| RCTjunkie said: Where do I start and what should I know to get the best experience? |
Depends on what are your expectations and what type of gamer you are.
As someone who played Fallout 1 when it released back in 97, I can tell you that I was dissapointed when after first person perspective of intro it turned out it was isometric game. But then, not half hour later, atmosphere, story, characters and even turned-based combat made me love this game, and ever since it's one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.
Fallout 2 was more of the same greatness, with some nessecary improvements over F1. A lot of people prefer it to F1, but since it was not entirely new, I'm still more fond of first one.
Both F1 and F2 are hub based games - you have a map, you can travel wherever you like (on foot, or faster when you get the car), and there are random encounters (there's even stat that helps you with them), but almost all the gameplay is at hubs of interest. Also, depending on stats, you can have several people with you, though you're not controling them directly.
Tactics is decent, but you can really skip it altogether - play it only if you like games like Jagged Alliance, since it's squad-based tactics game.
And then Interplay disolved and Project Van Buren, what supposed to be Fallout 3 dissapeared and Black Isle was no more (most of folks are now in Obsidian).
Bethesda's Fallout 3...well, if you were fan of F1/2, calling it Fallout was really stretching it, but you could still recognise its origins. Unfortunatelly, it lost so much from the originals, story was weaker, characters paled in comparisson, humour was mostly lost and overall atmosphere was off (partly due to pretty generic Hollywoodish soundtrack by Inon Zur, which was pure garbage compared to Mark Morgan's ominous soundscapes). But F3 brought free-roam - and that was the hook a lot of mainstream audience was caught on. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast with it, and though it's not Fallout I want, it's pretty good game.
In the end it's up to you to decide whether you can look past outdated graphics of F1/2 and prefer more tactical combat vs first person perspective of 3 and NV. My suggestion is start with first, it's an excellent game, play it at least for few hours and if you really can't find it interesting skip to F3.
