Fallout/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Fans are allowing a tiny, tiny glimmer of hope to bleed through upon announcement that some of the original Fallout team would be working on Fallout: New Vegas. This doesn't sound like a very positive reaction until you consider that the Fallout fanbase has traditionally been one of the most cynical in existence, and has generally been worried that every new Fallout game is going to suck until it comes out (as far back as Fallout 2).
    • The announcement that traits would be returning in Fallout: New Vegas certainly inspires hope.
    • It's now[when?] been released, and is generally considered to be exactly as good as expected so far.
  • Anticlimax Boss: General Barnaky's tougher than a normal enemy, but not to an extreme degree, and is no match for your combined squad. He's also noticeably weaker than Frank Horrigan or The Master.
  • Awesome Music: Fallout: New Vegas, Frank Sinatra, NO EXCEPTIONS (and that's just the teaser).
  • Broken Base:
    • There is not generally much overlap between fans of the first two game and fans of the third one (though exceptions exist), and the disagreements between the two groups can get rather...vehement.
    • There is even a splinter group of Fallout 1 fans that dislikes Fallout 2 because they felt it introduced "too many silly elements".
  • Complaining About People Not Liking the Show: Saying anything negative about any game in the series with the exception of Brotherhood of Steel will usually get you yelled at, and called either a 'stupid Bethesda fanboy' if you complained about the first two games or Tactics, or a 'stupid NMA troll' if you complained about the third one.
    • Notably, the biggest mistake you can make is complain about the graphics in the first two games. Que a lecture on the character models being actual clay models.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Fallout 2 had Frank Horrigan, who was considered a psychotic maniac before he became an even more aggressive Super Mutant sealed away forever in his specially-designed Power Armor.
      • Fallout 2 also had Myron, a slimey, perverted, immoral drug baron who killed hundreds of slaves while testing his drug "Jet". Not only does he not care how many lives his drug ruins, he actually brags about it. Fortunately, in the epilogue, he gets one of the most awesomely appropriate Karmic Deaths in the history of fiction:

Endgame Narrator (Ron Perlman): Myron died less than a year after the defeat of the Enclave, stabbed by a Jet addict while drinking in the Den. His discovery of Jet was quickly forgotten, and now there is no one who remembers his name.

    • A pretty good case can be made for the people behind the vaults; pretty much each one of which was not designed for the purpose of saving people from the nuclear holocaust, but to trap a lot of people together in one place for the purpose of cruel, sadistic and bizarre experiments which, in most cases, seem to have been designed expressly to drive their occupants murderously insane.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Jesus Christ it's a Deathclaw - get in the car! In most games, Deathclaws are among the deadliest enemies. Strong, tough and fast is only being charitable when describing their ferocity.
      • Deathclaws in Fallout 3 have a massive Achilles' Heel: the Dart Gun. One dart will slow it down to a crawl, and you can easily keep your distance and Cherry Tap it to death. You do have to find the schematics and build one first, though.
      • Obsidian decided to go above and beyond in Fallout: New Vegas. Not only is there no dart gun, which was effective against Deathclaws in Fallout 3, but they now come in packs and have titanic damage thresholds, meaning most (as in, everything smaller than the anti-materiel rifle) will only do Scratch Damage. Thankfully, they now can't spawn randomly. You'll know where they are.
    • Yao Guai are the not-quite-Demonic cousin of Deathclaws. They're easier to kill and do less damage, but unless you're high level they are still dangerous, especially in packs.
    • Broken Steel adds in Super Mutant Overlords. You won't encounter them until you're a pretty high level, but they're equipped with powerful weapons and are ridiculously tough. To make matters worse, they have an unblockable damage bonus of around 20-40 HP per shot depending on the weapon. Even wearing power armor and toting a rocket launcher, your ass may well be handed to you.
      • Overlords are nothing compared to the Albino Radscorpions, which have almost as much HP as a Super Mutant Behemoth! Their only saving grace is their lack of a long-range attack, so you can get out of dodge by climbing on top of something they can't reach you from. That said, considering their durability and damage potential, running the hell away is a good idea too.
      • And rounding out the Broken Steel trio are the Feral Ghoul Reavers. Oh hey, they look just like Feral Ghoul Roamers, piece of ca- WAIT WHAT.
    • Damn those swampfolk/tribals and that magical unresistable damage bonus!
    • Those stealth suited aliens. Hell, you feel pretty stupid by shooting a mini nuke to a 3 foot tall guy and watching he shoot back at you with his alien rifle just after.
    • Any player trying to do "Those!" at any level below ten or so will find the fire-breathing ants a hell of a challenge. Sometimes it's an easier and smarter idea to just kill one ant on the street and just do the quest later in the game, so that their levels stay somewhat low while you have a wider arsenal to gun them down with. Or just stand on the ledge outside of town and snipe them.
    • The Enclave patrolmen in Fallout 2 were the bane of players everywhere. They are pretty much immune to electric damage and heavily resistant to nearly every other kind of damage due to their power armor, not to mention they have extremely high health and can effortlessly kill you in one turn even without a critical hit. Because of them, going anywhere near the coast until you've reached near endgame levels was instant Death Wish. Unlike most Demonic Spiders, however, it's pretty easy to tell where they are and which places to avoid (anywhere near the coast pretty much).
