When Fallout 2 first came out, I was in heaven, because it gave me the chance to role-play, in a video game, a character I had always wanted to be. “A fast, violent bombshell who goes crazy with sex and drugs as soon as she leaves home.” I wanted to be a stereotypical “comic book babe,” getting whatever she wanted with her looks, and, if that didn’t work, the effective application of violence, preferably from the barrel of a gun. I think I slept with every character you could sleep with in Fallout 2, enough to get the “Sexpert” perk.
I chose a more combat-oriented approach for my character this time around, although still female. As a result, I missed out on a lot of the sex oriented quests and perks I would like to have gotten, primarily the ones that depended on Charisma, as my Charisma was only 4. I started out with a 10 Agility and bumped up my Action Points every chance I could. By the end of the game I could fire four gauss or pulse pistol shots and move two spaces a turn. This was pretty devastating, but the pistols are actually rather weak against heavily armored targets unless you get a critical hit. I simply wasn’t capable of taking out all the plasma turrets at Navarro, and I never would have defeated Frank Horrigan at the end without turning the turrets against him. I think I would have been better off using the rifles, but I stuck with the pistols on Bill’s recommendation.
I have to admit, I got sick of the game about the time I got to San Francisco and started simply wishing it would end. This was denied me, however, as the “Fallout 2 Restoration Project” mod I had installed added several new areas to the game that I felt forced to complete. These new areas are impressive and very detailed, and had I any further desire to play Fallout 2 I might have enjoyed them. But, as it was, they depended far too much on skills and abilities I did not have in order to complete, and I think the final quest in the EPA mission was bugged, because I couldn’t get an item necessary to continue. It was nice to see that Sulik’s tribe was returned to the game, as well as a mission to finally rescue his captured sister.
The Fallout 2 Restoration Project also introduced a rather nasty bug to the game. After playing for awhile, the game would get to where it would “freeze up” during the opponents’ turn of combat, only freeing itself once everybody had taken all their moves and actions and control had been returned to the player. Often I found myself watching a spinning circle for a minute or two, only to see the death screen where I had been killed without knowing how. The only way to resolve this problem was to completely exit the game and restart it, and this was a major pain if it had been awhile since I had saved.
Thankfully I remembered to save frequently for the most part, so it was little more than a minor headache. I read that the GOG version of Fallout 2 which I was using already featured some of the fixes installed in the Restoration Project so perhaps that was causing the bug. I have no idea. I do know that the Restoration Project has come out with a new version since I played it, so I recommend you try it if you have a hankering to go back and give a 16-year-old game another shot. You can find it if you search around.