Fallout (computer game)

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Fallout: A post-nuclear role-playing game
FalloutLogo.jpg
Original title Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game
Studio United StatesUnited States Black Isle Studios
Publisher United StatesUnited States Interplay
Senior Developer Timothy Cain (Producer)
Leonard Boyarsky (Art Director)
Christopher Taylor (Lead Designer)
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 September 30, 1997
platform PC ( DOS , Windows , Mac OS )
Game engine Fallout engine
genre Computer role playing game
Game mode Single player
control Keyboard , mouse
system advantages
preconditions
all
DOS
Win
  • Pentium 90 MHz
  • 16 MB RAM
  • DirectX 3.0a or 5.0
  • 2x CD-ROM
  • SVGA graphics card
  • DirectSound -compatible sound card
Mac
  • PowerMac
  • 16 MB RAM
  • CD-ROM
  • System 7.1.2
medium 1 CD-ROM , download
language German
Current version v1.1
v1.3.5 (August 7, 2009, unofficial)
Age rating
USK approved from 16
PEGI recommended for ages 16+
information In the German version, all children have been removed and excessively brutal death animations have been cut out.

Fallout is a computer role-playing game released by Interplay Entertainment in 1997 and the first in the Fallout series. The world of Fallout paints a bleak future scenario for Earth in the 22nd and 23rd centuries after a nuclear war destroyed large parts of the world in 2077 . Despite the serious background, the game is characterized by its black humor , an open game world with great freedom of action and the connection between futuristic technology and the American everyday culture of the 1950s .

action

War, war always stays the same. (War, War never changes).

With these words begins the story of Fallout, which takes the player into a post-apocalyptic dystopia of our own world. Almost the entire earth was devastated by a nuclear war in 2077 and the few who did not burn immediately or died from radiation beams had to survive in a hostile and deadly world. Large parts of the planet turned into wasteland , and the (eponymous) fallout distributed the radioactivity to every corner of the earth. But those who survived all the adversities began at some point in the attempt to build a new civilization. Soon the first small settlements rose from the atomic ashes.

Before the war escalated and civilization fell, a few thousand people had found shelter and refuge in a network of bunkers , the so-called vaults. When the first bombs fell, the bunker doors closed, separating the bunker residents from the rest of the world. For many years they lived in isolation, protected from the adversities of the contaminated environment - until a computer system in a bunker, Vault 13, failed in 2161 that could no longer be repaired on its own. A defective control chip for the water treatment system endangered the survival of the bunker residents. So they sent one of them outside the protective gates of the bunker, into a world that had meanwhile become strange to them. This person is the hero of the story and their fortunes are controlled by the player. The aim is to find a new water purification chip and collect information about the environment.

Gameplay

General

First of all, the player has the opportunity to adapt his character to his wishes and to generate his own hero. Alternatively, a ready-made hero or a ready-made heroine can be selected. A quandary arises as the game requires both combat and skill and you cannot be perfect in both areas. Once that's done, the player finds himself at the gates of the bunker. Although the game perspective is often referred to as isometric , what happens in the game is actually depicted from a cavalier perspective.

When looking for an exit to the cave in which the bunker entrance is located, the player also meets the first opponents and the game switches to turn-based combat mode . Through the fight, but also by solving puzzles and tasks, the character finally receives experience points , which allow a level increase from a certain amount and thus give the character to improve their skills. In the course of the game, the player is confronted with numerous other characters that he not only has to fight. Many are (more or less) friendly to him and trade with him, give him orders or provide him with important information . Some special characters may join. U. the player and support him in the fights.

Role play system

After the role-playing rules GURPS were originally intended to serve as the basis, a separate system was developed after license disputes, which is based on three central types of character traits:

