Fallout is a very interesting game but, in the modern day, it is mostly interesting in the way it is remembered (or, rather, mis-remembered).
People talk about how satirical it is but it really isn't. It has occasional comedy to it, mostly in the form of irreverence, but it never quite has anything to say about what it's joking about. It just is what it is.
The other major thing people like to tout is that it's anti-nukes but it really isn't. It doesn't really have anything to say at all. At the very end, there's even an option for you to set off a nuke and it's not even treated as a bad thing, just as a different way to achieve your goal.
With old games like this, I think there's always a question of 'is this worth going back to' and I think that for Fallout 1 it's a firm 'No'. Mechanically it's very rough. Exploring the world feels tedious and the combat is a bit like trudging through mud. While the writing has its moments, it is extremely uneven with most of it landing in the 'mediocre-to-bad' range. And I've never found the general Fallout setting or lore to be particularly intriguing so this game didn't have much to go back to for me, but that's a much more personal thing than the rest of this.
It's a game of the past and I think that it should be left there. While I think there's some valid arguments to be made that it's a historically important game, I'm not sure I'd fully agree with any of that. Other games were more important and influential in just about every way and this game only feels notable because of the Bethesda RPGs that came later in the franchise. If it weren't for those, I think it'd mostly be remembered as this odd little thing that came and went.
People talk about how satirical it is but it really isn't. It has occasional comedy to it, mostly in the form of irreverence, but it never quite has anything to say about what it's joking about. It just is what it is.
The other major thing people like to tout is that it's anti-nukes but it really isn't. It doesn't really have anything to say at all. At the very end, there's even an option for you to set off a nuke and it's not even treated as a bad thing, just as a different way to achieve your goal.
With old games like this, I think there's always a question of 'is this worth going back to' and I think that for Fallout 1 it's a firm 'No'. Mechanically it's very rough. Exploring the world feels tedious and the combat is a bit like trudging through mud. While the writing has its moments, it is extremely uneven with most of it landing in the 'mediocre-to-bad' range. And I've never found the general Fallout setting or lore to be particularly intriguing so this game didn't have much to go back to for me, but that's a much more personal thing than the rest of this.
It's a game of the past and I think that it should be left there. While I think there's some valid arguments to be made that it's a historically important game, I'm not sure I'd fully agree with any of that. Other games were more important and influential in just about every way and this game only feels notable because of the Bethesda RPGs that came later in the franchise. If it weren't for those, I think it'd mostly be remembered as this odd little thing that came and went.