Fallout Series

Fallout 1
Fallout is an open world role-playing video game produced by Tim Cain, developed and published by Interplay in 1997. The game has a post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic setting in the mid-22nd century, featuring an alternate history which deviates some time after World War II, where technology, politics and culture followed a different course.

The game is sometimes considered to be an unofficial sequel to the 1987 CRPG Wasteland,[2] but it could not use that title as Electronic Arts held the rights to it; and, except for minor references, the games are set in separate universes. It was also intended to use Steve Jackson Games' GURPS system, but that deal fell through due to the excessive amounts of violence and gore included in the game,[3] forcing Black Isle to change the already implemented GURPS system to the internally developed SPECIAL system.

Critically acclaimed, the game inspired a number of sequels and spin-off games, known collectively as the Fallout series.

Plot
The protagonist of Fallout is an inhabitant of one of the government-contracted fallout shelters known as Vaults. In subsequent Fallout games, he or she is referred to as the Vault Dweller.

Fallout is set several decades after a worldwide conflict brought on by global petroleum shortage. Several nations begin warring with one another for the last stores of non-renewable resources, namely oil anduranium. Known as the Resource Wars, fighting begins in April 2052 and continues until October 23, 2077. China invades Alaska in the winter of 2066, causing the United States to go to war with China and using Canadian resources to supply their war efforts, despite Canadian complaints. Eventually the US annexes Canada in February 2076 and reclaims Alaska 11 months later. After years of conflict, on October 23, 2077, a global nuclear war occurs. Nobody knows who strikes first, but in less than two hours most major cities are destroyed. The effects of the war will not fade for the next 100 years. As a consequence, human society has collapsed, and survivor settlements barely eke out a living in the now-barren wasteland, while a lucky few lived through the occurrence in underground fallout shelters known as Vaults.

The game takes place in 2161 in Southern California and begins in Vault 13, the protagonist's home. Vault 13's Water Chip, a computer chip responsible for the water recycling and pumping machinery, breaks. The Vault Overseer tasks the protagonist with finding a replacement.[5] He is given a portable device called the "PIPBoy 2000" that keeps track of map-making, quest objectives, and bookkeeping. Armed with the PIPBoy 2000 and meager equipment, including a small sum of bottle caps which are used as currency in the post-apocalyptic world, the main character is sent off on his quest.

The player initially has 150 game days before the Vault's water supply runs out. This time limit can be extended by 100 game days if he commissions merchants in the Hub to send water caravans to Vault 13. Upon returning the chip, the Vault Dweller is then tasked with destroying a mutant army that threatens humanity. A mutant known as "The Master" (previously known as Richard Grey) spreads a pre-war, genetically engineered virus called the "Forced Evolutionary Virus" to convert humanity into a race of "Super Mutants" and bring them together in the "Unity" — his plan for a perfect world. The player must kill him and destroy the military base housing the supply of FEV, thus halting the invasion before it can start.

If the player does not complete both objectives within 500 game days, the mutant army will discover Vault 13 and invade it, bringing an end to the game. This time limit is shortened to 400 days if the player divulged Vault 13's location to the water merchants. A cinematic cut-scene of mutants overrunning the vault is shown if the player fails to stop the mutant army within this time frame, indicating the player has lost the game. If the player agrees to join the mutant army, the same cinematic is shown. In version 1.1 of the game, the time limit for the mutant attack on Vault 13 is delayed from 500 days (or 400 depending) to 13 years of in-game time, effectively giving the player enough time to do as he or she wishes.

The player can defeat the Master and destroy the Super Mutants' Military Base in either order. When both threats are eliminated, a cut-scene ensues in which the player automatically returns to Vault 13. There he is told that he has changed too much, that children would want to leave the vault to emulate his actions, and therefore his return would negatively influence the citizens of the Vault. Thus he is rewarded with exile into the desert, for, in the Overseer's eyes, the good of the vault. There is an alternate ending in which the Vault Dweller draws a handgun and shoots the Overseer after he is told to go into exile. This ending is inevitable if the player has the "Bloody Mess" trait or has accrued significant negative karma throughout the game. It can be triggered if the player initiates combat in the brief time after the Overseer finishes his conversation but before the ending cutscene.