  • The character has seven attributes: The SPECIAL -Attributssystem, an English acronym , which for the attributes S trength (starch), P erception (perception), E NDurance (endurance), C harisma, I ntelligence (intelligence) A gility (mobility ), and L uck (luck) stands. These attributes modify many aspects of gameplay. A player with a high level of strength can carry significantly more items with him than a player with a lower level of strength; a high level of mobility results in more action points per combat round. In principle, the attributes remain the same throughout the game, but there may be an opportunity to improve as the game progresses. Features (see below) can also modify the attributes under certain circumstances.
  • The second great aspect of the system is the player's talents, they determine how well (or how badly) the character can perform certain activities. You can choose from various weapon talents, but also skills such as opening locks, negotiating or stealing can be found among them.
  • As a third point, there are some special features of the character that describe the character more precisely and offer further opportunities for specialization. A character who has chosen “gifted” as a feature receives an additional point per attribute, but fewer talents may then be increased per level increase. Only two characteristics can be selected when generating. An additional feature is chosen after every three levels. If the features that can be selected during generation still have an advantage and a disadvantage, this is no longer the case for the features that can be selected during the course of the game and only purely positive features are available. So z. B. a character with high perception and good weapon skill u. a. Select 'Sniper' and from now on cause more damage with firearms, but he cannot become a 'Master Trader' because he lacks the charisma to do so.

Combat system

The combat system in Fallout is entirely turn-based. According to its characteristics, the character has a certain number of action points that can be used for various activities such as attacking, moving or using talents. If the player ends the round even though there are still action points available, these are added to the armor value of the playing figure. In the actual fight, the talent associated with the weapon used determines the probability of being hit, with the targeted shot targeting a specific part of the body, e.g. B. the head, the probability is further reduced. This disadvantage is offset by increased damage and a higher chance of critical hits. It is also possible to inflict targeted injuries on the opponent. An opponent who is 'mutilated' on the head as a result of a critical hit hardly represents any danger, since he is practically no longer able to hit the player. Of course, the character itself can also suffer such injuries, but these can be healed by using a talent, taking a stimpack or visiting a doctor. The game continues to offer a variety of weapons and items. The selection ranges from simple knuckles to submachine guns to flamethrowers and ultra-modern plasma rifles, with many weapons being based on real existing models.

Medicines and drugs

A variety of medicines and drugs exist in the world of Fallout, each with a specific use. The drug Rad-Away, for example, enables radiation to be reduced in one's own body. If the character stays in a contaminated area for a longer period of time, it will - depending on its resistance to radiation - sooner or later be irradiated, which can lead to a quick end of the hero's life. Probably the most frequently used drugs are stimpacks, which replenish lost life points - hardly a player will enter a dangerous area without sufficient supply of stimpacks. In addition to drugs, there are also special drugs that briefly increase the character's attributes, but often also have negative side effects. With excessive use of drugs, but also certain medications, the character can become dependent on the substance used. If he does not take the substance in question regularly, he will suffer from withdrawal symptoms and his properties will suffer.

development

General

Fallout is the result of Brian Fargo's continued efforts to develop a sequel to Interplay's post-apocalyptic role-playing game Wasteland (1987). However, since he could not come to an agreement with rights holder Electronic Arts , this ultimately led to the decision to develop a new role-playing game in a similar scenario. (In 2012, Fargo finally managed to produce Wasteland 2. )

The development of Fallout was by no means straightforward and problem-free. The project was about to be abandoned several times. The concept of the game and the game world went through several phases of change. Initial considerations revolved around a game in the D&D universe, which was soon discarded. Another concept envisaged a time travel in which the player kills the prehistoric man and ends up on his return journey through time in an alternative scenario of our earth, in which intelligent dinosaurs rule the planet. According to a third concept, the entire earth, with the exception of one city, was conquered by aliens and the player should counterattack the invaders from this last retreat. Based on this concept, the final scenario emerged against the background of a devastating nuclear war.

The project was first acutely threatened with demolition when Interplay acquired the D&D licenses for the campaign worlds Forgotten Reiche and Planescape . However, project manager Tim Cain successfully asked Interplay boss Brian Fargo to continue the project. When Interplay lost the GURPS license because, in the opinion of GURPS inventor Steve Jackson , the game was too violent and he also did not agree with the art design, the premature termination threatened again. The team only got two weeks to swap out the entire character and combat system. As a consequence, the series-typical SPECIAL system was created. Publication in Europe was still at risk. Several age rating institutes prevented the game from being released because it offered the possibility of killing children. Since there was no time to revise the game, all childish characters were quickly deleted from the game in the European version, although numerous references to the no longer existing children were retained.

The original title of the game was intended by the developers to be Vault 13 . However, this was rejected by the publisher's marketing department because it had too little informative value regarding the game content. After a weekend of testing, company boss Fargo finally suggested Fallout as the name of the game. The development budget was three million US dollars.

