Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

Found 8000 caps in a random encounter on the way to Junktown, Went to barter with Killian Darkwater, Tried to help out with assassin, end up missing and shooting a guard standing right next to the assassin in the process aggroing the town on to me, Die, forgot to save
Good game 10/10

THIS GAME REQUIRES THE FOLLOWING:
Fallout 1 is NOT your average hand-holding rpg. You have to take notes, remember conversations and sometimes think outside the box in order to complete quests and get the outcome you desire. While the game is VERY OLD, it still holds up with its story, characters, overarching themes and brutality (literal and metaphorical).
BEFORE YOU PLAY here are a few tips you should know:
1. Use numbers on the keyboard when bartering, saves you a lot of time counting caps. It even goes past 999!
2. Do NOT trade with companions, use STEAL so you can move items without bartering for them. And DON'T give them burst weapons, unless you want to cosplay Swiss cheese.
3. SAVE OFTEN! I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, your ass will die or make bad decisions you'll regret. Like dying.
4. Have fun! Don't sweat it if something is a little too challenging, go somewhere else until you get more power.
The Review:
Fallout 1 is where everything started.
One vault dweller was chosen to fix a broken water dispenser and ends up saving humanity from certain doom.
Starting off as a total nobody who was picked in a lottery as "The only hope we have" - Overseer, you must find the Thingamajig Doohickey Macguffin 3000 in order to not have everyone drink their own piss.
You'll venture out, if you don't get nibbled to death by a couple rats, and find different settlements with wildly different views and opinions on how life should be. The journey is long, tedious, outright frustrating and VERY dangerous. But most importantly, you will not return the same person, as when you left.
The combat is one of the cornerstones of this game.
If you didn't spec into Perception and Agility with guns, I shall pray for you. A proper setup will save you unnecessary pain down the line, but don't be afraid to experiment with other loadouts and SPECIAL points during subsequent playthroughs. Just remember to save before you lose 2 hours of gameplay.
Dialogue can be like its own puzzle.
Not in a "I'm so fúcking confused" way, but more so "Choosing the right or wrong lines will open or close certain doors". The game is not afraid to give you funny or badass lines that initiate combat, as it adds more humor and roleplaying opportunities to your playthrough. But for the love of god, PAY ATTENTION! Someone might be obviously lying to you and send you into a deathtrap, unless you think for a moment.
Your choices matter!
A lot of the places and people in Fallout 1 have unique endings depending on how you interacted with them. You could help kickstarting a new superpower by just rescuing 1 person. Or send a town down the road of unrestrained capitalism by favoring a certain side during a dispute. Some content is a bit monotone, but that's mostly sidequests that don't do much anyway.
To conclude:
Fallout 1 has A LOT to offer if you sit down and play by its rules. You could read the wiki and get everything you want your first time, but I recommend just giving it a shot blind. After that, it's all up to you how future playthroughs go.
Overall, this is a perfect RolePlaying Game that gets a 10/10 (If the other reviews didn't make that clear already)

Painfully confusing and difficult at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it gets fun. Setting and music is great and is worth playing if you like other fallout games. Save game every 5 mins trust.

Its actually disgusting how people brush this game off as too old. Its aged incredibly well for something that came out in 1997 and is a must play if you like the other fallout games. Even if you're not sure you'll enjoy it its always worth a shot since its like ten euro/dollars and you could get it for two during a sale.

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!

Playing in 2025... The gameplay was a bit weird and it's a bit tedious, but it's addictive and I feel a bit like in a Baldur's Gate 1 in the future. I enjoy so far!

Still holds up in 2026 as a great game. The amount of choice while having a time limit makes the game a fun and challenging. Don't feel intimidated by the game, look at the manual and jump right in, to a classic to a very beloved game franchise.