Well, it's the best modern Fallout. So, there's that.
And its mods have been getting crazy:
View: https://youtu.be/dDFTyOfjr84?si=VaIZh4M9hsYsskU3
I absolutely LOVE the choice of music at the start of this video. Shin Megami Tensei V
Finished it today, overall I enjoyed it. More details:
The first episode almost put me off a bit because for a while it felt like it was pulling a "member berry" going "member skills? Member vaults? Member raiders? Member Stimpaks? Member the brotherhood of steel?" This got a lot less flagrant and I was fine with it at that point and it started to feel more natural. I also get that that stuff early on was mainly for people unfamiliar with the games.
This kind of bothered me, but how was there not a single woman in the Brotherhood of Steel in this show? I certainly don't remember seeing any, even as extras in the background or something. It's not like they're forbidden in any chapter of the Brotherhood, in fact there were women in it going all the way back to Fallout 1. Then again, maybe it was a thing the Elder forced on this chapter of the Brotherhood since he talked to Maximus about them making their own division.
I feel like they really could have used more variety in creatures. We saw a Gulper like three times if I remember correctly, and then there was the occasional Radroach, a brief cameo of a Brahmin, and of course a Yao Guai. There's also Ghouls if you count that, but those are fairly humanoid at the end of the day, but still interesting. It was weird that not a single Ghoul had the usual "Ghoul voice" we see in the games though. I know that not necessarily all of them had that, but it was definitely surprising to see none of them have it. I'd say like the top three most iconic "non-humanoid" creatures in Fallout are Deathclaws, Radroaches, and Radscorpions. We got one out of the three, and just a Deathclaw skull. Given that Radscorpions were all over the place in the West Coast games especially, I'm surprised we did not see any.
The triple-vault experiment was a good idea for a Vault experiment. I hope we actually do get an explanation of why they couldn't just let the people of 33 and 32 go visit back and forth in season 2. I did find it weird that 31 went with another "Cryo freeze all the pre-war people" experiment though. 111 in Fallout 4 had that, granted the difference was it crashed and burned in that game and the protagonist ended up the only survivor, and of course it didn't have the sister vaults.
While they were modifying people in Vault 4 with stuff from creatures for better hopes for survival, I have to wonder if any of the people with obvious mutations actually had the intended results. Like did the Overseer with one eye actually have any advantage? Did the guy with a nose on his forehead have any advantage? It felt weird. Granted, the way they ended up leaving Vault 4, I have a feeling we're probably just never going to see them again. The more likely answer to this is that like the games, Fallout is filled with absurd comedic stuff too. I mean the whole sequence of Vault 4 saying they were executing Lucy...by "forcing" her out of the Vault with supplies was pretty funny.
And now you have the bigger shit. Shady Sands nuked, I cannot say I saw that coming. I actually had to double check that Shady Sands didn't exist in some capacity prior to the NCR. I do want to know HOW Hank nuked it. Was it a Fallout 3 Megaton situation? Did he find some silo somewhere to be able to launch it (possibly a Vault Tec silo?)?
Speaking of Vault Tec, I know there's always been theories that Vault Tec started the war and it seems like at the very least they had some part in it. Granted in the pre-war era of the show, they didn't actually get to the nukes hitting and going into the vaults. We still don't know for sure if Vault Tec itself actually launches a nuke, but like c'mon, they probably did at this point. I hope they don't retcon it to be "All the bombs were Vault Tec" or something. I mean in Fallout 4 there's literally a Chinese Navy Officer that's ghoulified and tells you that he launched nukes from his submarine! Honestly I think the more likely outcome might be Vault Tec nuking China, which causes China to retaliate.
I think they overall got enough of the comedy aspect of Fallout, although I hope they lean a bit more into the absurd next season. I'm talking like Mysterious Stranger, but everyone kind of goes "Huh, who was that guy? Oh well"
The big drop at the end of course was the hype for New Vegas, which is looking a little banged up. However you can tell that the Lucky 38 looks perfectly intact. Some kind of battle clearly took place there involving the NCR, whether it was the NCR and Legion, or someone else entirely. It's possible the place was nuked, but if House is still alive (which I think he might be given how he was shown pre-war in the show), it could be a similar explanation to how the Lucky 38 remained unharmed during all the commotion as for New Vegas in the game. I'm also not entirely sure what Hank wanted with New Vegas or if the plan was "just take off in that direction and hope to find something good".
Overall, I enjoyed it more than I expected, and am looking forward to season 2. Some things like nuking Shady Sands, I don't know how to feel about, because it just seemed like they were just saying "fuck you" to a lot of the early games' lore.
I'm crossposting this about the show, unmarked now since it's open spoilers here. Overall I enjoyed the show and am looking forward to season 2.
