till the End of Time Pal just as good ideas can be failed by bad craftsmanship good execution can make bad ideas work new Reno the City of Gangsters just about the dumbest [ __ ] in classic Fallout and one of the best locations in the franchise the economy of Reno is based on sex work drug manufacturing alcoholism and mobster Maxine there is so much stuff here all sorts of Adventures fight in the rain for cash but our character ain't built for this not yet we can star in porn but the studio owners don't talk to slavers and the world probably doesn't need a Charisma 2 porn star we can sleep with a daughter of a Mafia Boss she doesn't care about how many Charisma points you have the crime families offer employment this guy got a little too lucky at the tables stole Mr Salvatore's money we make the man dig a hole tell him to get in and then throw a mine into the gray wave this is new Reno there are no cops no law and there is plenty of customers who don't mind buying poison from the pharmacy down the street but like you said the cams are poisonous they kill the spirit doesn't it bother you to sell them does it bother me to sell to idiots slavers crime Lords and tribals that the world would be better off without primate three words get out more in a classic Fallout getting better equipment is just as important as gaining levels tons of great items can be obtained for free just by traveling around Reno and getting into Random Encounters hell yeah flamethrower Fallout 2 has more than a dozen upgradeable weapons the engineer in the new Reno gun store can upgrade both the flamer and the ammunition for it I'll put it to good use the person on the poster looks familiar says the game Wanted Dead or Alive ten thousand Dead 5 000 alive Salvatore's men are selling chemicals to mysterious individuals in the Wasteland the existence of The Enclave was foreshadowed but this is the first opportunity to study them up close in exchange for chemicals the mafiosos get laser pistols not a very powerful weapon but for them it's a Prestige kind of thing the power in Reno is concentrated in the hands of four influential crime bosses I think that's too many I consider myself to be something of an artist of crime and it blows to see our art devalued time to create scarcity the old man Salvatore is the easiest you just have to pickpocket his breathing apparatus Family Values oriented rights are usually straightforward as well you give a loaded firearm to one of the kids playing outside and tell him to go pointed at grandpa but we have a slaver tattoo the right children are instructed to never talk to slavers that's too bad the alternative is much worse for the rights you can work for all four of the criminal families simultaneously all the way to the end of their Quest chains just don't complete the final missions and you'll be fine there is this idea that classic Fallout was all about factions and politics but that's actually a myth although there is a series of quests when you take on the role of the Vault City James Bond too bad Lynette doesn't like us anymore I thought we were communicating so well one location with explicitly political content is the mining town of reading by putting tons of Brahman [ __ ] in the Vats we found out that the fumes give more than enough of a kick Eureka literally of course we had to test to get the mix right the minds of reading are the primary source of gold in California the metal is used for the production of currency bottle caps are not a thing in Fallout 2. I've always thought of this place as an extension of Reno because the two locations share a problem which is narcotics jet is inexpensive addictive and it temporarily enhances one's strength making the miners better at their jobs it also serves to push the community towards new Reno in a political sense but something makes me doubt these people want to be chemically enslaved is there a cure all we know is that the place with the most sophisticated medical technology in the Wasteland is Vault City but there is no need to venture that far we are a Shaman's Apprentice which is a type of a doctor I'd say we are more than qualified to fix this problem which we'll do by treating the root cause the jet is manufactured in a place called The Stables not far from Reno the reason this stuff is so cheap and plentiful is responsibly because it's made out of Brahmin fecal matter the slaves are for testing the produce the mordino family employs the services of the genius chemist Myron to design the drug God damn it I told Jesus those two morons couldn't guard a stone so uh you iced them gonna kill me too yes it's important that we do there aren't that many individuals in the wastes capable of creating new drugs they can't replace him there is only one new Reno Crime Boss we haven't killed or ruined John Bishop there is a trick to assassinating Bishop the idea is that you get access to his private Chambers change the combination on the safe and then disarm and re-arm the trap attached to it but I [ __ ] it up I must have done the steps in the wrong order oh whatever it's time for us to witness the glory that is the classic Fallout combat and listen to the story it tells a mobster sprays