Fallout: Difference between revisions

* [[After the End]]: Nobody knew who fired the first missile that triggered the apocalypse. By the end of the day, nobody cared....

** Fallout's opening sequence deconstructs this. Everyone considered it would be the end of the world. But humanity still survived, mutated, blood thirsty, and completely shattered, but still the world moves on. The Great War isn't the end, simply one more sad chapter.

** Actually, Tactics has several interesting subversions. {{spoiler|Originally, the [[Big Bad|Calculator]] was going to be a perfectly rational computer, still soullessly following orders after its superiors were dead.}} This was changed in the game, {{spoiler|where the Calculator is now not a computer, but several dozen insane disembodied brains. The (completely sane) computer itself, which oversees the brain's actions, offers the protagonist the chance to upload his own, sane mind into the machine. This returns the calculator to sanity, and to your control. Depending on how nice you are, this could be an [[Earn Your Happy Ending]] or a [[Bittersweet Ending]]. Simply destroying it works too, and that gives you the slightly good canon ending. Or you could shove the [[Jerkass]]'s brain into it, creating the worst ending.}}

** Also, robots without their inhibitor pack attack whoever happens to be nearby. Which just so happens to be almost any robot not tied to a specific location.

** Big Guns was removed in ''New Vegas'', with the weapons being assigned to either the Guns, Explosives or Energy Weapons skills as appropriate. However, strength requirements are reinstated, and the formerly Big Guns weapons all have 8+ STR requirement to use effectively.

* [[Big Brother Is Watching]]: Actual quote from the museum of technology Vault tour: "Concerned about security? Our eye-on camera allows the Overseer to watch your every move. You'll never be alone again!" [[Sarcasm Mode|Yay?]]

** Although you can run into an old cohort from Vault 101 if you {{spoiler|make Amata the Overseer, and chat about old times and let them know you're doing okay and still watching out for them}}, which takes the edge off a bit.

** Pretty much every ending for New Vegas has some negative consequence to it.

* [[Eagle Land]] The prewar United States was heavily into Type 2, so much so that they were pretty much outright villainous. The Enclave continues this trend.

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: ''Fallout 2'' and ''New Vegas'', especially.

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Prolonged FEV exposure can mess you up in an impressive manner. {{spoiler|The Master began as a human who got dipped in an FEV vat for an unusually long time, and emerged as a [[Body Horror|formless, tormented mass of flesh]] that expanded throughout the entire base, merging with its electronics and computer systems, and absorbing any other life form it found into itself, becoming a demented [[Hive Mind]] that viewed itself as a perfect being}}.

* [[Elite Mooks]]: ''Fallout 1'' had the cloaking-device-equipped Nightkin as the Super Mutants' [[Elite Mooks]]. ''Fallout 2'' had the Enclave Soldiers in the Poseidon Oil Rig, wearing Advanced Power Armor, equipped with energy weapons and full of stimpaks.

* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: The most blatant is [[The Empire|Caesar's Legion]], which was modeled in-universe on [[The Roman Empire]] and [[Shown Their Work|is sometimes hard to tell apart from the real thing]]. The [[The Federation|New California Republic]] is very much like the pre-war United States. The Shi Empire is pretty much [[Imperial China]] reborn. And while probably not deliberate, the [[The Order|East Coast Brotherhood of Steel]] has a lot in common with early Prussia.

* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: This has been the case since the first game and was used for its [[Talking the Monster To Death]] option. The handful of talking Super Mutant NPCs in the first two games occasionally mention it.

** Though in ''Fallout 1''.. {{spoiler|It's hinted in future games that the diplomat was canon.}}

* [[Final Death]]: Once a team member is killed, they're dead forever. This is Earth, not [[Forgotten Realms|Toril]], and there are no such things as resurrection spells. In the first two games, ''every'' NPC (including essential quest killers) is killable. In ''Fallout 3'' every character except children and those deemed essential are, meaning you can always progress in the game but can screw yourself out of a lot of potential loot and XP.

** In ''New Vegas'', your allies are just KOed for a few seconds in normal mode. In Hardcore, though, it's [[Final Death]].

** During the ''Fallout 2'' era, the NCR military is a diverse mix of humans, ghouls, and Super Mutants, making NCR squads some of the most powerful units in the Wasteland. By the ''New Vegas'' era, though, social attitudes in the NCR have regressed significantly under men like President Kimball; Super Mutants are apparently no longer welcome, and ghouls are only grudging tolerated (although several ghouls still serve in the more progressive Rangers). The NCR military is ''significantly'' weaker as a result.

