It's somewhat related that I played Wasteland first in 1990. Of course, I was too young to really understand it fully (or even halfly), but an older cousing of mine helped by translating and getting on with the gameplay. Played it a couple more times later on.

I first learned about Fallout in '97 by reading a preview of the Fallout 1 demo in one of our local games magazines. There was one tiny screenshot of mutilated bodies, the PC and some NPC's standing. But it immediately made an impression. I wanted to play that game. Didn't have an internet connection back then so it was impossible for me to get the demo, so I decided to wait for a review and releasedate. Both came, but it so happened that in addition to our local gameshop having it sold out and me spending the money on learning to drink and smoke with my buddies, my [censored] computer couldn't even run the game according the system specs, so I had to postpone it.

And I postponed it all the way to 98 when one of my friends had borrowed Fallout 2, thought it was cool, but didn't really understand it. I didn't even know it had been made. Played it for a half an hour and went off to buy it. And I've played it more or less regularly ever since.

At some point 2002 when I finally had got my internet connection I started to look for info on if there was a Fallout 3 in the making (or already made) and found NMA and some bits of info about Van Buren. I obviously got excited, but it was for long until it went public that VB had been canceled. I continued lurking NMA in hopes for info that VB would be revitalised, but it never happened.

PoS happened somewhere in between of all this, and I played it once in co-op at my friend, but that's about that.

Then became the announcement that Bethesda is making Fallout 3. Yet again, I got extremely excited. I knew Bethesda had made Morrowind and Oblivion (which I didn't like all that much), but hey, it was Fallout 3 that they were making. Joined the forums here at 2007 to gather some info about the game, and despite that I firmly believed they'd do justice for the series, the more there was info the less interested I became. Until I finally played the game... and was hugely underwhelmed. I left these forums because there was nothing for me to discuss, until New Vegas was announced - which I naively thought would revive the series back to its former glory, but sadly that only happened in the writing department and the gameplay was, while improved from FO3, still less than stellar, and salted with Bethesdas TES FPS influences, which I still do not like.

So as for now, I'm awaiting for Fallout 4 to happen (not really with baited breath). And if it ends up like Fallout 3 or Skyrim, the burden of expectations have finally been completely removed from me and I can stop looking forward to anything related in the future. As Fallout is the only videogame series I've ever been genuinely excited about, I can't help but be curious about if Bethie has learned anything or taken any relevant negative feedback from Fallout 3 to their hearts.

