Years ago, 1987-88 to be exact, a game called Wasteland (also here) was released for the Apple II. This game taking a few years to create was released during the Cold War era and was an RPG much like the King's Quest or DragonWarrior games. The game dealt with post-apocalyptic survival in well, you guessed it, the wasteland. Interplay produced the game and in 1997 made what was what some penned as the sequel:Fallout. Fallout showed as well as any Mac OS/DOS/Windows 95 games could a world devastated by nuclear war. The introduction alone became iconic with the phrase "War, War never changes" and was done by the famous raspy voice Ron Perlman who later becomes the permanent narrator for the series. Keith David, Tony Schalhoub and R. Lee Ermey are some of the other famous voices through the series. The idea of voice acting took off near the time of the release of this game as it was appealing for actors to get paid and never make a visual appearance anywhere within the actual video games unlike Mark Hamill's old Wing Commander days as Blair.
Notice anyone else in this picture^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fallout was a unique RPG in the fact that it was extremely focused on it's environment and having a very dark sense of humor. A play on the 1950's, cheesy instructional videos that downplay the horrific aspects of post nuclear survival is the everlasting time period within the game that adds to the dark humor. Now I promise that the name for the band Fallout Boy did NOT come from this series and instead came from the Radioactive Man's sidekick from the Simpsons.
Included with the throwback personality comes extreme violence (in an RPG), a very unique combat system, and the opportunity to open fire upon anyone be they enemy or friend. Walking through the towns and the wasteland was grid based and at any time you could change into a turn based combat mode spending action points per turn on attacks or movements, etc and still do the typical RPG leveling as well as equipment and character changing. These were all very creative innovations especially for a PC RPG game that was in a market dominated since the early 90s by console RPGs.
Based on the large success of the first, Fallout 2 was released in 1998 this time being developed by Black Isle Studios and was more of the same great game and for some was too much more. A ton of references to pop culture (yes this includes those things called books too), many bugs before the age of internet patching, and even more over the top violence, sex and drugs were some things that people hated or loved compared to the original with the addition of slavery, marriage/adultery, and a porn studio owned with by a crime syndicate. The quick release foreshadowed the problems that would later change Black Isle and Interplay.
In 2001 Micro Forte and 14 Degrees East made a separate Fallout universe game called Fallout Tactics. This game could be played entirely real time and really downplayed the RPG aspects of the previous games. Large focus was set on the squad strategy play instead of soloing till you found help. It was considered separate because of the vast differences in gameplay overall but, besides a few bugs, was actually a great game.
At the same time Interplay was bought out by the French company Titus which was a company spiraling downward with large amounts of debt. This begins Interplay's large amounts of financial problems their decisions to sell rights for the Fallout series just to survive a near 59 million dollar debt.
Prior to 2003 Black Isle was in the works of producing a third Fallout game that was being called at the time Van Buren. It was largely anticipated and was said to be another close replica to the original two. In December of 2003 Interplay laid off their entire PC development team Black Isle therefore the project was on hold and eventually cancelled.
In 2004 Interplay released an action game called Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel with Vivendi Universal's help (they were in charge of Titus) and this game was more like a top down scroller with so few RPG elements and a plethora of problems that it was almost entirely unplayable. This release showed exactly where Interplay was at as a company. Later in 2004 Interplay was evicted from it's offices for failure to pay rent.
2005 the IRS stated that Interplay had a backlog of unpaid salaries as well as rumors of bankrupcy.
2006 Interplay released financial documents stating it had an MMO project planned involving the Fallout Universe but sold it's rights to Bethesda Softworks for about 5.75 million. This meant that Interplay only lost the rights to publish new Fallout games beyond it's MMO unless it couldn't finish the MMO by 2010 when it will loose all of it's rights.
Since that point Bethesda has continued the short but great legacy that is Fallout with Fallout 3 to be released Oct 28th this year. Bethesda has chosen what has worked for them with their previous two Elder Scrolls games and have explained that they intended on producing a game that stuck to the core of the Fallout theme only using the technology of today. Like their previous games this will be open-ended letting you make decision after decision using your nuclear wasteland ethics as you see fit.
Centered around Washington DC, you are a son of a survivor living within a fallout
shelter (vault). No one has left the vault before and suddenly one day your father disappears. With nothing but your 1950's training videos, you set yourself in search of your father in the wasteland. So strap your rusty rifle to your back, throw some dog treats in your pocket, and get ready to monitor your rads: It's time to blast the post-apocalyptic Tina Turner and make sure you're the one that leaves the Thunderdome.
Music
Cocteau Twins - Stars and Topsoil: A collection (1982-1990)
Halou - Sawtooth EP
This band has members in it from Cocteau Twins and Imogen Heap
Emiliana Torrini - Me and Armini
Obi Best - Capades
This band is a side project from the backup vocalist from The Bird and the Bee
¡Forward, Russia! - Life Processes
Step away from other released albums now sounding more like Bloc Party
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