How come Fallout 1 and 2 aren't more popular when New Vegas is?

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

I mean it's a no brainer that nobody really cares about fallout 4 or 3 that much at all. Every other person I see online prefers NV over both 4 and 3 and IRL even my normal friends will do New Vegas cosplays and have wallpapers of it where as they don't give a rat's ass about fallout 4 or 3. How come Fallout 1 and 2 aren't more popular since they have the exact same style of writing and worldbuilding and even similar gameplay despite being isometric as Fallout New Vegas?

 

[Millim]

It's all to do with age and difficulty.

1&2 can be rather unforgiving to new players and may look like crap for some people next to games like Wasteland 2.

I admit that when I first tried #1 back in 2010, the game really didn't do all that much for me.

NV is the best of both worlds.
It has the great writing of 1&2 and the accessibility of 3.

There is still a fondness for F3, but F4 was always going to be the generic title in the game.

 

[namad]

Divide the number of fallout1 and fallout2 fans by the number of english speaking computer roleplaying game players. Then divide the number of fans of 3/NV/4 by the number of gamers who played those styles of games on those systems?

fallout1/2 were shame hits in an industry that barely existed. by comparison fallout3/4 were average titles in a titanic industry the rules the world.

Also age, yeah age. My friends who are highschool teachers might have heard of fallout1/2 but the kids have only heard of fallout3/4/maybeNV.... in fact amongst the young 3 or even 4 are sometimes cited as better than NV. Not sure why really, other than bethseda intentionally sabotaging the success of NV in the media in order to cheap out on obsidian....

 

[ConstantComplainer]

Fallout 1 when I played it back in the day as an early teenager, to me at least (call me slow-witted, I don't care) was almost like learning an Alien language on a foreign planet at A-level. I had zero idea what to do. The Vault-Tec Survival guide back then I had to keep next to me as I played. My mom getting pissed at me for not hearing her call me for dinner, because I was so immersed in the book and game, I simply heard nothing else. Like the moron that I am, I threw it all in the trash and only kept the game that I lost over time (only to know now that it is worth a fortune on Ebay, the big boxes). Thankfully, Fallout 2, I did not do the same mistake, I kept it in mint condition and the Vault-Tec Lab Journal I also used back then as a bible but most of the things carried over from Fallout 1 easily enough.
Then, being FO1 and 2 vet (always experiencing new things), I played FO Tactics (another amazing game) with not much difficulty. FO3, and FO4, was basically, to me at least, worm-proof. Yes, even a worm could play it so easy it is when compared to FO1 and 2. It literally, was plug and play.
Now, let's do some reverse engineering.
Imagine you have today's Millennials, they want all done for them, they just need the keys, now, close your eyes. Imagine a 18 year old kid of today, imagine his smart-phone with isntagram, assbook, tweeter, and all that stuff that has approx. 50 notifications and whatnot, and.... well, sorry, I can just not imagine that 18 year old having the slightest idea of FO1/2, that kid will probably laugh at all of us FO1/2 vets, calling us dumb morons for playing such garbage to begin with, as he loads his PUGB/Fornight, Battle Royals, etc....

 

[Sentinel]

I mean it's a no brainer that nobody really cares about fallout 4 or 3 that much at all. Every other person I see online prefers NV over both 4 and 3 and IRL even my normal friends will do New Vegas cosplays and have wallpapers of it where as they don't give a rat's ass about fallout 4 or 3. How come Fallout 1 and 2 aren't more popular since they have the exact same style of writing and worldbuilding and even similar gameplay despite being isometric as Fallout New Vegas?

Dated graphics, clunky UI, learning curve, no "cinematic" narration. The games are old.

 

[SPIN (Steam)]

It has to do with fans of the newer titles reluctant to try 1/2 out because of the combat, laziness to read large amounts of text, patience, and the crazy as shit learning curve which is what mostly keeps people from playing it. I tend to stay away from Fallout 4 for its changes to the perk/skill system and watered down writing, but I do commonly here and there play 3/New Vegas for the fun of it. New Vegas is just so popular cause of the community and the team behind it which was Obsidian (members from Black Isle). It really pisses me off that Bethesda has no desire to bring back Obsidian (because New Vegas scored one point less of what Bethesda wanted...) and there's no sign of them for Fallout 76, but maybe Todd Howard can redeem his company from the disappointment that was Fallout 4.