* [[From Nobody to Nightmare]]: [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Deathclaws]]. What pre-war animal did they mutate from? Jackson's Chameleons.

* [[Horror Hunger]]: Cannibalism is a mutation. Ordinary humans who eat human flesh too often sicken and die, but a subset have a natural hunger for human flesh and an ability to eat it without getting fatal rad poisoning (at least not as fast). Several organizations of cannibals exist who have either kicked the habit, [[Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere|tried to]], or [[Vegetarian Vampire|found a substitute]].

* [[Human Resources]]: In ''Fallout 1'', your character could discover through simple investigation that the meat used by Iguana Bob, the local fast food vendor, was secretly made out chopped up human cadavers. If the player has high enough stats they can blackmail Bob. By ''Fallout 2'', his great-grandson has built an entire franchise...

* [[Humanoid Abomination]]: Frank Horrigan, the genetically engineered synthetic cyborg homocidal maniac specially created by the Enclave, who is forever sealed in a suit of power armor that continually pumps him with life support.

** Dead Money, [[Fallout New Vegas (Video Game)|Fallout New Vegas]] DLC, has the Ghost people. The Cloud apparently changed normal human beings into feral, nocturnal, gas proof, limb-regenerating, and [[Made of Iron|hard to kill]] abominations sealed in hazmat suits, with their only purpose now being to stab, throw a spears, and chuck bombs.

*** Which is unfortunately beaten by the handmade flaming sword, provided you have the pyromaniac perk...

** Also, the Gauss Rifle from Fallout 2. In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, it is more of an [[Infinity-1 Sword]] to the Alien Blaster and YCS/186 respectively.

** The Gauss Pistol in ''Fallout 2'' was always potent, and with the right build had the potential to regularly kill 6 enemies each turn.

** The Terrible Shotgun in ''Fallout 3'' was capable of truly obscene damage when combined with sneak attacks and Perks that increased critical damage, in some cases able to kill the mighty Super Mutant Bohemoth in a single shot.

* [[Instant AI, Just Add Water]]: At least one in each game... ZAX in ''Fallout'', SKYNET (no, not [[The Terminator|that SKYNET]]) in ''Fallout 2'', and {{spoiler|President Eden (also of the ZAX series)}} in ''Fallout 3''. Interestingly, ZAX and SKYNET are mostly benevolent (although it's suggested SKYNET is not to be entirely trusted), although {{spoiler|Eden}} ends up as the game's [[Big Bad]].

** At the end of ''Fallout Tactics'', after {{spoiler|defeating a army of cold, merciless robots}} and {{spoiler|exploding the front door of Vault 0 with a nuke}}, you came face to face with {{spoiler|the Calculator, a super-powerful AI that's pretty much Instant AI, except you had to add... BRAINS. Human brains, if possible, but rat brains worked as well}}. Some other robots are also powered like that, like the Robobrains, SKYNET and Protectons.

** The earlier 2.5D games, particularly ''Fallout 2'', had several. They're generally not annoyingly placed to move the player character down an arbitrary path, but at least one does keep him or her from reaching a stash of juicy items.

** The player encounters the Highwayman early in Fallout 2, only to have the other Highwayman (with the parts required to fix the first car) require a lengthy battle through the sewers to reach , despite being roughly 20 feet away to begin with.

* [[The Musketeer]]: Enemy too close? [[Drop the Hammer|Drop the sledgehammer]].

* [[Mysterious Protector]]: the "Mysterious Stranger" perk in 2,3 and New Vegas, with the Miss Fortune Perk added in the last.

* [[Name's the Same]]: Europeans may be confused by repeated references to the Great War - the nuclear holocaust that nearly wiped out the human race in the 21st century - as they are more familiar with this moniker being used to describe [[World War One]].

* [[Necessarily Evil]]: Lord Ashur from [[Fallout 3 (Video Game)|The Pitt addon.]]

** Also, Roy Phillips and his crew and how they subvert the "good" ending of the Tenpenny Towers quest. Just because you're an oppressed minority DOESN'T mean you're not also ungrateful, murderous assholes. In fact, if you complete the quest for him, {{spoiler|he suggests to any ghoul who got his letter to kill any human who knows about Tenpenny}}. And for some reason, blowing him away gets you bad karma.

