The downloadable sequel to the 1997 PC role-playing game classic, Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game took everything that made the first game a classic and refined it in a sequel that truly bests the original in many ways.
H0w to Download Fallout 2
Fallout 2 is available for download from Steam and GOG.com platforms. To start downloading you should click the download link located at the end of the review. If you like to experience more of the post-apocalyptic turn-based action you should also check out the much more recent Wasteland 2.
The Game Review
A rare feat, Fallout 2’s ability to take everything about the first game, add more of it, and do it all better is just another testament to Black Isle Studios ability to bring compelling games to the market. Basic elements such as graphics and gameplay remain largely unchanged, giving Interplay’s devs time to expand the narrative and game world to sizes unthinkable in the last game.
Bringing to life an epic in every sense of the word, a modern gamer really gathers the sense that Fallout was beginning to develop its identity by the conclusion of the second title and, indeed, the canceled third game (Van Buren) from the same devs speaks to this notion. Taking place some 80 years after the events of the first game, the world of Fallout 2 is largely unchanged from that in the first game.
Everything is still quite grim and desperate with large swaths of humanity reduced to tribal dependencies.
Also, like the last game technology and its use is of paramount importance in the Fallout 2 world with things like power armor and advanced weaponry being favored over knives and traditional firearms.
Embodying a kind of Mad Max vibe, Fallout 2’s post-apocalyptic world is still very much a 1990s interpretation of the atomic age of the 1950s with many of the items and situations being a subtle commentary on that era’s ideas. Lore is deep and compelling, as is to be expected, but it is presented on two levels in Fallout 2 as there are more micro and macro conflicts to deal with this time around.
Combat is still tough and is largely governed by movement points and strategic selection of targets through VATS. This game expands the lore to include factions such as the Enclave and iconic super mutant Frank Horrigan as well as allowing the player to partake in drug use and prostitution.
These elements might sound like par for the course in a Grand Theft Auto title now but back in the day, these were unique, life-simulation elements that were unexpected and refreshing. Like in Fallout, Fallout 2 puts a huge premium on “moral choice” and where a player’s choices in the course of the game lie on that spectrum.
Not only does this lead to variations in endings but also opens up different types of interactions with different types of players.
As the descendant of the hero introduced in the first game, Fallout 2 is also unique in the series in that the first two games are really the only two that explicitly tie the protagonists together in some way. Every game since has focused on a new story, albeit in the same universe, and has typically explained the lack of connection by geographic distance and/or each individual vault’s relative isolation.