Fallout 2
Fallout 2 is a role-playing game open world video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay in 1998. While featuring a considerably larger game world and a far more extensive storyline, the graphics and game mechanics from Fallout remain mostly unchanged.

The game's story takes place in 2241, 80 years after the events of Fallout.[3] It tells the story of the original hero's descendant and his or her quest to save their primitive tribe from starvation by finding an ancient environmental restoration machine known as the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK).[4]

Plot
During 2241, Arroyo suffered the worst drought on record. Faced with the calamity, the village elders asked the direct descendant of the Vault Dweller, referred to as the Chosen One, to perform the quest of retrieving a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK) for Arroyo. The GECK is a device that can create thriving communities out of the post-apocalyptic wasteland.[4]

The player, assuming the role of the Chosen One, is given nothing more than the Vault Dweller's jumpsuit, a RobCo PIPBoy 2000 handheld device, a Vault 13 water flask, a spear and some cash to start on his mission.

The player eventually finds Vault 13, the supposed location of a GECK, devoid of the majority of its former human inhabitants. The Chosen One returns to find his village captured by the remnants of theUnited States government known as the Enclave. The Enclave often terrorizes the inhabitants of continental United States with their supreme arsenal of advanced technology. The player, through various means, activates an ancient oil tanker and engages its autopilot, thus allowing him to reach the Enclave's main base on an offshore oil rig.

It is revealed that the dwellers of Vault 13 were captured as well, to be used as test subjects for Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). Vault 13 was supposed to be closed for 200 years as part of a government experiment,[3] making them perfect test subjects. The Enclave modified the Forced Evolutionary Virus into an airborne disease, designed to attack any living creatures with mutated DNA. With all genetic impurities removed, the Enclave (who remain protected from radiation) could take over.

The player frees both his fellow villagers from Arroyo and the Vault 13 dwellers from Enclave control and subsequently destroys the Enclave's oil rig, killing the President of the United States Richardson as well as a genetically-modified Secret Service enforcer Frank Horrigan. In the end, the inhabitants of Vault 13 and the Arroyo villagers create a new prosperous community with the help of the GECK.

Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing open world video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. It is the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia in October 2008, and in Japan in December 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 36 years after the setting of Fallout 2 and 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse that devastated the game's world in a future where international conflicts between the USA and China culminated into a Sino-American war in 2077.

The player character is an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect up to 1,000 humans from the nuclear fallout. When the player character's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, the player is forced to escape from the Vault and journey into the ruins of Washington, D.C. to track him down. Along the way the player is assisted by a number of human survivors and must battle a myriad of enemies that inhabit the area now known as the "Capital Wasteland". The game has an attribute and combat system typical of an action strategy game but also incorporates elements of survival horror games.

Following its release, Fallout 3 received very positive reviews from critics and a number of Game of the Year awards, praising the game's open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. The NPD Group estimated that Fallout 3 sold over 610,000 units during its initial month of release in October 2008, performing better than Bethesda Softworks' previous game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which sold nearly 500,000 units in its first month. The game has also received post-launch support with Bethesda releasing five downloadable add-ons. The game received controversy upon release, including the use of morphine in the game for Australia, religious and cultural sentiments in India, and sensitivity in Japan due to a mission involving the detonation of an atomic bomb.