 

[lazlolazlo]

Dated graphics, horrible UI and inventory managment, clunky turn based combat (let's get real, most mainstream gamers hate turn based combat), lack of modern features like full voice acting, with actually actors with background in theatre, compared to the 80's -90's theatrical voice hacks, limited amount of quests compared to modern games etc etc.

It's all to do with difficulty.

1&2 can be rather unforgiving to new players

The difficulty has nothing to do with it. Both Dark Souls and Nioh are immensely popular (action RPGs).

Even though Fallout will remain as my number one RPG of all time, it hasn't aged well. And modern features you today take for granted makes it feel, old. There is simply no way i would want to read in a game when i've been spoiled with amazing full voice acting like Rockstars games or Detroit: BH. I really don't consider these older features especially charming, and i doubt most gamers of today do either, for better or worse.

 

[TerminallyChill]

Imagine you have today's Millennials, they want all done for them, they just need the keys, now, close your eyes. Imagine a 18 year old kid of today, imagine his smart-phone with isntagram, assbook, tweeter, and all that stuff that has approx. 50 notifications and whatnot, and.... well, sorry, I can just not imagine that 18 year old having the slightest idea of FO1/2, that kid will probably laugh at all of us FO1/2 vets, calling us dumb morons for playing such garbage to begin with, as he loads his PUGB/Fornight, Battle Royals, etc....

Smart phones, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter all have something Fallout severely lacks. Intuitive software design. The learning process users need to go through in order to fully understand a program is more widely understood today than it was in 1997. That's why a 3 year old can pick up something vastly complex like an iPhone and still figure out what to do within minutes. Now imagine a toddler trying to complete the Temple of Trials. Ain't happening, because the software is just too obtuse. You literally need a manual to tell you what the fuck to do. That's not impatient millenials, that's dated, shitty user interfaces and poor level design.

This is the number one reason people prefer New Vegas over the originals. Even though the game is equally as complex, it eases you into higher level tasks by providing users with a nested set of goals. Before the player can do anything in New Vegas, it forces you to walk accross the room. Boom, now everyone knows how to move. It then presents players with the SPECIAL selection screen and doesn't let you proceed until every stat is allocated. Now players can't gloss over important aspects of the mechanics. This pattern continues until you leave Goodsprings and by then, everyone is ready for the rest of the game. Idiot proofing your project like this is necessary because there are a lot of idiots out there.

 

[Dr.Fake]

I didn't read fallout manual at all. I think Fallout 1 and 2 GUI are super easy to use. It's a real pain to use Fallout 3 text UI without item descriptions and item icons.

 

[ActivePalpitation]

Imagine you have today's Millennials, they want all done for them, they just need the keys, now, close your eyes. Imagine a 18 year old kid of today, imagine his smart-phone with isntagram, assbook, tweeter, and all that stuff that has approx. 50 notifications and whatnot, and.... well, sorry, I can just not imagine that 18 year old having the slightest idea of FO1/2, that kid will probably laugh at all of us FO1/2 vets, calling us dumb morons for playing such garbage to begin with, as he loads his PUGB/Fornight, Battle Royals, etc....

That's completely wrong man, I love Fallout 1 and 2, and I'm 19. I have some friends that like them too. Plenty of us love CRPGs.

I dunno who you've been talking to, but the media isn't always the best way to understand the current generation. Rock n' Roll was the devil's music, after all.

Even though Fallout will remain as my number one RPG of all time, it hasn't aged well. And modern features you today take for granted makes it feel, old. There is simply no way i would want to read in a game when i've been spoiled with amazing full voice acting like Rockstars games or Detroit: BH. I really don't consider these older features especially charming, and i doubt most gamers of today do either, for better or worse.

I don't think they've aged poorly, although the voice acting certainly has. If you appreciate isometric pixel art it doesn't look that dated at all.

