Recent reviews by PhiloDemon

I say this with complete earnestness: this is the greatest Fallout game I have ever played. I have played shooters all my life, grew up with the PS2 and PS3, and never touched true CRPGs like the original FO games until 4 months ago. Everything that made FO1 great (despite it's imperfections) is here, but far more detailed, expansive, and humorous in a way that is so hilarious yet offensive that it is crazy to imagine they were even put in here. Seriously, there are parts in this game that feel like Lloyd Kaufman wrote it. Somehow, it is able to juggle the humor along with the serious elements. People act like 1 is the bleakest game, which tonally I'd say is true, but the stuff in 2 is arguably darker. Slavery everywhere, drug overdosing in most places, prostitution, child murder, etc. The amount of world building here is literally God tier. Corruption even in the most "peaceful" places. The ambiguity of morality. The music of 1 helping sustain this toxic atmosphere, while adding in my view some of the best tracks Mark Morgan ever graced us with. My God. This thing is an absolute monster.

My journey with Fallout started with New Vegas roughly a year ago, which is an awesome RPG that helped me become obsessed with the franchise. Instead of going after 3 and 4, I decided to try the classics. I had difficulty with the first game, not simply for its infancy in terms of old mechanics (which it would improve in the sequel), but it's rough pacing in the first segments of the game. Not the most detailed areas, despite the great characters, wonderful atmosphere, and truly epic story ending. I love how overtly dark it is compared to the rest of the series, and I feel that pure tone has never been caught since. It is truly the saddest Fallout game. Period.

You think NV had a bad development period? Fallout 2 was made in 9 months [en.wikipedia.org].. I can't imagine how they were able to accomplish so much despite that clearly rushed time period. The improvements it makes from Fallout 1 are not just mechanics. It's not just that companions are better (AI still wacky, don't let Marcus use a minigun lmao, but there is more control) or how you can move NPCs now. Dialogue is significantly better. Choices are significantly better. The story is imo overall just amazing, as good as the original if not better for me. Never in my life would I think that playing a porn star would look so FUN in a game. The characters, despite my true love for the Master and Set, are just better. Sulik, Marcus, Myron (yes, Myron), Sargent Dornan, etc. etc. Freaking Frank Horrigan. The inverseness of this game story wise is a wonderful development off of Fallout 1. God I just love this game I cannot stand it. Don't even get me started on the cut content like the Rainbow Confederation [www.nma-fallout.com] or the freaking original Child Killer Reputation [fallout.fandom.com] artwork. It's amazing in how more mature this game is compared to later titles.


If anything, I'd recommend anyone who has the patience to try older titles and games to give this a shot. Part of me wonders if people should start with 2 and then go for 1, but I also feel my experience with 1 was invaluable to me being able to "jump into" 2 without much problems. There are a few tips I want to give to those wanting to play that helped me play the game:

1) Save often. I don't mean "save every 10-15 minutes." I mean have several saves, a quicksave, every time you are about to get into combat, when you are going through a building fighting people save every time combat ends, etc. Save save save. It will save you a lot of pain.

2) If you are new, just follow the big quest stuff that gives you hints. Talk to everyone, think about the context of FO1 lore, look and loot places. In the Klamneth? Loot around near where the rats are, particularly a broken car to the east in that area. Saved Vic? Look in his inventory, what's that he's got there? Know how to loot. Make sure, because it's not always clear, to look around the room *carefully.* I straight up missed holes in the ground because walls blocked them, or didn't realize in places like New Reno that some staircases (Mordino Family for example) also go downstairs. Etc etc. I could probably think of hundreds of more, but these are good enough I think.

3) Understand the city map system. When you go to a town, it gives you options of where to go within it. Sometimes you may park your Highwayman and think it got stolen (again >:]) but really you just parked it in a different spot in town. Some places you need to look at the whole city map in order to travel to that specific spot. Just be aware of that. When in doubt, exit the area. Also, make sure you explored the whole face of the sections of town you are in. Lowkey missed the Poseidon Powerplant in Gecko simply because I didn't move my view all the way to the right lol.

