Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

Fallout's a great RPG and here are 7 spoiler-free recommendations to get the most out of the game, before you play for the first time:
1. Don't underestimate the "Luck" stat; some of the issues I had with the game stemmed from a low Luck allocation during character creation. In my experience, it made the game "harder" in a way that really wasn't interesting and was instead frustrating. If you enjoy difficult games like I do, I can't stress enough that it doesn't make the game more difficult in a good way. I don't think it's necessary to have a high Luck stat, but avoid having it at 1 or 2 like I did
2. Read the manual before you play the game and refer back to it while playing. It's an older game and isn't tutorialized (for the better, I'd argue). There are a lot of mechanics that the game expects you to be familiar with from the get-go and your experience will probably suffer if you ignore the manual. The original physical copy of the game would've come with it; but now the game is distributed digitally, it is very easy to forget it exists and start the game without it, when you're instead expected to read it.
3. Don't start with low "Strength". Similar to the Luck stat, starting with a low Strength stat just made the game a lot less interesting. It doesn't have to be high, but the game doesn't explicitly explain some things about the Strength stat and starting with low Strength (in my case, 3) really hurts some aspects of the game. Starting with 4 or even 5 Strength would've made my initial playthrough far more interesting.
4. Cap the framerate. I have a high-end system and I experienced a lot of weirdness throughout the game that, upon seeing others' playthroughs, I don't think was supposed to have existed. Stuff like enemies being out of place, breaking some sequences or creating unintended scenarios. It's clear the development team for the game carefully crafted many situations and having them break sucks. I'm unsure if my framerate defaulted to uncapped or if it synced to my monitor's refresh-rate, but either way, it may have been very high.
5. Embrace the resolution and aspect ratio of the original game. The game seems to have been made for older aspect ratios like 4:3 and lower resolutions. While there are options to play in higher resolutions and modern aspect ratios, it made the user interface (UI) troublesome for me and the game would appear stretched. Much of the gameplay is dependent on interacting with the UI and so it's very important that the UI is easily accessible and legible. I'd avoid playing in "1920 x 1080" or higher and perhaps go for a lower 4:3 resolution instead. You'll know it's not right if the main menu buttons don't take up a large amount of space on the screen.
6. Use a journal or notebook to set to create small to-do lists and quest reminders. It's such an expansive game that I found it's really easy to pick up quests from random people all over the place and then forget to return to it later or forget what you were supposed to be doing and who's involved. I'm not sure there's really any sort of quest log in the game — for the better, I'd argue — but there's a lot of enjoyment to be had in the game from diving into side content and actually completing it.
7. Don't save scum. There are so many possibilities and outcomes in the game that it may be very tempting to save and reload to either test scenarios or ideally play out situations. Fallout punishes you a lot and sometimes in ways that are a bit unfair, but this is very much in line with the game world and likely falls within the artistic vision for the game. I'd really recommend just rolling with the punches and if there are things you're interested in exploring after the fact, then save them for extra playthroughs. A game like this gains a lot of value from its replayability and I'd argue that you're probably not getting the full experience if you only play it once, anyway.
Enjoy!

Raw-dogged this game without reading the manual. You can pretty much do everything with just the mouse. But for the love of god, do not torture yourself by clicking the arrows when bartering up to 999 caps. You can type those in. Oh and also, rats make me crazy.

good game but very scary maybe even too scary and also very violent gameplay reminds me of my singing monsters and bookworm deluxe

It's kinda like Star Wars in that no matter how good some of the sequels were, and how much I love it, part of me kinda wishes the Fallout series ended with the first one. Not even close to perfect, but nothing beats the first playthrough. Steeped in atmosphere, awash with interesting artistic direction, this is a game made by people with genuine vision. Everybody needs to play it. It's not even that hard, back in the 90s it was assumed your average gamer could just jump into a game like this with nothing but a manual and their wits. World's gone soft, I'd say.