 

[TerminallyChill]

I think Fallout 1 and 2 GUI are super easy to use.

They totally are, but only once you're used to Interplay's specific brand of bullshit. Go find someone who has never played the games before and watch how they interact with the interface for the first time. You'll see what I'm talking about.

That's completely wrong man, I love Fallout 1 and 2, and I'm 19. I have some friends that like them too. Plenty of us love CRPGs.

I dunno who you've been talking to, but the media isn't always the best way to understand the current generation. Rock n' Roll was the devil's music, after all.

Yeah, I play the first two games and I'm not much older than you. My younger friend who is 21 plays Fallout 2. Generalizing an entire generation based on society's concurrent widespread addiction to technology isn't exactly fair. Besides, I know plenty of 40 year olds who act like typical "millienials", glued to their phones and social media.

If you appreciate isometric pixel art it doesn't look that dated at all.

True. Despite what many think, graphics matter very little anyway. People still play fucking Minecraft and the Nintendo DS outsold the shit out of the PSP. It's all about gameplay.

 

[Deleted member 116369]

It's all to do with age and difficulty.

That's an excuse I dont understand.
Among most retro games I played Fallout was the easiest to get into and was pretty easy in general. Combat was simple enough to learn quickly and quite easy. Character creation isnt that complex. Cutscenes and dialogue are short enough that they dont ruin the game.
The graphics are also still pretty decent and atmospheric.

Now, let's do some reverse engineering.
Imagine you have today's Millennials, they want all done for them, they just need the keys, now, close your eyes. Imagine a 18 year old kid of today, imagine his smart-phone with isntagram, assbook, tweeter, and all that stuff that has approx. 50 notifications and whatnot, and.... well, sorry, I can just not imagine that 18 year old having the slightest idea of FO1/2, that kid will probably laugh at all of us FO1/2 vets, calling us dumb morons for playing such garbage to begin with, as he loads his PUGB/Fornight, Battle Royals, etc....

Dude, I'm 15 and I don't have a smart phone or any social media accounts.
That's a pretty dumb generalization. Just because you see one stupid person doesnt mean everyone else is.
Also I see a little bit of hypocrisy here.

 

[TerminallyChill]

Among most retro games I played Fallout was the easiest to get into and was pretty easy in general. Combat was simple enough to learn quickly and quite easy. Character creation isnt that complex. Cutscenes and dialogue are short enough that they dont ruin the game.

Compared to a lot of D&D style games, character creation is pretty simple, I'll give you that. I always thought that was one of Fallout's strengths. Fallout is also significantly better designed from the start compared to Fallout 2. Personally, I think the games would be easier to get into if it weren't for that god awful Temple of Trials turning people off. Arroyo would have been a perfect starting location as it sets the gameplay tone for the rest of the experience. Why a horrifically designed, unskippable "tutorial" was tacked onto the front of Fallout 2, I will never understand.

 

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

That's completely wrong man, I love Fallout 1 and 2, and I'm 19. I have some friends that like them too. Plenty of us love CRPGs.

I dunno who you've been talking to, but the media isn't always the best way to understand the current generation. Rock n' Roll was the devil's music, after all.



I don't think they've aged poorly, although the voice acting certainly has. If you appreciate isometric pixel art it doesn't look that dated at all.

The voice acting in Fallout 1 and 2 is the best in the series of Fallout. You don't have much of it so you have actual voice actors like Jim Cummings, Cree Summer, and Tony Jay doing the voices instead of hearing Saskue or Bethesda in-house actors doing most of the voices in it.

 

[Norzan]

The voice acting of The Master is still one of the best pieces of voice acting i ever heard in a game. Specially when he breaks down after you convince him that his plan is pointless. In my opinion, a lot of the voice acting in the first two games is a lot better than Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, even if there's much less of it compared to the latter two games.

 

[TerminallyChill]

The voice acting of The Master is still one of the best pieces of voice acting i ever heard in a game.

1000% agree. I actually don't think actor performance is the real reason people get the impression that the voices were bad in the classics. They were honestly quite good with a lot of professionals involved, as House pointed out. It's truthfully more a combination of poor sound editing and ancient audio compression codecs. The bit rate is super low, (as you would expect from a 20 year old PC game,) and they cut every file off as close as they could in an attempt to save as much space on the disc as possible. So don't blame the voice actors, blame the 1990s.