[edit] Setting
Main article: Fallout (series)Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a war over resources that ended in nuclear holocaust in 2077. The setting is a post-apocalyptic, retro-future, covering a region that includes Washington, D.C., northeast Virginia and parts ofMaryland.[21] The game's landscape includes war-ravaged variants of numerous real-life landmarks such as the White House, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery and the Washington Monument. The area that the game is set in, known in-game as the Capital Wasteland, holds a number of small settlements of the descendants of survivors from the Great War. Many inhabitants were killed during the nuclear holocaust and the Wasteland is now little more than a barren land nearly devoid of healthy water, food, plant and animal life due to the extreme radiation levels. However, there is a small settlement in the north part of the Capital Wasteland where plant life is abundant.[22]

The player begins the game inside Vault 101, where s/he believes s/he is originally born, before venturing out into the Capital Wasteland and facing its many dangers. The Capital Wasteland is home to a number of mutated species of creatures such as two-headed cattle called Brahmin, radscorpions, molerats, and mirelurks. Many of these creatures are generally hostile to the player and will attack on sight. The Wasteland and the city proper is home to several hostile groups, including super mutants, feral ghouls, raiders, slavers, mercenaries, and robots. Of note are the various Vaults—underground structures designed as shelters to protect inhabitants from the dangers of nuclear war (and also for more sinister purposes). In the Washington, D.C. area, many of the roads are blocked off with giant piles of rubble. The player can navigate around the city using a system of underground metro tunnels that connect with other locations (loosely based on the real-life Washington Metro).[23]

Because the game takes place following a nuclear war, cultural advancements have stagnated and, as a result, the game contains a 1950s utopian theme as evidenced in-game through posters and billboards with music from the time period.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23" style="line-height:1em;">[24]

[edit] Story
<p style="line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The introductory sequence introduces the player to their character's father James, a doctor and scientist in Vault 101. James frequently makes comments about the player character's deceased mother Catherine, and her favorite Bible passage,Revelation 21:6, which speaks of "the waters of life".

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The main quest begins after the player is forced to flee Vault 101 when James leaves the vault, throwing it into anarchy and causing the paranoid Overseer to send his police force after the player. The search for James takes the character on a journey through the Wasteland, first to the nearby town of Megaton, named for the undetonated atomic bomb at its center, then the Galaxy News Radio station, whose enthusiastic DJ, Three Dog, gives the player the moniker of "The Lone Wanderer". The player travels to Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier now serving as a fortified human settlement. Here the player meets Doctor Li, a scientist who worked alongside the player's father. Doctor Li informs the player of Project Purity, a plan conceived by Catherine and James to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and eventually the entire Potomac River with a giant water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial. However, continued delays and Catherine's death during childbirth put an end to the project, and James took the player's character as a newborn to raise them in the safety of Vault 101.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">After investigating the Jefferson Memorial, the Lone Wanderer tracks James to Vault 112, and frees him from a virtual reality program being run by the Vault's sadistic Overseer, Dr. Braun. James and the player return to Rivet City, and James reveals he sought out Braun for information on the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.), an invention of Braun's that contains the components needed to finally activate Project Purity. James and Doctor Li lead a team of Rivet City scientists to the memorial with intent to restart the project, but the memorial is invaded by the Enclave, a powerful military organization formed from the remnants of the pre-War United States government. James floods the project's control room with radiation to stop the Enclave military leader, Colonel Augustus Autumn, from taking control of it, killing himself, his last words urging his child to run. The Lone Wanderer and Dr. Li flee to the ruins of the Pentagon, now a base for the Brotherhood of Steel and now known as the Citadel. With Project Purity still inoperational even with the Enclave occupying the site, the player travels to Vault 87 to find a G.E.C.K. and finish James's work. The player finds the Vault to be a testing site for the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus), and the source of the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland. After the player acquires the G.E.C.K., the Wanderer is ambushed by the Enclave and captured.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">At the Enclave base at Raven Rock, the player is freed from their cell by the Enclave leader, President John Henry Eden, who requests a private audience with them. En route to his office however, Colonel Autumn defies Eden's orders and takes command of the Enclave military, ordering them to kill the player. Fighting their way to Eden's office, the player discovers he is actually a sentient supercomputer who took control of the Enclave after their defeat in Fallout 2 on the West Coast thirty years ago. Eden wishes to repeat the plan of then-President Dick Richardson using Project Purity, infecting the water with a modified strain of FEV that will make it toxic to any mutated life. This plan will kill most life in the wasteland including humans, but the Enclave, due to their genetic "purity" as a result of their isolation, will be immune and free to take control of the area. Eden gives the The Wanderer a sample of the new F.E.V. and is allowed to leave or convince Eden to self-destruct the entire base. The Lone Wanderer escapes Raven Rock and returns to the Citadel.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">With the knowledge they possess the G.E.C.K. and the means to activate Project Purity, the Brotherhood assault the Jefferson Memorial, spearheaded by a giant robot named Liberty Prime. In the control room of Project Purity the player confronts Colonel Autumn, and has the choice to persuade him to give up or kill him. Dr. Li informs the player that the purifier is ready to be activated, but the activation code must be input manually, and also that the control room is flooded with lethal amounts of radiation. The Lone Wanderer is forced to choose between sending Sarah Lyons of the Broherhood inside the extremely irradiated purifier or entering there himself. Whoever enters into the chamber inputs the code hinted at through the game, that being 21:6, and immediately dies from a radiation spike. If the "Broken Steel" DLC is installed, the player has the option of sending one of his radiation-immune companions to enter the code and start the purifier with no casualties. The player also has the possibility to enter the F.E.V. sample into the water prior to activation, having adverse effects on the games side quests post-ending.

