I had this idea for a videogame theme. Actually, maybe there is a game out there already like this (Fallout sounds close), but I don’t think so.
Anyhow
I think it would be cool to have a videogame set in a 1980s film vision of the future. Think of films like Escape From New York, The Terminator, The Running Man, The Road Warior, Robocop, Freejack etc.
You would need the following:
Cheesy synth music soundtrack
Burnt out versions of large cities in the near future
Lots of random crazzies and mutants
Circa 1980s “futuristic” weaponry
Standard character archtypes: Snake Pliskins, Arnold-esq characters, Jessie Venturas, Evil corporate types, warlords, etc
The usual social problems - Disproportionate wealth distribution, rampant lawlessness, totalitarian governments, war, shortages of resources and so on.
Yeah, that sounds pretty much exactly like Fallout 2 (I have not played the first Fallout, but they are not very different according to everything I’ve heard).
Fallout 2 is full of subtle and not-so-subtle references to a lot of '80s movies and pop culture. There is also a strong retro feel to a lot of the technology, which in a strange way works with the many real-life modern weapons that are in the game.
One of the items you find early on is Mel Gibson’s jacket from ‘The Road Warrior’ - not labelled as such, but you recognize it as soon as you put it on.
Actually not cheesy, very good, but the soundtrack is mostly (if not all) synthesizers, sounds like background music to a sci-fi film (this from someone who sees ‘sci-fi’ (as opposed to SF) as somewhat derogatory).
The background story of Fallout was that there was a huge war in our near future over resources, with a strong nuclear component but also a lot of biological weapons and robots (some of which survive to the time of the game). The game allows you to visit several real-world cities.
Oh yeah.
The weaponry ranges from spears, through primitive homemade firearms, up through modern weapons and laser guns, power armor, I think you can even pick up some Star Trek phasers from a wrecked shuttle that is one of the random encounters.
This game is full of interesting characters. The proportion of ‘stock’ characters that give the same dialogue responses as everyone else is much lower than in most RPGs. You will meet drug addicts, slavers, mafia types, their wives and mistresses, dumb farmboys, pick-pocketing children (removed in the German version because of laws there about depicting the killing of minors), celebrity scientologists, Mike Tyson…I’m considering re-installing it now.
VERY big deal. Almost all of the above issues are addressed, and many of them in a surprisingly intelligent manner. Many towns you visit have some major problem that is a theme related to it’s many quests…for instance, New Reno seems like one of the most advanced cities outside of Vault City, but it’s got a huge violence problem as it is controlled by 4 organized crime families that are fighting amongst themselves. Each one has a different idealogical outlook, and which one you help (if any) changes the ending of the game - at the end it goes back through all the cities you visited and tells what happened to them afterwards, and each explanation is based on your actions (or inaction).
You really should give Fallout 2 a try (or maybe Fallout first, though it’s not necessary and I think Fallout 2 has more features and is a lot bigger). You should be able to find a Fallout and Fallout 2 package for around $10 in a bargain bin, and it’s got really low system requirements.
I think there is still a lot of potential to use the theme in other types of games.
Real Time Strategy (like Age of Empires) - You can choose from diferent civilations (mutants, corporate facists, “normals”/rebels, Utopian societies like in Demolition Man).
Massive multiplayer (like Everquest or Anarchy Online but not so futuristic)
and so on
the trend now seems to be historical games, modern combat, or far future games where battles are fought with hovering laser tanks.
1: Yes, you SHOULD buy Fallout 2. The Fallouts should be a mandatory part of every child’s education. If you haven’t picked them up, you should. Fallout 1 has better atmosphere and a better plot, Fallout 2 is better designed in almost every game-play area, but they’re both brilliant. There was an attempt at ‘Squad based tactical combat,’ but it was pretty mediocre.
Another game you might want to look up is Jagged Alliance 2, a modern Squad Combat game with a bit of SF mixed in. Not much roleplaying, but a LOT of intersquad interaction, and most of the characters are fun as hell. It’s one of the big influences on Fallout 2 and was shamelessly (and poorly) ripped off by Fallout: Tactics.
2: Yes, you are absolutely correct. Non-fantasy RPGs (I’m talking American/European style computer-type rpgs, not Japanese-style console RPGS) are a vastly, vastly underrepresented.
For a whole assortment of reasons that would require a full-on rant to explain. Short version is that RPGs that aren’t shooters or RTSs pretending to be RPGs are almost a niche market, and in addition to requiring more imagination and effort by the designers, non-fantasy rpgs don’t seem to sell very well.
In fact, offhand I can think of only three or four others. Another you might want to look for is Circuits Edge, c. 1994 or so. Based on the books of, and actually written by, George Alec Effinger. Sort of a cyberpunk detective story set in a nameless middle eastern city. Cool, but almost impossible to find these days. Probably held the ‘most prostitutes in a single game’ award until Fallout 2 came out.
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‘What kind of sick creature could gain pleasure from this kind of game?’
That and the plot contridicted Fallout 2(The Purpose of the vaults). And frankely, there wasn’t anything else to do but fight(other then occasionally find a random encounter).
Well, it WASN’T an RPG, it was squad based tactical combat. I’m not complaining because it wasn’t F3, it just wasn’t a very good game. JA2 was much better, and that came out years earlier.
And to be fair, Fallout 2’s plot contridicted Fallouts on several points, too.
I’ll belive Fallout 3 is currently under development when I see a demo, not before. It’s been ‘coming up real soon now,’ since 2 came out, but they keep starting up new, unrelated projects.
After the third or fourth time they said ‘Well, we were GOING to start Fallout 3, but it fell through at the last minute, and we did Icewind Dale 2 instead,’ I’m running out of faith.
Unfortunatly, that article is at least 2 yeas old.