Stylistic influences

Release years of the Fallout series
 
1997 - - Fallout
1998 - - Fallout 2
1999 -
2000 -
2001 - - Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel
2002 -
2003 -
2004 - - Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
2005 -
2006 -
2007 -
2008 - - Fallout 3
2009 -
2010 - - Fallout: New Vegas
2011 -
2012 -
2013 -
2014 -
2015 - - Fallout 4
2016 -
2017 -
2018 - - Fallout 76

Fallout is often referred to as the unofficial successor to the computer game Wasteland , which was developed by Interplay in 1987 for the Apple II , Commodore 64 and MS-DOS and published via Electronic Arts . Not least for licensing reasons, this was always denied by the official side. Nevertheless, recurring elements from Wasteland can be found in some places , such as the character Fat Freddy.

Numerous elements of everyday American culture of the 1950s are taken up in the game. The atmospheric portrayal of the post-apocalyptic cataclysm is strongly reminiscent of the 1975 film A Boy and His Dog . The dog and companion of the main character in Fallout is called Dogmeat , whose name is also derived from this film, at the same time, however, is based on the animal companion of the film character Mad Max in Mad Max II - The Executor . The film also had a huge impact on the design of the game.

In addition, there are many references to films and TV series such as Doctor Who , WarGames - war games , Godzilla or the comedies of Monty Python .

music

The developers originally intended the song I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire by the vocal group The Ink Spots as the game's theme song. A licensing did not come about, however, instead Interplay chose the song Maybe by the same group. The accompanying music comes from the American composer Mark Morgan .

speaker

Interplay hired well-known actors for the English dubbing of the game.

role German speaker English speaker
teller Ron Perlman
Killian Richard Dean Anderson
Aradesh Tony Shalhoub
Harry Brad Garrett
Vree CCH pounder
Morpheus David Warner
Decker Keith David
Cabot Richard Moll
Lieutenant Tony Jay
master Jim Cummings

reception

Fallout was positively received by the press and magazines (Metacritic: 89%). The captivating plot and the ambience of the game, as well as the challenging artificial intelligence in the battles were praised. On the other hand, logic errors in the plot, especially in the dialogue, and the clearly visible hex field design were criticized.

Fallout was named RPG of the year 1997 several times, including a. by GameSpot , Gamesmania and the game magazine Computer Gaming World. It has also been repeatedly rated as one of the most important games by many game magazines such as IGN , GameSpy , Gamespot, PC Gamer, PC Zone and Computer Gaming World. In a survey of professional readers of the industry magazine Gamasutra in September 2006, the game was voted first place in the Quantum Leap Awards, as one of five games that would have advanced the role-playing genre the most. In 2011, Fallout was voted one of the 80 games the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented in its exhibition The Art of Video Games following a public vote . It is representative of the artistic design of games from the early Windows period.

The animal companion Dogmeat was particularly popular with the players . It therefore received a guest appearance in Fallout 2 and was also integrated into Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 after the takeover of the franchise by Bethesda Softworks , in the separate branch Fallout: New Vegas from Obsidian Entertainment you can find a similar companion with the cyber dog Rex . He was also quoted in the games Arcanum: Von Dampfmaschinen und Magie and The Bard's Tale ( inXile , 2004).

filming

The Florida State University -Student Zack Finfrock produced and turns since 2011, a web series about the game. Fallout: Nuka Break has been running on YouTube and the VT-Film website since January 2011 .