<h2 style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">Fallout: New Vegas <p style="line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">Fallout: New Vegas is an action role-playing open world video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment, and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3and Xbox 360 in October 2010.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-releasedates_5-3" style="line-height:1em;">[6] The game is based in a post-apocalyptic environment in and around Las Vegas, Nevada.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">Even though it directly succeeds it in order of Fallout game releases and also shares its engine, Fallout: New Vegas is not a direct sequel to Fallout 3,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-9" style="line-height:1em;">[10] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-usatoday_10-0" style="line-height:1em;">[11] though the game offers a similar action role-playing experience to Fallout 3. The game marks the return of many elements found in previous Fallout titles; many employees of Obsidian Entertainment previously worked for the now-defunct Black Isle Studios on Fallout and Fallout 2.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11" style="line-height:1em;">[12]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The game currently holds the record for the most lines of dialogue in a single-player action role-playing game. The game contains around 65,000 lines of dialogue, beating its predecessor and previous record holder Fallout 3 which contained 40,000 lines of dialogue.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12" style="line-height:1em;">[13]

[edit] Setting
<p style="line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">Fallout: New Vegas takes place during the year 2281, four years after the events of Fallout 3, and 204 years after the Great War of 2077.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-psm3_13-1" style="line-height:1em;">[14] The game is set in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Mojave Desert, which is known as the "Mojave Wasteland". The Mojave Wasteland is roughly the same size as the "Capital Wasteland" in Fallout 3,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-psm3_13-2" style="line-height:1em;">[14] and is spread across parts of real-world Nevada and Arizona. Part of Fallout and Fallout 2 ' s Core Region appears in the form ofCalifornia. Unlike other cities in the Fallout series, Las Vegas was not struck directly by a nuclear attack. Many of its buildings remain intact, and mutation of its inhabitants is minimal.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-psm3_13-3" style="line-height:1em;">[14]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The city and its surroundings are divided between various factions, but there are three major powers competing for control of the region: The New California Republic (NCR), Caesar's Legion, and Mr. House. The NCR's military, returning from Fallout 2, is now overextended and mismanaged, but controls the majority of territories in the Mojave. The slave-driving, Roman army-styled Caesar's Legion, formed by its leader, Caesar, conquered and united 86 tribes and now plans to conquer New Vegas. Mr. House, the mysterious businessman rumoured to be 200 years old, controls New Vegas with an army of "Securitron" security robots. There are many other factions and groups as well, including the Boomers, a tribe of heavily armed vault dwellers, Powder Gangers, violent groups of escaped convicts, Great Khans, a tribe of drug dealers and raiders, and the Brotherhood of Steel, the technology-craving remnants of the U.S. military.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-usatoday_10-1" style="line-height:1em;">[11] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-GameSpy_14-3" style="line-height:1em;">[15] Landmarks featured in Fallout: New Vegasinclude the Hoover Dam, which supplies power to the city,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-GameSpy_14-4" style="line-height:1em;">[15] Nellis Air Force Base and the HELIOS One solar energy plant.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-IGN_AU_PS3_18-1" style="line-height:1em;">[19]

