Fallout (computer game)

Storyline

The background story of Fallout involves a "what-if" scenario in which the United States tries to devise fusion power resulting in a hegemonic United States that has less reliance on petroleum. However, this is not achieved until 2077, shortly after an oil drilling conflict off the Pacific Coast pits the United States against China. It ends with a nuclear exchange resulting in the post-apocalyptic world the game takes place in—although it is said in Fallout 2 that nobody knew who sent the first missile. In Fallout 2 one conversation train with the Skynet computer results in Skynet admitting that the war started because he grew bored with the world, however, as the Skynet computer was a parody of the computer system of the same name in the movie "The Terminator", Skynet's claim may not be true.

Related Topics:
United States - Fusion power - Hegemonic - Pacific - China - Nuclear exchange - Post-apocalyptic - Skynet - Parody - The Terminator

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Fallout

The protagonist of the first game is a descendant of those that managed to find solace in government contracted fallout shelters known as the Vaults. The year the game takes place is 2161, somewhere in Southern California in Vault 13. In it, the Vault's Water Chip, which controls the water recycling and pumping machinery for the vault, has malfunctioned. This results in the player character being selected to leave the vault with minimal supplies, a handgun and a small amount of ammunition to find a new water chip. A portable computerized notebook ("PIP-Boy") keeps track of mapmaking, instructions, and all the bookkeeping of the RPG.

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When the player character returns the chip on time, he will be told of a graver threat to not only the vault, but the rest of civilization, and be sent out on two additional quests. A mutant by the alias "The Master" (previously known as Richard Grey) has begun using a pre-war, genetically engineered virus to create a race of "super-mutants." The player can defeat either The Master or the supermutant base first. Regardless of his choice, when both are defeated, a cut-scene ensues in which the player automatically returns to Vault 13. There, he is told that he has changed too much, and that his return would damage the isolated Vault world. Thus he is rewarded only with exile into the desert.

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Fallout 2

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The second game takes place 80 years after the first, in 2241. It tells the story of the original hero's descendant and his or her quest to save their primitive tribe from starvation by finding an ancient environmental restoration machine known as the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit," or GECK.

Related Topics:
2241 - Garden of Eden - GECK

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The player does eventually acquire a GECK by finding Vault 13, less its former human inhabitants. He returns to find his village captured by the remnants of the United States government known as "The Enclave". The player, through a variety of means, boards an ancient oil tanker to The Enclave's main base, an offshore oil derrick.

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It is revealed that the Vault 13-Dwellers were captured as well, to be used as test-subjects for FEV (Since they're untainted by radiation, it makes them perfect targets). The Enclave has created an airborne disease to destroy all living people on Earth, in order to allow Enclave citizens—the only people not mutated at all—to take over the planet.

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The player frees both his Village (Arroyo) and the Vault 13 Dwellers from Enclave control, and destroys The Enclave's oil rig entirely, as far we know it.

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The fact that in both games the character is raised in an isolated community works nicely with the plot structure, allowing the character to be as ignorant about the game world as the player would be and explaining why the map you start with is almost completely unexplored.

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Fallout 3

Fallout 3 (codenamed "Van Buren") was in production in 2003, but was cancelled by Interplay when Black Isle, the RPG unit was closed. The license to create 3 new Fallout games was acquired by Bethesda Softworks in 2004, and a new Fallout 3 project is currently in development. Interplay, however, kept the rights for a Fallout MMORPG.

Related Topics:
2003 - Bethesda Softworks - 2004 - MMORPG

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Press Release - The official announcement from Bethesda Softworks

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