What a wild experience.

Compared to the first game, this was more brutal and frustratingly challenging.

All the classic actual Definitive Fallout experience is here despite the datedness from start to finish and the more you go the better it even gets.

AND THE MAIN story? GOD TIER

This game is everything Fallout had and more. More new and interesting locations, more smaller scale stories to wander into, more well written and unique characters and even more moral dilemnas than you can shake a stick at. I loved the open endedness of Fallout 2 and the potential for each player to make an entirely different set of choices to have a completely individual experience. Fallout's story was more succint and clear to follow in game but Fallout 2 allows the player to really explore and use their brain to figure out where to go next for the next adventure. Very fun and worth getting through the damn temple of trials!

Full Series Playthrough Review
On the surface this looks a lot like the first -- great writing, characters, factions, aesthetic. The gameplay is also pretty much identical. The differences are very important to considering playing this again tho.

Fallout 1 stands out for being all meat. Clean and fast, excellent from start to finish.

Fallout 2 is much more sprawling, which comes with +/-. The factions have an incredible amount of interactivity functionally and narratively, letting players manipulate those connections in smart and meaningful ways. You spend more time with your character in more situations, which is great for the "role playing" aspect. However, you spend a lot a lot more time doing less interesting stuff. The random encounters are constant in this one and not all of the side missions are up to snuff, tho most do well.

If you played Fallout 1 and wished it was way more expansive, this is the game for you.

Possibly the best written and most replayable video game out there. It's been over a year since I originally beat this, but coming back to it the past few days and deciding to play things differently confirmed the magic of this game to me once again.

I'd be lying to you, if I said I understood everything, especially when the characters start getting into long discussions on political ideologies mixed in with Disco Elysium lore in a way that is hard to differentiate at times for layman like me, which makes me doubly confused. Notwithstanding that, the dialogue in this game has me hooked nonstop anyway, and I suppose if you're more of a politically inclined person, even those long discussions would be a major positive for you.

There are so many iconic moments in this game, an unreal amount of laugh out loud lines that rivals and bests almost any video game I ever played and to top it all off, some truly magical scenes that I won't spoil.

I started this review with the keyword "replayability", so I want to end this review by explaining what I am. 1) There are thousands of passive checks that lead to different and/or additional conversation paths. How you pick and develop your skills impacts conversations quite notably. 2) There are dozens of "thoughts" you can internalize, leading to even more dialogue choices, and I got 3 thoughts I didn't get in my first playthrough within the first 2 hours of playthrough #2. They also sometimes allow you to DO certain things as well, not just make dialogue choices. 3) There are a lot of ways to tackle your overall mission of solving a case. I don't want to go into them, since they are spoiler territory, but it's pretty wild how significantly different approaches can be. 4) You can align yourself with and against many of the bigger characters, again leading to very different (smaller scale) outcomes.

In terms of games that don't have any actual combat, Disco Elysium to me is far and away the best game out there right now, and it's one of the best games I ever played period.

Reviewing Starfield is one of the hardest things I can imagine.
It's very difficult to talk about it, because, while the raw content present (read: questlines, narrative, universe, gunplay, etc.) is great, it is a game that has several factors that put it down and take away from it. enormous potential of what the experience could be.

Here we have Bethesda's best game in the RPG factor after Morrowind, and at the same time, the one with the worst exploration and feeling of progression of Todd's games, so that for me, the game's struture is almost a betrayal of the game design established in TES and Fallout, and that really upset me.

Furthermore, I really have the impression that this game went through development hell. It has elements that were visibly inserted at the last minute and others that you are sure were cut, the result is that the combination of each of these elements makes Starfield look like a mess on several fronts, generating a feeling of distrust and that you are not in control of the game at various times, going against the comfortable and immersive experience that the studio's other games provide so well.

In any case, I really support whoever loved it, it's very ambitious and will have a bright future over the years, whether with updates from Bethesda that will improve the experience or with the modder community. This game will be for many people what Morrowind/Skyrim were for me, I have no doubt about that.

Starfield is a great game, but for now, it left me with mixed feelings.
I know Bethesda could do better.

Ok well now that the main story is done it's time for a REAL review. Unfortunately, regrettably, and even tragically, this game was not the best game ever made. It wasn't even in the top 20 best games ever made and I can't even say top 25 or top 28.

There's a lot of very nice looking planets and areas. But the biggest most shocking moment about this game is that there is a whole lot of NOTHING on them. It's very sad because the planets look really nice but unless you like walking into empty caves or running into the same outposts and labs there's nothing to do but take in the scenery. It is very good scenery but Im playing a game not an interactive documentary come on Bethesda Western Game Studio.

The characters are pretty boring. I can count on one hand the amount of characters I thought were fun or interesting to talk to. The smuggler who took one of the Artifacts in his big ship full of treasures is fun, Vasco is the undisputed Greatest Of All Time, and the Adoring Fan is incredibly funny. Otherwise they're just people, and theres not a lot of interesting or memorable traits about them. This might change with side quests though so we'll see if they're hiding any intriguing and life changing characters.

Main story was alright but the latter half is definitely much better. For most of it it's a repetitive journey of finding Artifacts in the same caves surrounded by evil aliens or pirates, but a few times it was pretty unique. The collector ship was fun and the whole shifting lab was awesome and the highlight of the game. The final battle is pretty cool too and I think the ending is interesting as well without going into detail. Finding powers sucks though cause its all the same walking to the temple for 5 minutes doing the flying into shapes thing and getting the power.

As an RPG Im gonna use the word alright again cause it really is alright. The character customization is pretty good and I like the different skills, but its really just a lot of "you're better at doing this now by 10%" rather than actually gaining new abilities or bonuses to your character. I also wish there were more interesting traits because theres a good chunk that are just "youre a part of this group". Theres good stuff like your parents or the Adoring Fan or having a house but not really many silly ones that made gameplay more interesting like in Fallout. They should've had a Wild Wasteland or Jinxed equivalent if you ask me. I'm glad that certain skills and backgrounds play a part in dialogue choices but I don't see it that often. Once more I have to say maybe in the side quests we'll see if this changes.

The main group Constellation is quite boring and it's worse because the game forces them on you. You have to join their group, you have to participate in the meetings, you have to feel sad if something tragic and drastic happens to one of the members, you have to have them as companions when you go somewhere. I think it would have been a lot cooler if you could start your Artifact search solo and pick a faction to allign with if you wanted, Constellation being one of the possible choices of many.

Gameplay is pretty good though. Gunplay works well enough and there's a lot of varied weapons to toy with. The physics engine is very silly, and the space powers are awesome, especially anti-gravity. Personally I shot people in the face with a shotgun or beat them up unarmed.

Ship combat is okay but it serves its purpose well enough. The travel is really annoying when you're going to a new place but at least you can instantly fast travel if you go to a place you've been before. I dont care about outposts or crafting I never did that dumb crap

In conclusion it appears this game might actually have been one of the worst games ever made looking back on it, but I had a lot of fun and good times so I will give it 4 stars. I did very very little side content so If it is really good maybe Ill bump it up but only time will tell. Have a great day Todd and to you as well.