his Tommy Gun and accidentally kills the club's stand-up comedian who was somewhere behind us we take a weapon of a dead body and use it to defend ourselves against the casino patrons who in confusion are attacking both us and The Bishop's men the experience is punctuated with ultraviolent death animations part of the game's visual language one of Bishop's thugs critically misses and hurts himself as the battle progressed we had to discard and pick up new weapons four times piles of dead bodies decorate the floor gangsters gamblers prostitutes random passerbys the Bishops crime families effectively exterminated underneath the casino there is a private fighting ring the location is not used for quests unfortunately the reason for us to visit is to incinerate the mobster's pet prize fighter but that is not all the mordinos know what we did at the stables and as soon as we are in Vision range they opened fire the gangsters unload their SMGs hitting us the civilians and some of their own number prostitutes defend themselves with melee weapons pimps open fire inside the casino just minutes later the mordino Empire is a messy pile of bodies next to a roulette table Fallout combat it's a work of art always was back in Reading we learned of a place called New California Republic here in Reno there are NCR posters on the walls it's about time we paid a visit Lord that was a long time ago hardly remember who I was then just a naive girl the one you call the Vault dweller is he still alive [Music] Shady Sands city of light city of magic decades ago our ancestors stood in front of this gate back then it was a struggling Village of Vault 15 refugees and look at it now calls itself a republic and has uniformed cops as well as multi-species bars fast food and religious cults The slaver's Guild is just outside the walls with a slave pan and all the flaggling Republic and its Growing Pains unfortunately there is barely any special content for us no slave runs we can join Wasteland slavers was there ever a minority more oppressed hey you turd face I don't like you I think you should buy me a drink this guy is the president's son the game doesn't allow us to cleverly [ __ ] this place up but you know we'll do our best in the evening hours the bar is visited by a local organized crime man who offers crime jobs one of them is assassinating the herbologist here in town a member of a paramilitary UFO cult from San Francisco we'll learn more about them later the cultist offers us to undergo a free procedure that would clear the negative psychic energy and free our spiritual Potential from oppression it is recommended that you save your game and do the procedure as it randomly adds or subtracts two points of luck from your character sheet if you get the bad result just reload now on the matter of the assassination the police station is the building next door so we'll have to get creative the cleverest way to kill the cultist is by injecting her with two or three super stim packs causing a heart attack it's the dose that makes the poison since we are heavy weapons packed we should visit the marketplace and steal a bozar from one of the guards it's sort of like a sniper machine gun the weapon deals phenomenal damage at good range it can hit multiple targets it pierces armor and uses a common ammunition type what are its weaknesses well there are almost none it's overpowered but I suppose there is one weakness the small magazine you have to reload after two bursts [Music] our great ancestor yes there's a resemblance you've got the same fire too I was always afraid that he was nothing but a skeleton somewhere in the desert president Tandy is a returning character this makes her what 95 years old or so my boys tell me you're looking for work what are you handy at um I do a bit of this and a bit of that no point trying to keep secrets around here we're negotiating with new Reno for membership in the NCR they should have some pool with places like Vault City it seems John Bishop was supposed to represent Reno as a leader figure the news haven't reach to this place yet Madam president has a job for us we need some computer parts from our old base bolt 15. problem is their squatters air won't let anybody buy somebody has to convince them to let us in the community here doesn't even have a proper name they are just referred to as squatters Wasteland refugees who build a shanty town right where the entrance to the vault is supposed to be the obstruction is not incidental the squatter presence turns out to be a smoke screen used by the Raider gang known as the cons to mask their presence I remove them like toilet paper from roll the vault is actually the ancestral home of the cons who used to be wall dwellers them and the Shady Sands people are sister communities in that way from the terminal we learned the location of Vault 13 that's not the only way of getting this information but that's the one with the most violent murder Darian the leader of the Raiders is the son of garl deathhand the original big bad Khan who was humiliated and killed by our ancestor so that means he's in his 90s carrying a heavy ass flamethrower goals here you are at last says Darion pretending to