The classic Fallouts are not as deep as they’re made out to be
While I do love the games they seem less interested in asking you a philosophical question and more with having the player experience something. That’s a criticism I see applied to Toddouts but Fallout 1 and 2 are essentially theme parks themselves. Every moral dilemma in the game is wrapped up with a nice bow and doesn’t tell you much anout the human condition. Do you free the slaves or do you join them which turns every named NPCs and follower against you for no personal benefit? Do you help the ghouls of Gecko or turn them into slaves for no reason? Do you help the poor, destitute squatters of Vault 15 or the murderous raiders who hold them hostage? I feel like people’s perspective of the classic Fallouts comes by way of Fallout: New Vegas which WAS interested in asking moral questions.
When the games do have an opportunity to say something interesting they seem to shy away from it. Does The Master have a right to continue his race? People don’t choose to be super mutants but nobody chooses to be born either. Maybe it is better to be a super mutant and NOBODY would know unless forced. But no he’s a Big Bad that kills himself if you talk to him just right. Is the Enclave actually the inheritor of the United States government? What gives someone a right to rule? Lineage or merit? Merit by way of lineage? But again no, they’re Big Bads that want to murder The Earth. Again they’ll kill themselves if you talk to them just right.
What I got most from the game is the environment itself. The world does not care about you. The game does not care about you. (God does not care about you?) If you play the critical path of Fallout 2 in the order it seems the devs intended you will go through a Hell-gauntlet of dozens of raiders who you have virtually no chance of beating. Even if you’re well prepared and well-acquainted with the games you can still randomly die to a 217 damage crit you had no way to avoid. Your PC screaming and failing as he shoots blood from the stumps that used to be his arms. The same can happen to your compabions, which is almost an inevitability at the end of Fallout 1. You can get raped, literally raped, not once, not twice, but three times in Fallout 2. That’s not to mention the busywork and pure tedium the game puts you through st times with fetch-quests that send you to the opposite side of the map only to be told you’ll have to go back. When your poor, raped character does inevitably die you’re told by Ron Perlman that not even the coyotes would touch your corpse. Towards the end of Fallout 2 you’re forced to go through a 3x3 maze with an electric floor that does 30 points of damage every 10 seconds. The only way to solve this maze is process of elimination. The pain animation overrides the animation to interact with computers you must use in order to finish the maze. This is what Fallout is about. You’re in Hell and nobody cares.