    • Any kind of robotic enemy will be a huge pain in the ass as well. Did you remember to invest some skill points in energy weapons, despite usually never coming across one until at least the halfway point? You better, because energy weapons and explosives are the only way to deal reliable amounts of damage. Fallout: New Vegas mitigates this somewhat by offering armour piercing rounds and pulse slugs to give small gun users a fighting chance.
  • Ear Worm:
    • Galaxy News Radio in Fallout 3 plays only the most catching (and appropriate) songs of the first half of the 20th Century... including "Maybe", from Fallout 1.
    • He keeps hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’, He keeps hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’, He keeps hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’
    • I've got spurs that jingle jangle jangle (jingle jangle) as I go riding merrily along (jingle jangle)
    • "You had plenty of money in 1922 You let other women make a fool of you. Why don't you do right? Like some other men do..."
    • Biiiiiiiiiiiiig irrrrrrrronnnn, big iron!
    • And the Badass trailer for Fallout: New Vegas. I love those Deeeeeeaaar hearts, and geeeentle people, who live in myyyy hometown... Too bad it didn't make it into the soundtrack.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Fandom Berserk Button: Accidentally calling the Vault Boy "Pip Boy" or "Fallout Boy".
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Hardcore fans generally refuse to acknowledge the existence of the ("good for what it is") Tactical RPG Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel or the console hack-and-slash Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. Bethesda have adopted a similar policy, declaring Tactics Broad Strokes canon and Brotherhood of Steel Canon Discontinuity.
  • Friendly Fandoms: Ever since Bethesda acquired the series, Fallout fans have overlapped with those of fellow Bethesda's own RPG series The Elder Scrolls.
  • Game Breaker:
    • The Sniper perk in the first two games. With high luck, almost every hit will be a critical hit. Combine with shots to the eye and a decently powerful weapon and only the strongest enemies will survive more than one round of combat.
    • Jinxed with Luck 10. Your obscene luck (usually) counteracts the negative effects of the perk, but your enemies will constantly be hitting themselves, each other and breaking their guns and limbs on a regular basis. Although this means that the rest of your party become a lot less helpful and much more dangerous to you.
    • Some of the special encounters that you come across in the Wasteland in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. The crashed Nuka-Cola truck which gives you over 10,000 caps at a high enough Luck level, the Alien Blaster, the Solar Scorcher, the Red Ryder LE BB Gun, the Holy Hand Grenade, the Monument Head and the Star Trek Hypos.
    • Mothership Zeta DLC. After finishing, you end up with a huge amount of super healing stuff, overpowered weapons and ammo for those weapons. Good bye scavenging and weapon maintenance, hello Alien Desintegrator!
      • Finishing Operation: Anchorage will unlock a chamber filled to the brim with awesome weaponry, plus two game breaking suits of armor. The Chinese Stealth Suit always gives you 100% stealth (and allows you through a glitch to wear all the clothing you have in your inventory at once, giving multiple armor and stat boosts at once), and the Winterized Power Armor, which never degrades and allows you to circumvent the usual restrictions to wearing Power Armor before completing the required story mission.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Geckos in Fallout 2, especially around Trapper Town/Klamath. *Head Desk*
    • Bloatflies and pretty much every other insect in Fallout 3, unless you have the Entomologist perk.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • Sometimes in Fallout 1, the aftermath of the slaughter of the ghouls at Necropolis will sometimes leave the dead bodies standing upright, as if they're mindless flesh statues, frozen at the point of their death. Which is very creepy when you're wandering around looting them.
    • With Broken Steel installed, Three Dog will talk about the Enclave's defeat at Jefferson Memorial even if you haven't gotten that far in-story.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A character in combat armor outside the Boneyard (Fallout 1) wears a pin reading "I'm Chris and you're not." Chris Avellone joined production for Fallout 2, and has become the name most associated with the franchise.
  • I Am Not Shazam: The Vault Boy is NOT called PipBoy. Even the developers of Fallout Tactics fell into that. Vault Boy is the blond, wavy haired man in the blue jumpsuit, and PipBoy is the redhead pixie in the yellow and orange spacesuit, in case you were wondering.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Sometimes, your settlements can get infiltrated by disguised Institute Synths. There's no knowing about them until they start killing off your population slowly...
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Each Fallout game unfortunately suffers from this to a certain degree. The most notable examples of this are probably Fallout 1‍'‍s timer and Fallout 4‍'‍s cut-down dialogue.
  • Uncanny Valley: The characters from all of the games, to some degree.
  • The Woobie: Harold in the three main games. He has lost just about everything he had by the time you see him in the first game, and suffers a Fate Worse Than Death in the third. At least you can actually do something about his situation in that case (or don't, if you choose to restrict his growth instead of mercy-killing him or expanding his fertility; thanks, jerk).
    • Also somewhat of a subversion because in the first game, one of the Multiple Endings had Harold ruling The Hub making peace among the rich merchants and the street vagrants... unfortunately, the ending couldn't be accessed because of a bug, but fan patches restore it.
      • Additionally, if you choose not to mercy-kill him, you can convince him that he's an important part of the Treeminders' lives, and therefore he should give them a chance. The REAL cruel option is burning him alive.
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