know who we are for some reason before you start a new boring speeches I'd just like to say that I'm not [ __ ] interested bad dog kill I think that's a cool name for a dog and so a man in a vault suit with a number 13 on the back defeats the cons once again he had a bunch of roids on his body he was on a testosterone replacement therapy finally we acquire a set of combat armor a requirement for the cyborgization procedure special encounter the bridge keeper this is one of them cultural references the game is famous for the bridge keeper will ask us a few questions about the game's story and mechanics and if we answer correctly he lets us pass if we answer incorrectly we die if we answer a question with another question he dies I am oh people tend to overstate how many pop culture references this game contains if you follow the discourse you might get an impression Fallout 2 is structured like a Family Guy episode but a great number of the fourth wall breaking sequences are compartmentalized inside these special encounters they are rare random and easy to disregard as they don't even feel like they're part of the game's story sometimes we remember things not because they are important but rather because they're memorable interesting that almost all authentic classic Fallout fan content was made by non-americans sound media is simply more engaging is a foreigner you know but I have good news for our American viewers the references are very dated the game is 26 years old the past is another country I can bull the Congress into sending supplies and texts you sure we can get into the Vault you might assume there is a political Dimension to this now that the vault is clear the NCR can expand its territory did we serve their imperialist agenda keep in mind they didn't even know the Raiders were there the NCR were stopped by a bunch of unarmed middle-aged homeless women nevertheless our actions seem to have improved the situation here not to what I was planning on doing oh well might as well incinerate tandy's shitty sound as a consolation prize ah [ __ ] you've been doing your country an invaluable service foreign protagonist has never been to this place but we the player know this cave well and this door let's see what changed the original residents are gone vault 13 is now the home of a pack of genetically engineered intelligent deathclaws engineered by whom by The Enclave they were deployed here to prevent anyone else from settling in this place but being intelligent the deathclaws realized the error of their ways and I'm not sure what exactly happened to them read the wiki if you're curious Vengeance for Modoc did you see this what is this thing it's like it's sick or something doesn't even have a proper set of death animations and here is the Garden of Eden creation kit the pre-war artifact we were supposed to find our village is saved Fallout 2 not a lone Adventure let's get back to our Royal and see the ending slides some of you might be wondering we did all this violent stuff will the game just let us get away with it what about reactivity sure some individuals refuse to converse with us but maybe we didn't want to talk to them anyway the real consequence of sociopathic behavior is that now we are being chased all over the Wasteland by The only level scaled encounter in this game bounty hunters are infinite in number they'll find you anywhere and at higher levels they are capable of dealing hundreds of hit points of damage every turn and they get to go twice in a row they are deadlier than Enclave patrols it's manageable if you have a car but alas we do not change of plans we take a detour to reading painless Doc Johnson is one of the few specialists in California capable of turning us into a cyborg we have the equipment and the money dermal impact armor grants five percent damage resistance to bullets that's on top of whatever the normal armor provides Phoenix armor is the same except for two types of energy damage there is a second tier of upgrades but they are considerably more expensive Doc Johnson is asking for 48 000 bucks for the tier 2 Phoenix implantation so all four upgrades together will cost us around a hundred thousand dollars I feel someone might have accidentally added a zero at the end the implants are not that powerful and it's almost impossible to acquire a some like this without grinding for days or resorting to cheesy strategies foreign to the outside world was destroyed cocoonin the shaman lies dying on the ground chosen the shadow of Darkness arrived before you the village was attacked by The Enclave our people were kidnapped A Rush of wind turn it to a great dragonflies that spat flame evil men crawled from the beast's bellies and brought death to our Warriors it sucks that the only good Orion died I wish they'd kidnapped hikunin and killed all the others instead with his dying breath the shaman tells us where to go look for the villagers of course San Francisco is the fourth large Urban location in Fallout 2 a game that took nine months to make it is said that two opposing fighters in San Francisco the dragon who loves others and lopan who loves himself will determine the future of martial arts in the Wasteland