In January 2013, Bethesda filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a science fiction television series. According to Bethesda Software, it won't be a feature film, but a TV series in a post-apocalyptic world after a nuclear disaster.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interplay Fallout website ( Memento of February 2, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) (archived)
  2. ^ Ian Cheong: Game Info . In: Lionheart Chronicles . GameSpy . Archived from the original on March 10, 2013. Retrieved July 25, 2006.
  3. ^ Fallout Frequently Asked Questions . Anonymous. May 19, 1998. Archived from the original on March 27, 2013. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 20, 2009.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nma-fallout.com
  4. ↑ Fallout 1.3.5 by TeamX ( memento of the original from January 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , AtomicGamer.com (August 7, 2009) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.atomicgamer.com
  5. ^ Review of Fallout 1 at schnittberichte.com
  6. ↑ a b Kirk Hamilton: Fallout Could've Been About Time-Traveling, Dinosaurs, And Monkey Murder ( English ) In: Kotaku Australia . March 9, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  7. ↑ Timothy Cain: Fallout Postmortem ( English , video) In: Game Developers Conference 12 . March 9, 2012. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
  8. ^ A b Rus McLaughlin: IGN Presents the History of Fallout . In: IGN . News Corp. . January 28, 2009. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  9. ↑ Shawn Schuster: Kickstarting the future of game publishing: An interview with Brian Fargo ( English ) In: Joystiq . AOL . March 15, 2012. Archived from the original on February 19, 2015. Retrieved on March 15, 2012.
  10. ↑ Fred Dutton: Original Fallout concept included time-travel, sentient dinosaurs, fantasy planets ( English ) In: EuroGamer.de . EuroGamer Network. March 8, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  11. ↑ Alec Meer: Back To Black Isle: Fargo On Obsidian Joining Wasteland 2 ( English ) In: Rock, Paper, Shotgun . April 2, 2012. Retrieved April 18, 2012: “ I was looking back at the budget for the original Fallout. That was about three million dollars, and that included a lot of audio, a lot of cinematics and some publisher overhead. "
  12. ↑ a b IGN Videogame Hall Of Fame: Fallout ( English ) In: IGN . News Corp . 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2010.
  13. ↑ Matt Barton: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part 2: The Golden Age (1985-1993) ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM TechWeb. February 23, 2007. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
  14. ^ Matt Barton: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part III: The Platinum and Modern Ages (1994-2004) ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM TechWeb. April 11, 2007. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  15. ↑ a b Thomas Köglmayr: Fallout . (Article scan) In: PC Player . No. 1, 1998, pp. 100-101. Retrieved October 4, 2011.
  16. ↑ a b Michael Fiegel: Junktown Dog ( English ) In: The Escapist . July 21, 2009. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  17. ^ Average PC rating , Metacritic , accessed September 28, 2011.
  18. ↑ Tom Schmidt: Fallout: Nightmare after the Holocaust . (Article scan) In: Power Play . No. 9, 1997, pp. 60-64. Retrieved October 4, 2011.
  19. ↑ fallout 2 Previews ( English ) In: GS . CNET . Archived from the original on December 6, 2008. Retrieved November 15, 2010: " Greg Kasavin finds out what's in store for the sequel to GameSpot's 1997 RPG of the Year, including story details and tons of screenshots."
  20. ↑ Black Isle Studios : Official Fallout Product Page (English) Last accessed October 4, 2011.
  21. ↑ Among others:
  22. ↑ Christopher Buecheler: The GameSpy Hall of Fame: Fallout ( English ) In: GameSpy . IGN . December 30, 2000. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
  23. ↑ The Greatest Games of all Time ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . Archived from the original on January 10, 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
  24. ↑ Among others:
  25. ↑ The 101 best PC games ever ( English ) In: PC Zone . May 20, 2007. Archived from the original on July 13, 2008. Retrieved November 15, 2010.
  26. ↑ CGW's Hall of Fame ( English ) In: 1UP.com . Archived from the original on January 15, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
  27. ↑ Brandon Boyer, Frank Cifaldi: The Gamasutra Quantum Leap Awards: Role-Playing Games . In: Gamasutra . UBM plc . October 6, 2006. Archived from the original on August 7, 2009. Retrieved June 1, 2009.
  28. ↑ The Art of Video Games Voting Result ( English , pdf; 1.0 MB) Smithsonian Institution . May 5, 2011. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
  29. ↑ Kris Graft: Smithsonian Art Exhibit Recognizes Games From Pac-Man To Heavy Rain ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM plc . May 5, 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
  30. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcgxXnEVVyM
  31. ↑ Anne K. Ford: FALLOUT USPTO ( English ) In: United States Patent and Trademark Office . United States Patent and Trademark Office . January 18, 2013. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  32. ↑ Maurice Urban: Fallout: Bethesda registered trademark for TV series . In: GIGA . GIGA . January 17, 2013. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
fallout
Fallout series computer games
Main series

Fallout • Fallout 2 • Fallout 3 • Fallout: New Vegas • Fallout 4

Offshoot

Fallout Tactics • Brotherhood of Steel • Fallout Online • Fallout Shelter • Fallout 76