Fallout 2 Review (Gouvea)
Fallout 2 came out in a time when PC game sequels were, more often than not, glorified expansions. These sequels would be launched shortly after the first game, usually no more than two years, recycling much of the mechanics, ideas, and art assets from the original game. They would, however, be quite bigger in scope than their predecessor. Not in length, necessarily, but in everything else: more guns, more enemies, more areas, more quests, more stuff. In the case of Fallout 2, the bigger scope resulted in a better sandbox RPG simulation but hampered the overall quality of the experience to a certain extent.
The dialogue here is often criticized for being too goofy, self-aware, and with too many dated pop culture references, and I'd say that's a fair assessment. There's also a clear difference in tone from the first game; Fallout 1 was satirical, but the humor was used as thematic contrast and was much more subdued. The satire was always working in favor of the worldbuilding, without sacrificing the concepts it was trying to tackle. In Fallout 2, the absurdism of the writing usually contributes to a tone dissonance or just undermines the dark nature of the universe the first game portrayed. Nonetheless, it still manages to produce some fun stories and ideas, but of variable quality.
This lack of quality control probably circles back to the bigger scope and lack of focus. The lead developer from Fallout 1, Tim Cain, resigned from the project three months into it due to crunch and disagreements with Brian Fargo at Interplay. Leonard Boyarsky and Jason D. Anderson, both key designers from the first game, followed suit and left as well.
The whole game was completed in less than a year of total development time. To achieve that, they had to assign different teams to design the quests and experiences of each of the main quest hubs separately, basically stitching them all together in the end. That also explains the variable quality of the writing. On the other hand, the amount of content in general is quite impressive and contributes to a richer sandbox experience in comparison to the first game. In other words, there are many more opportunities for different roleplaying styles, builds, choices and etcetera.
The polished RPG system also plays a big role in creating this richer sandbox. Skills that were of little use before have many more opportunities to be used here; either through dialogue options or gameplay. Although it's an overall improvement, some issues I have with the system are still present -- namely, First Aid and Doctor are still redundant outside of dialogue and the gun skills are still more a progression sequence than a choice of playstyle.
That said, the system rebalance I have most issue with is in the overworld travel and random encounters -- traversal was highly slowed down and random encounters were highly increased in quantity. They're also completely overtuned in difficulty. You can get off the first area and immediately encounter a group of something like twelve radscorpions or geckos, which you have no hope of surviving. You're pretty much required to spend points in the Outdoorsman skill to lower encounter rate or else your experience will be very frustrating with constant save reloading. These traveling issues are completely made null after a certain unlock though (the Chrysalis Highwayman), so get that as soon as you can.
Regardless, despite being inferior to the first game in my opinion, it's still great. Aside from the main story, there are some very good quests and fun ideas here. It expanded the universe of Fallout in a quirkier direction that is the basis of much of the Bethesda games today, for better and for worse.