actually I will be determining that the town is populated by the she the descendants of the crew of a Chinese submarine that crashed nearby it's cool that this late into the story we are given another Social Hub to explore but San Francisco feels like it was a modded in by an over-ambitious fan everything here is out of scale the she base is huge and seems to pack more advanced technology than the Brotherhood bunker note the use of the Temple of Trials tile set the second instance of it in the game the rivals of the she the herbologists are the franchise version of the Church of Scientology the faction is sometimes criticized for being too cheesy but I think this is wrong they're perfect here is an unexpected IRL anecdote my first ever job was at a small Municipal newspaper pre-social media journalism you go to places talk to people and write articles about it one day a UFO cult rented a School stadium in our rayon there was supposed to be an event and since I played Fallout 2 I was very curious about them and you bet I showed up nobody else did the cult wasn't quite as successful as the herbologists frankly this is not much of a story but the idea that a UFO cult can build power on the ruins of society seems very natural and intuitive to me the problem with this faction is the same as with everything else in this city the cultists are too technologically sophisticated too numerous and too well armed the San Francisco docks are notable for having no Quest content whatsoever its purpose is to connect the city with the pmv Valdez the tanker anchored here the boat is home to yet another new faction led the vagrants described as a collective of Wanderers and social outcasts all I know is that these guys will publicly shame you if you had sex with a mutant surprise reactivity when you least expect it somehow they are in possession of incredible Medical Technology the jet antidote it allows us to abuse the most potent combat drug in the game without consequences the captain of the ship is a Defector from The Enclave the tanker needs to be refueled we need to obtain an encoded passkey that provides access to the ship's nav computer which needs to be repaired with special parts that's the end game checklist after we're done we can use the boat to travel to The Enclave HQ located on an oil rig off the coast this is where our villagers are held old the cargo bay is full of monsters but at this stage they are basically free XP for us this here is the listening post of the Brotherhood of Steel Matt the officer in charge seems to be familiar with our activities we know many things he says enigmatically Matt tells us of a place called Navarro an enclave military installation to the north of here our goal is to infiltrate the base and steal the helicopter schematics it's also where we get the key for the tanker all roads lead to Navarro [Music] sir I work for a living you [ __ ] you will call me Sergeant or Sergeant Dornan do you understand me this is the first Fallout game to feature The Enclave this guy is a lookout if we pass a speech check it's possible to convince him that we are here to join them because the Enclave are hiring wastelanders but those of us who are not Charisma privileged can get inside via the underground Communications instead it's easy to evade the guards get into the Armory and obtain a uniform the black Sprite is my favorite depiction of power armor in the franchise the artist did a fantastic job after obtaining a uniform the base becomes a social location there are side quests there is even a potential companion a robot dog I don't think you encounter these twin plasma turrets anywhere else in the game they are deadly taking Navarro by force is hard welcome to Camp Navarro so you're the replacement what's your name private Sergeant Dornan is a Full Metal Jacket reference we'll do a fine job do you understand it's wise to avoid the surgeon from now on who will be coming to check on us Navarro is a helicopter base vertibirds have a limited range the strangest thing about this place is well how normal everyone is you'd think there would be some sort of indication that these people grew up in what is essentially a time capsule of pre-war society yet they lack any distinctive mannerisms or language and elsewhere we learned that the soldiers from this base sometimes go on leave to San Francisco these are the vertibird blueprints the Brotherhood of Steel wanted us to find in order to get the key for the tanker we infiltrate the base Commander's office pretending to be a janitor a janitor in advanced power armor interesting that she has a bunch of tribal pots and items in her bedroom I also think our culture is beautiful way with our skill set we won't be able to recover the key without agreeing them so might as well strike first I am sarn pack Warrior allow me to join you and fight at your side for our freedom together we stand a chance semicolon alone who knows sure my deathclaw friend I'll help you escape psych Vengeance for mardok we're done here kill us all including you pass the temple trials we have faith in you we need you the dragon is a great fighter this much I admit but one critical hit in the head is all it takes and