 

[ActivePalpitation]

Yeah, I more just mean't the sound editing and compression. Sorry.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Dated graphics, clunky UI, learning curve, no "cinematic" narration. The games are old.

No cinematic narration? Fallout was known for the narrated summation of the player's effect on the world.
The Narrator was Ron Perlman; (who also voiced Butch in the game).

As for age...
I've seen millennials that have never heard of D00M, but even more telling, many of them seem to have a rather harsh age bias—unconscious for some. They identify with the new, because they think of themselves as new; and they think of anything new—as inherently improved.

I saw a video of a guy playing D00M for the first time, and he was at one point shocked (inwardly appalled?) that an old game could startle him. I think that this is because he has no respect any thing that he perceives as old.

Compared to a lot of D&D style games, character creation is pretty simple, I'll give you that. I always thought that was one of Fallout's strengths. Fallout is also significantly better designed from the start compared to Fallout 2.

Fallout had three years in the design of it.

Personally, I think the games would be easier to get into if it weren't for that god awful Temple of Trials turning people off. Arroyo would have been a perfect starting location as it sets the gameplay tone for the rest of the experience. Why a horrifically designed, unskippable "tutorial" was tacked onto the front of Fallout 2, I will never understand.

IRRC, it was demanded of them to have a tutorial.

As for it being unskippable... One can bypass almost all but the final conversation. The enemies have animal AI. One can simply activate Sneak, and walk away from them; (ending combat).

 

[TerminallyChill]

No cinematic narration? Fallout was known for the narrated summation of the player's effect on the world.
The Narrator was Ron Perlman; (who also voiced Butch in the game).

Yeah seriously, I don't know of any games from that era, or even many now that have better cinematic narration than Fallout. That's literally one of the game's most memorable defining aspects. With a famous actor of all things. No idea what people are smoking, especially when there are plenty of legitimate things to criticize these games for. Unless of couse he means it's a slideshow as opposed to a video, in which case there is a point to be made.

As for age...
I've seen millennials that have never heard of D00M, but even more telling, many of them seem to have a rather harsh age bias—unconscious for some. They identify with the new, because they think of themselves as new; and they think of anything new—as inherently improved.

I saw a video of a guy playing D00M for the first time, and he was at one point shocked (inwardly appalled?) that an old game could startle him. I think that this is because he has no respect any thing that he perceives as old.

That's just young people being rebellious and irreverent. It literally happens in every era. The millenials will be saying the same shit about the next generation.

As for it being unskippable... One can bypass almost all but the final conversation. The enemies have animal AI. One can simply activate Sneak, and walk away from them; (ending combat).

Yeah, but expecting a first time player, someone potentially experiencing what 'Fallout' is for the very first time to understand that? First impressions are everything in video games, and the first 5-10 minutes of Fallout 2 would ordinarily be a death sentence for any title that wasn't a direct sequel to a masterpiece like Fallout.

 

[Sentinel]

No cinematic narration? Fallout was known for the narrated summation of the player's effect on the world.
The Narrator was Ron Perlman; (who also voiced Butch in the game).

What I mean by lack of cinematic narration in Fallout is that nowadays games play like movies: players move from one cutscene/dialog scene to another cutscene with dialogs voiced by professional actors, fancy camera angles, closeups and "realistic" facial expressions. Interactivity is limited, just like in a movie, the player is supposed to experience a linear story created by the designers. In that sense playing a modern game is an experience not unlike watching a movie.

There used to be multiple game genres: FPS, strategy, RPG, adventure. Nowadays most games are converging into a single genre: third person action games with "cinematic" cutscenes and light RPG elements (e.g. upgrading a bow or Lara's skills in Tomb Raider or guns and armor in Doom). Players who grew up playing games like that are not going to appreciate old school games that require them to spend most of the time locked in a top down perspective (as if it was a strategy game), read large portions of text and freely navigate an open world with only vague directions instead of a quest compass.