[edit] Plot
<p style="line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The game places the player in the role of a courier working for the Mojave Express, known simply as "the Courier". While delivering a package with a platinum poker chip to New Vegas, the Courier is ambushed by Benny (voiced by Matthew Perry), leader of one of the casinos in New Vegas, who steals the package, shoots the player in the head, and leaves the body in a shallow grave. A robot named Victor witnesses the shooting and brings the courier to Doctor Mitchell in Goodsprings.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-GameSpy_14-5" style="line-height:1em;">[15] At this point, the player enters into character creation and defines the Courier's skills, attributes, name, gender, age and appearance. Although traumatized, the player begins his journey, following Benny to avenge the attack and recover the stolen package, all while exploring the Mojave Wasteland.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-IGNvideo_16-4" style="line-height:1em;">[17]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The game proceeds according to the player's decisions and involves many different events, factions, and characters, but the main storyline follows the player's pursuit of Benny to both settle the score and retrieve the platinum chip. Eventually, after finding Benny and the chip, the Courier finds himself in the middle of a conflict between three factions: Caesar's Legion, a group of Roman-esque slavers, the New Californian Republic (NCR), an expansionist militia government, and Mr. House, the enigmatic de facto ruler of New Vegas in command of an army of Securitron robots. Each of the three sides aim to control Hoover Dam, which is still operational and supplying the South West with power and clean, non-irradiated water, and thus control of the dam means effective control of the region. It is revealed that Mr. House, a human from before the Great War and surviving via a contained life support chamber, ordered the platinum chip's delivery before the war. The chip is a data storage device with a program that can upgrade the Securitrons to a greater level of combat effectiveness, and was stolen by Benny as part of a scheme to take over House's security and claim New Vegas for himself with the help of a reprogrammed Securitron, Yes Man.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;text-align:-webkit-auto;">The player has the option to pursue one of four paths - fighting for NCR, Caesar, Mr. House, or taking up Benny's plans to take New Vegas for their own with Yes Man's assistance. After a line of quests where the player deals with outsider factions to determine their role in a looming battle, the player is notified that Caesar's Legion is attacking Hoover Dam and they must take part to decide the outcome. As the Legion strikes the Dam, led by the fearsome Legate Lanius, the NCR protects its position under General Lee Oliver. Depending on the faction sided with up to the battle the player will either defend the Dam for NCR, conquer it for the Legion, or connect the Dam's systems to House's network so he or Yes Man can take control. The game concludes with a slideshow showing the results of the player's actions, the battle for Hoover Dam deciding the faction that comes to power over New Vegas and the Mojave, and the fates of the various other factions based on how the player negotiated with them and which of the major factions emerged dominant.

Credits
Fallout Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(video_game)

Fallout 2 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2

Fallout 3 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3

Fallout - New Vegas Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas 

Fallout Series Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(series)

Official Fallout G.E.C.K. Wiki: http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Main_Page

The Fallout Wiki: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki

The Vault Wiki: http://www.falloutwiki.com/Fallout_Wiki

All information, citation, and reference can be found on these Wiki's.