so the future of martial arts was decided by a tribal from Arroyo part man part machine it is said that his style was an iteration of the battle ritual practiced and perfected in the temple of Trials and it was called the d-fanged Neu Mena Matt the Brotherhood guy makes a copy of the vertibird plans for himself and leaves the original blueprint with us will eventually trade it to the she in exchange for the fuel for the tanker this is quite a gesture mat I thought you guys were supposed to be tack hoarders interesting how the Brotherhood is completely different in every game of the franchise we can now access their facility the most important thing here is the supercomputer that's capable of Performing surgery increasing our base attributes the Armory is full of end game weapons there is a free suit of power armor we take it all to sell to the traders in exchange for bozar ammunition and super stims if we leave San Francisco for a few days and then come back Matt will be gone and the computer will play this recording you and your so-called president will not succeed is that so the chosen one has come and he will read the world of your evil I care nothing for your pathetic prophecies worse you have become a nuisance through your meddling that ends today killing me will stop nothing that may be but seeing your body rotting on the ground will bring a smile to my face you pathetic fool hahaha wow I haven't laughed like that for a while anyway get ready to die amazing writing that won't feel out of place in the epic game Fallout 3. I absolutely love that Matt knows about and believes in the prophecy of the chosen one I don't think even our fellow villagers believe in this crap the super mutant in power armor is the US secret service agent Frank Horgan the personification of The Enclave Corrigan's lore is a contradictory mess and it feels like he was written by a bunch of different people who weren't talking to one another elsewhere in the game we learned that he is hated and feared by his Enclave Masters who never trusted him but in this scene his small talks with the other guys who seem to like him just fine the lore also states that fev damaged his intellect but later will meet a version of Frank who seems to be reasonably articulate poetic even and more importantly he has the highest level security clearance The Enclave obviously trusts him time to make final preparations we go to NCR the only weakness of our chosen weapon is that the mg can only fire two bursts before we need to reload this can be circumvented by get this stealing another machine gun and carrying it in the other hand Checkmate game designers now we put a bunch of points into the gambling skill and head to Reno in order to I guess Reno is worthless now let's go to reading instead there should be a functioning Casino there Jam the number keys and hold them for a few minutes until we get a hundred thousand dollars painless Doc Johnson is about to become the richest man in the wastes after he grafts two more suits of combat armor into our body each Advanced upgrade reduces our Charisma by one point but we don't care the boat is ready to sail [Music] [Music] you've run a lot farther than you should have but then you haven't met Frank Horrigan either your rides over Muti time to die we are almost at the end of our journey so uh what do you think Fallout 2 was about I suppose this adventure was a retelling of the old story about a Faustian bargain about a wasteland devil who emerged from a dark place at the edge of the world but just as easily it could have been a tale about a bunch of friends traveling the post-apocalyptic California or a story about the tribal becoming a new Reno prize fighter earning Fame and Status among the Mobsters classic Fallout is nothing but a bunch of Storytelling tools for you to use in whatever way you wish the ultimate point of the stories you tell using this medium is up to you to decide and no one else Chosen One how did you get here yeah so a quick question did any of you guys have friends in Modoc there is a second Geck here in The Enclave supply room just in case you lost the original residential area and offices glad to make time for one of our Gallant Troopers but I am rather busy so um what can the president of the United States of America do for you he goes into the history of World War III and the Vault social experiment the only way for True humans and democracy to be safe is to cleanse the mutants from the globe uh our Slavs human or mutant tests performed on your tribesmen have all shown that you are guilty of mutation and it's a damn good thing the project is ready ah if there was another way but there isn't no price is too high for the survival of the human race if you were human you'd feel the same way Millions Must Die The Enclave scientists modified the fev virus turning it into a plague to kill all wastelanders this is very evil but you know I've been doing the same thing for months am I invisible to you [ __ ] Mr President get out more in order to keep actually some things should not be said out loud for YouTube algorithm purposes in order to get rid of him without alerting The Enclave I inject eight super stims into Mr Richardson