On Christmas in 2009 I got a PS3. It came with two games that I played until I got every single trophy (platinumed) in the games (inFAMOUS 1 and Batman: Arkham Asylum).
A month later I went to Gamestop to get another game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare which I also platinumed. I had absolutely loved adventure games and shooters. I began to like choice more in more in games. In Batman I liked how there were multiple ways to tackle most situations and different people handled it differently. In inFAMOUS I liked the karma system with choices you could make (granted their were just good and evil but I matured beyond that some time later).
That summer (I'm pretty sure it was the middle of June) I had gone to my cousin's house (a second cousin who I hadn't seen since I was about four) who had recently started playing his favorite game again: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2. He gave me a turn and I loved it.
Sure I had just been a shooter fan and the combat was lack luster but it wasn't about combat which was a new concept for me (My past experiences with games included Mortal Kombat, Twisted Metal, Star Wars Battlefront, and those listed above. Games that weren't mainly killing tons of enemies was alien and interesting to me). The next couple of weeks after I got home I pretty much harassed my parents to buy me KOTOR 2 which they did after a ton of convincing (they don't like spending money for things that aren't necessity or something everybody will enjoy).
That entire summer I spent at least three to four hours a day playing KOTOR 2 on my desktop which was very good at running games from before 2006. I remember the office the desktop was in was about 90 degrees fahrenheit (specifying because these are an international forums) most of the time but I ignored it. I grew to love all of the characters and I took great care in everything I said as my second cousin had instructed me. I ended the game as a good guy but not purely heroic. It had been some time in mid-July and I loved the ending as much as I loved the rest of the game. A friend of mine saw how obsessed I had been with the game so he bought it but only played it once because it was 'boring' (shows the type of gamers I know).
After I had beaten it I felt no drive to go back and do it again like I had with every other game I had owned until then. It just never crossed my mind but I think if it had I would have dismissed it because that was my character's story and to me those events would be the only way they had happened (although when I get a new gaming PC I'll try to play it again with mostly the same choices).
So, around September I had really felt like something was missing when I was playing games, I had beaten inFAMOUS so much that I knew every major and minor plot point, CoD4's campaign can only be played so many times, and after I had gotten 100% in Batman: Arkham Asylum I only played predator mode (There is a room full of guys with guns and you have to take them out stealthily. They quickly release they're being picked off one by one and will get more and more terrified of you intil there is only one guy left who seems to be losing his mind.)
I had started looking more into what genre KOTOR 2 fell under, an RPG. I had looked at upcoming RPGs on Gamestop.com and at the top of the list was Alpha Protocol (I had no idea that the creators of KOTOR 2 were also the creators of AP). I looked into it a bit and it sounded awesome, something like inFAMOUS with its choices and lots of action but a little more like KOTOR 2.
Early 2010 I bought AP and realized that I had $50 that I wasn't going to spend on anything else so I picked up two more games: Killzone 2 (loved the multiplayer but never got into the campaign) and Fallout 3.
I played AP first and I liked it until the ending which, although wrapped up nicely, made the game feel short and not feel like I got my money's worth (after spending twenty something dollars on KOTOR 2 I had high hopes for games to be overflowing with content). I played F3 next and I absolutely loved it. AP had been like KOTOR 2 but less of an RPG with nothing in its place but Fallout 3 felt like a perfect mix of RPG and shooter.
I had absolutely loved it, I checked recently and I had apparently had twenty different accounts on the game, all of which were over level 10. I had played the game so much that I didn't even open Killzone 2 until mid-April.
Then, while still in the era of my life that was dominated by Fallout 3, I heard that Fallout: New Vegas was coming out in October and I got excited with the new setting and all new things to do. (side note: around that time I had showed the same friend who had gotten bored of KOTOR 2 Fallout 3 and he, once again, bought it but this time he absolutely loved it and still plays it obsessively)
When New Vegas came out I was underwhelmed at first. I had been expecting another F3 but what I got instead was more along the lines of KOTOR 2 (this was when I realized KOTOR 2, AP, and NV were all made by Obsidian and my mind was blown). Although that didn't seem like a bad thing it felt like going into a movie expecting an action movie and instead getting a political drama which I had disliked.
After giving NV try after try I couldn't deal with it anymore. I had went from kind of liking the game to hating it in about two months.
I joined the forums in December absoultely hating NV for not being what I had expected (it was a rather ignorant time).
I had gotten into constant arguements with the Dinosaurs and for a while was always at odds with them. I eventually (took a while) began to realize that the only way I would know whether NV fit with the series or not (which had been an arguement of mine that is still used commonly among those who have not played the Originals) would be to play all of them, from the original Fallout onward.
In May (I think it was May) of 2011 I bought the classic pack on Steam being recommended by Mako (who is sadly no longer on these forums).
I played F1 until about July when I had gotten tired of trying to fight the more difficult enemies and started playing Fallout 2. I had some fun with F2 before going back to F1 to try and finish it.
I managed to finish it (only the evil ending because my character was too wimpy to fight the Lieutenant) a little while ago. I started F2 and got to the Hub where I did a bunch of quests before I went to F:T which I am having even more fun with.
I had also bought the NV:UE in February and I have completed one full playthrough with all of the DLC and now I am almost done with my second.
My views on games in general has changed a lot since 2009 but my view on the Fallout Series has changed many times more this past year.