4) Bugs. Honestly, I think I've had more crashes with FO3 lol, but 2 as well as the 1 can crash. Bugs suck and the game only has a few annoying ones (randomly slows down for no reason for a bit, screen blackens and clears up as you move your cursor around, etc.), but ONE in particular is real bad. There is a game breaking bug if you aren't careful. It's not exactly clear what the bug is or where it comes from, but many people call it the "Too Many Items" bug. Essentially, at a certain point, whenever you go into Chinatown in San Francisco, the game will crash every time. This is one of the many reasons multiple saves is very important. I was able to be in Chinatown a lot, but supposedly the bug occurs when you put too many items in the trunk of your Highwayman (yeah, that car ALSO has a trunk. I found that out by accident after using it for 5 hours LOL). You can still access the Tanker, but the moment you there, or anywhere else in the city, you have to go through Chinatown to leave, which will result in a crash. It makes your next trip into SF a one way trip.

If you are curious about the bug, I played this game raw (no mods) and it seems like some like the Restoration Mod fixed it? It's not super clear tho. This person was able to figure it out on their own (read the comments too). Check out the fallout wiki [fallout.fandom.com] for more info too.

5) Don't take jet. Don't do it. Don't.


Basically, it's an awesome game for the main story, fun and serious side quests, and characters. NV is really good, but I think that 2 is the true masterpiece of the series. It is the game the future franchise built itself off of, for better or worse. I have not played a lot of video games in my life, but I think I understand the love here. I love it to death too. Truly a CLASSIC.

10 / 10

"As for the tanker vagrants...well, as vagrants do...they drifted on~"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soF3t7cFPoc

I was skeptical of Half Life, hearing all the buzz about the series being legendary and fun with a cliff-hanging story. It's $0.99 Steam sale price tag was pretty appealing, and I figured, "If I don't like it, I lost only $0.99. Who cares?" I bought it about a year ago and never got a chance to start it until a few days ago. Here are my opinions:

This game is jaw-droppingly intuitive for it's time. My goodness. The moment that I was shown that "crouch jumping" was a mechanic in the tutorial, I was blown away (personally) by the idea of it being utilized in a shooter game. I grew up with shooters like Call of Duty Black Ops and Battlefield 3 for years. They are nowhere near this level of mechanics in my personal opinion, despite the fact Half Life was released in 1998.

The game play is super slick for it's first play through. Small issues and a few confusing destination points, but none to make me even consider not recommending the game anyway. The game has really nice (mostly) indicators of where you need to go or what you need to do. The color of pipes heading in a clear direction, named signs, glowing control panels to signify that you completed something (turned on the gas, turned on the fuel, etc). Sometimes it was awkward, admittedly. I'd only recommend that if you are having a hard time with a specific part, check a play through on YouTube. As for the mobs that you fight, they can be hard, but mostly fair and never felt impossible at the Normal difficulty. Think about what is near the enemy if you aren't sure how to beat it (grenades near a large mod, for example). Save A LOT if you are worried about getting YEETED like I was. It saved me a lot of grief.

The story is fun and develops at an interesting pace over time. No cut scenes in the game, all centered around dialogue and listening to background announcements or voices. Let the NPCs do the talking so you catch what's happening. It's almost like the story isn't forced on you necessarily (you go from point A to B, but don't *have* to hear the dialogue), but its part of the background as you continue onward. If you skip over the story too much, you will be surprised by what happens next. I never knew that the Half Life's story would go *this way*, but it did, and it was a super cool experience. One of the best cliff-hanging endings for sure.

I beat the game in about 4 days just over 15 hours on Normal mode. It was super fun and I am sold on playing the series. This game is epic and deserves the praise it gets.

99 cents out of 100 cents for me. If you have been on the fence about it, do yourself a favor and play this game.

TLDR; Worth every penny and 100% recommend it. Fantastic game with very few short comings that can be dealt with fairly easily with some brief research. Get it while it's on sale for $0.99 to buy more games (even more Half Life, dang it!). Heck, I would have bought it for $10.