inducing a heart attack a funny visual bug he dies standing up on the body the presidential access key the oil rig is very easy for characters with a high speech skill this guy can be persuaded to release the fev toxin into the ventilation system and this guy will just straight up destroy the main reactor if you ask politely the alternative is to blow up the reactor control terminal with a bomb expert gamer [ __ ] I set up C4 to detonate in 10 seconds and run away for getting to actually plant the explosive moments later I realize it's still in my inventory and run back whatever it worked warning complete reactor meltdown blocking our Escapist Sergeant Granite of The Enclave control company they are not immediately hostile providing yet another opportunity to make our life easier with a speech check we can convince Granite to fight the end boss with us well you can convince him I am yet to pass a single speech check in this game Frank Horrigan that's who the United States Secret Service time for talkings over his main weapon is the and boss plasma gun that fires in bursts we can tank the normal attacks nearly indefinitely thanks to cams and stims but crits are devastating Frank is surrounded by a ring of minigun turrets use the presidential key on the terminal to activate the emergency counter-insurgency protocol switching them to our side fighting Frank and the control company and the turrets at the same time is extremely hard and is not recommended [Music] exotic Frank Horrigan facts his plasma weapon is capable of firing single rounds but he almost never does this the turrets are down we are fighting the elements of the granite's team and the cyborg things were going fine until he crit us for 100 points of damage reducing the tribal to a single Health Point but because we purged all the negative Qi from our psychic field in the Church of Scientology luck is on our side and just as we are about to die Frank runs out of ammo and has to pull his and boss sword weapon I heal up and crit him for 512 points of damage the only unique death animation added in Fallout 2 but it is the best in the series you you haven't won here Beauty bastard friends are gonna join me in a big old mushroom cloud send off I just triggered the self-destruct the work will go on you didn't do nothing here except seal your own death warrants honor courage Semper Fi perhaps it should count as two animations since there are two stages it's over for real and so the desert Rangers of Colorado teamed up with the Mexican clown Raider gang and learned a lesson about capitalism all right Patron credits and then final hot takes and the Lessons Learned these videos are made possible because of the efforts of the Patriots of Orion star Empire special thanks to Jim Lawrence 1967 Ford Mustang box Swope snafu Jackson Phillips azazil and painful the doggo source is the best engine ever made C6 a two-room apartment in Bob Rusk Belarus getting there Yuri salad of nichenko Don Tony spagoni Dima Urban Nathan kabiska combat Lobster darkbot pumpkin Ganso bomber [ __ ] Rayners chungolian Danny Kilpatrick Anon and Ilya Rubin so here's what I've learned by replaying Fallout 2 lesson one the games weren't replicated because they weren't understood and the reason they weren't understood is because the theory and philosophy we developed for that purpose was sub-optimal bad theory is uh not good these insights are brought to you via the crowdfunding platform patreon but for real if you don't understand the thing you won't be able to replicate or improve it theory is essential part of the responsibility for the untimely demise of this medium is on Todd part of it is on this guy I forgot his name but part of it is on us perhaps the greatest trick the Todd ever played was convincing the world that he is important lesson 2 a real Fallout game has never been tried there are three official classic fallouts and they are all flawed the variety of stories you can tell in Fallout 1 and the diversity of playstyles it supports is limited the sequel was made in less than a year in this very rough around the edges Arcanum has a main quest that plays way too dominant of a role you are supposed to visit the major locations in a certain sequence this is antithetical to the genre conventions so we don't actually know what this medium is capable of what if we had a Fallout game but with a simulated economy imagine a Fallout game but with encounter design what if we embraced the efficient World building techniques of the classic games to create truly gigantic handcrafted game worlds a Fallout game but with a dynamic political map you get the idea we haven't even begun the next big project for me is New Vegas but before that is out I'll do a video on an incredible indie game from one of my favorite Studios support the channel on patreon peace out alas the gods whisper for my ear goodbye it's all an inside job a dog of Oren Yak no doubt about it

Channel: Warlockracy

Views: 717,084

Keywords: video games, gaming, game design, warlockracy, review, narrative review, fallout 2, fallout 2 review, classic fallout

Id: bedleWtFIJ8

Length: 64min 30sec (3870 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023