I loved F3, and graphics don't mean much, as long as it's post-apocalyptic, has guns and violence, and similar to F3. I hear the lore and stories in it are better. Can't wait to play it. Anything I should know before it arrives in say... 48 hours?

Make sure it is patched with the latest official patch. If there is anything in particular you are curious about ask. As far as the game its self goes tho, it is much funner to play through on your own without knowing anything about it.

M'kay... lemme think.

1) Are energy weapons somewhat easy to find early on?
2) Are the skills Outdoorsman, Gambling, Traps, and Doctor even worth working on?
3) Whats the difference between First Aid and Doctor?
4) What should I taaaaag? -__- They have Sneak, Lockpick, AND Steal now... what do I pick for a stealth character? gotta have a combat skill
5) About how many hours will it take to get all the enjoyment out of it? I'm on about 40 hours in Fallout 3 and it's gettin a weeee bit old
6) Most important of all, is it OPEN ENDED? F3 isn't...bit sad about that

1. Not really, however they play a huge part (if you want them to) in the mid to later portion of the game and they are always one of my favorite tags.

2. Outdoorsman yes if you want to avoid encounters, Gambling can help you make money but honestly you will have plenty (Fallout 2 has many more options for this). Traps will help you in certain situations and I can think of one quest off the top of my head it opens up but its not game breaking.

3. First aid heals minor wounds and Doctor heals things like crippled limbs and what not. It also in Fallout 2 opens up at least one little bonus piece of content I can think of.

4. I always tagged Small arms,Energy and Speech. Honestly tho Lockpick,steal,weapons skills (depending on your personal choice), repair,science all serve a purpose in the game at some point. I would not tag science or repair tho as you can raise them with books.

5. Fallout 2 has an amazing amount of replayability and you can continue to play after the game ends with some of the people acting differently towards you. I have started new games on and off for years and it has never lost its value to me. So many different in depth choices depending on the type of player you are playing.

6. Fallout 2 is amazingly open ended. 1 to an extent but not so much (the game world is also much smaller).

Thanks. Also, how is the countryside? Exploring Fallout 3 was a major part of my experience, very fun. But I've only seen dungeons and a city or two in Fallout 2. How does the exploration outside of towns and "dungeons" work? Also, about cars... and fast travel... is it different?

And does it have a semi-decent tutorial to at least get me through the game? Fallout 3 was uber easy off the bat, but this looks like it may be a bit daunting.

Travel in Fallout 1&2 takes place on a map grid where you click where you want to go, at the start most of it is covered with black fog of war and it reveals its self as you move. Areas you can enter are marked with a Green circle. In these areas there are all kinds of quest hubs/stores and what not depending on the city. On the world map moving between places you will randomly encounter all sorts of things.

You might stumble upon slavers fighting dogs or Super Mutants fighting NCR rangers or deathclaws and so on. Except for a few select random "special" encounters none of these are revisitable tho so do not leave anything on the ground.

When you get an encounter like that it takes you to a pregenerated area determined by the land scape you are in. When you are finished you run to the exit grid.

The car once you get it just makes you move MUCH faster across the map and thus cutting down on travel time between the cities and random encounters.

There is not a tutorial that holds you by the hand per say but it is nothing you cannot figure out on your own with a quick glance over the manual. The Temple Of Trials in 2 also introduces you to a few basic skills.

Fallout 2 has a sort-of tutorial level, yes.

Ok, apparently I can't use that word here.

Fallout 2 has the Temple of Trials. It is obnoxious. Be glad when it's over.

There's an overland map. You travel by clicking and you see your little dot move around. You can see major locations on the map via the green circles that represent them, and you'll often run into random encounters, many of which aren't hostile, or let you pick sides. The random encounters are very interesting.

I know it sounds lame, but it's much more fun when you play.

Also, I suggest the unofficial patch:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=704

It fixes many many bugs.

Ah yeah I forgot about Killaps patch, that one def gets a recommendation from me.

Stay away from the mods until a first play through however.

No, it doesn't sound lame at all. I enjoy oldschool games, even ones with travel such as this. It will be an interesting change to finding the corpses of dogs in Fallout 3 and assuming what killed them

It sounds like I expected. Should be a great experience, thanks guys.

S'more.

1) I know I want Small Guns. But what else should I pick? I'm having a hard time deciding. Are Lockpicking, Sneak, or Steal any good? I don't want another combat skill. A passive or active skill might work, I loved speech in FO3 so that may be good, but I dunno it's usefulness in FO2. Traps isn't a combat skill so I can't imagine what it's good for. Hmm.. Please help.

2) The learning curve... steep? Hour long? Two? I'd like to know.

Speech is a great skill that all player types can benefit from (unless your doing a low int character just for giggles). Lockpicking and stealing are very useful but to be honest you can just save and reload in a couple of seconds if things dont go your way. If that is not your play style tho they are obviously very important if you want to make great use of it. There is a lot to steal in the game to say the least.

You can jump right into it honestly, it might take you a bit to get used to the action points and turn based but its very user friendly imo.

Thanks Bal-Sagoth, you've been a big help. I think I'll choose Small Guns, Speech, and Steal for my tags, and also work on Sneak and Lockpick, maybe even Big Guns later on, and who knows, maybe try out Thrown. With 99 levels there is endless possibilities

About the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skills, which affects what? It could be different than FO3 for all I know.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Primary_statistics

Click on each one you are curious about, It is spoiler free if you just stick on the stat pages.

What did you pay for it?

Because one of the mods on the FO3 board posted where you could purchase and D/L it for somewhere like $4.99-$9.99

I got Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics for under 20 bucks. I doubt I'll play tactics, but I don't really want to hassle with the downloads and over-the-internet payment. My dad pretty much only buys things from ebay, amazon, or online retail places like Wal-Mart or Best Buy.

Give tactics a shot, it is not a "Fallout" game in the sense of 1 and 2 but there is still a lot of fun to be had with it.

Actually, I was skeptical about Fallout Tactics when it came out, but give it a try, it's pretty fun and addictive, you get to create a character and put together a team, it ends
up being more fun than you think it will be

Was he talking about Good Old Games, or gog.com?

Play Fallout 1 first.

It's a lot easier to get into.

There is a banner on top of the NMA main page I see all the time to purchase it, let me get a link.

http://www.gog.com/en/page/fallout_promotion/pp/17ba0791499db908433b80f37c5fbc89b870084b

Apparently it is GoG.

I would agree, play the first one first. It is MUCH deeper and rich in story line and everything.

I like to cheat right at the end (ONLY READ AFTER YOU PLAY F1, for those that have played it already really)

Buy it from Interplay directly. www.interplay.com

As for the first aid and doctor you can open up an entirely new quest line if those stats are high enough. It involves curing redding of their jet addiction and deciding where most of the ore goes (basically who becomes the next power in the wastes.)

BTW just a side note but if you beat fallout 2 go ahead and fine the priest dude in new reno. Bit of a bonus for ya there.