** Also with Mr. Crowley, who gets the player to decapitate a quartet of anti-ghoul bigots {{spoiler|except only one of them hates ghouls, the lot of them worked with him on a merc job a while back, and the three who aren't bigots have the keys to a top-secret research lab in a ruined military installation. Crowley is also an arse, although not to the degree of Roy Phillips}}. You don't actually have to do it, though, he just has to think you did (or at least get their keys).

*** You don't even have to make him think you did it, you can quite easily go to the military base yourself and get the {{spoiler|T51-B Power Armor}} yourself. Afterwards, he knows you did it and you can't cash in on the keys (nor killing Tenpenny if you did it)

** Additionally, your potential party member Charon. Being raised from birth to serve anyone with his contract, he's one of the toughest party members you can have. Being a ghoul also makes him immune to radiation, though it doesn't help you... until ''Broken Steel''.

* [[The Pennyfarthing Effect]]: 1 and 2 have this in spades. Most prominently, you won't get any description of a usable object in the environment or even any indication that it's usable without first switching to the "look" cursor.

* [[Planimal]]: Spore plants, one of which becomes sentient.

* [[Powered Armor]]: Iconic to the series. Some variant of it is always the best armor in the game--whether Hardened Power Armor in ''1'' or Advanced Power Armor Mark II in ''2''--providing excellent protection from firearms and environmental hazards as well as a significant strength boost. Worn by both the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave.

** In the third game, however, it loses a little of its luster as all forms of it excluding the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Armor]] decrease Agility, which is the primary statistic for VATS (unless you hate VATS, which just makes that a null issue). On top of that, other armor types nearly match the T-51b in protection, while being far lighter. And it still doesn't do you any good in the end. The ''Operation Anchorage'' DLC fixed this unintentionally with the glitched Winterized T-51b, which is essentially indestructible in addition to having the highest damage reduction available.

** In [[Fallout 3 (Video Game)|Washington D.C.]], however, humanity clings to the past almost religiously.

** In [[Fallout New Vegas (Video Game)|the Mojave]], there's still a lot of scavenging going on, because there's enough failed Vaults and other ruins left that "[[Disaster Scavengers|prospectors]]" can still hope to strike it rich. ''However'', the area also has several organizations capable of manufacturing modern technology (especially weapons), and its days as a [[Scavenger World]] are numbered; part of the theme of the game is [[Multiple Endings|deciding what kind of civilization will be rebuilt from the ashes]].

* [[Set a Mook To Kill A Mook]]: Plenty of opportunities to do this in all the games since they keep track of the multiple factions.

** A certain piece of armor makes the character sprite look like [[Mel Gibson (Creator)|Mel Gibson]]'s character in ''The Road Warrior'', and wearing it in the presence of a dog named "Dogmeat" causes it to join your party.

** In the second game hurting Dogmeat when he's not of your party summons a [[Mad Max|leather jacket-wearing man]] [[Funetik Aksent|with an Aussie accent]] named Mel who immediately attacks you.

** [[Fallout 1 (Video Game)|Fallout 1]] is very similiar to first Mad Max, [[Fallout 2 (Video Game)|Fallout 2]] is very, very similiar to Mad Max2 (a stranger (protagonist of [[Fallout 1 (Video Game)|Fallout 1]]) founds a tribal culture (Arroyo, but Max literally founded them) and becomes something of a messiah to it. Plus, [[Erudite Stoner|Hakunin]] bears striking resemblance to that shaman kid from the second film.

** [[Fallout 2 (Video Game)|Fallout 2]] companions, also liabilities, added a lot to the game, thus making the decision to do so harder.

** [[Fallout 3 (Video Game)|Fallout 3]] companions, still liabilities, were less interesting characters and did not significantly add to game content, so the decision was easier as the player wouldn't be missing out on much. With the ''Broken Steel'' DLC, three companions were turned into [[Nigh Invulnerable]] [[Game Breaker|Game Breakers]] due to bad scaling. Having 1.2 to 7.5 times the health of a [[Damage Sponge Boss|Super Mutant Behemoth]], they are no longer at-risk of dying, but they're still dumb.

* [[The Sponsor]]: The player becomes this for NPCs with whom he will spend a grand total of four minutes in conversation. (In contrast, if the player character gets addicted in Fallout, the only moral support they get is a shot of detox meds and a stern reprimand.)

* [[Stealth Run]]: Possible in all three games.