Truly lives up to the title of one of the best RPGs ever made, especially for the time it came out.
As with all other masterpiece games, I won't bother going deep into the analysis of the game elements. Everything is just mothafuking great.
But there's one major issue.
It's extremely dated in terms of gameplay, utility, and basic, taken-for-granted features nowadays, and it shows.
Еven with all the patches, today an out-of-the-box copy still has many bugs, baseless gameplay-forced annoyances/complications, time wasters, missing features, and it's more prone to crashing.
A lot of things you expect to happen simply don't happen, or are not the case.
Here’s just a taste of some of the missing QoL and features (without bugs and time wasters):
NPCs, mainly party members, often decide to start standing in a doorway, blocking the passage. In the vanilla version, this will stop you from going through a door, which might essentially soft-lock you.
Party members don't level and can't really be controlled in any meaningful way.
Doors must be clicked to open or close them.
No merchant restocking.
No ability to highlight items.
Items like consumables must be re-equipped after use.
No 'take all' option for the stash and loot windows.
You can't trade with companions - you can only steal from them.
No bulk trade for NPCs that trade unique items.
No scroll wheel support for scrolling the inventory.
On alt+tab, it crashes often.
No karma change notifications.
No full description of items when bartering.
Party limit is set to a single companion.
This is not a full list by any means.
Thankfully, Fallout EU TU(Fallout 2 in 1) provides a ton of QoL, bugfixes, improvements, and new features, and solves all these issues and more. It makes the game as accessible and modern-gaming-friendly as possible while keeping the vanilla gameplay loop essentially the same.
There is a great video that goes into detail well on how to install and tweak it in the best manner possible. It's a bit outdated - some mentioned tweaks have been moved or became default - but it’s still, IMO, the best entry point to Fallout 1.
If you choose not to use it, just so you know - you're condemning yourself to suffering from a plethora of issues, bugs, and wasting an insane amount of time.
Last thing that must be mentioned - the game doesn't hold your hand at all.
There is no path to follow, no recommended quests, or anything remotely like that.
In no way does the game mention or even hint that something happens to certain settlements after a sizeable amount of time - which has extreme importance.
Hell, there's not even a basic tutorial to explain the core mechanics.
They don’t even tell you there’s a button that shows all the game hotkeys.
Is that possibly just another dated part of this game, or is it the hardcore element of older PC games? Nobody will ever know.
If you want to experience a definitive RPG that is in a class of its own and set an industry standard - this is a no-brainer to me.
Like this guide and I’ll consider posting ET TU configuration file changes as a guide based on the video, but up to date.

As a big fallout 3/New vegas fan, i wanted to dive deeper into the lore. Definitely a learning curve on the mechanics and controls of the game. But with some youtube videos i was able to learn pretty fast. Very different from what i was used to but i really enjoy it!

PROS:
-Tremendous player agency. Not only does Fallout 1 give you choices to do just about anything in the game world, it also makes you feel like success or failure is up to the player. The viability of your character build, the chances of who you kill or who ends up killing you hinges entirely on the choices you make. Something that is VERY unique, especially compared to modern games.

-Rewarding advancement. Every level gives you a sense that your character is advancing in meaningful ways. Perks feel powerful and significant, your skills matter, and endgame abilities can make you feel like a powerhouse.

-Memorable characters. The story characters have unique graphics and interesting personalities that are well voice acted.

-Humor. The game has a unique sense of dark comedy that makes the game fun to play while still preserving the bleak and serious atmosphere.

-Replayability. Even after beating the game more than once there is still motivation to go back and play, making a different type of character or making different RP choices that lead to different outcomes.

-Unique aesthetic. The setting and artstyle is unlike anything else, blending retro vibes with bleak cynicism.


CONS:
-Not much to look at. Even for a 20+ year old game, the graphics are very rudimentary. There aren't that many sprite variations so many characters, including important NPCs and story characters, look like indistinguishable clones. Since the art is low-res, you're forced to either up the resolution which makes everything look tiny or lower the resolution in which case everything looks kinda pixelated.

-Unbalanced skills. Some abilities (small guns, energy weapons, speech, gifted) are incredibly powerful while other abilities (almost everything else) are next to useless. You might actually use skills like Science or Repair maybe once or twice in the entire game. It makes the game feel like you need a guide to tell you how to make your character due to there being so many useless choices.

-Small world. While the game makes the world feel big by making you walk long distances in the overworld, there are only a handful of locations in the game. The time you take to beat the game is on par with other RPGs (about 20-ish hours) but you spend most of your time in just a few areas comprising only a few of the same tilesets.

-Slow combat. Being turn-based is okay, but the battles can at times feel like it takes forever for people in the game to do what they're doing or walk where they're going to walk, especially when there's lots of enemies in the area.


Overall though, Fallout 1 is an amazing game that produces a really unique experience that feels fulfilling in a way you don't see to much of anymore.