4/5 ★ – Rig2Big's review of Fallout 2.

As Kevin Spacey famously never said, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was putting a “TAKE ALL” button in Fallout 2, when every merchant is dirt poor.” Don’t be mistaken, I think Fallout 2 is phenomenal. It just had the misfortune of being a sequel to one of the most compelling video games ever made. It’s a commendable successor absolutely, but it doesn’t really meet my expectations for what a sequel to Fallout 1 should’ve been. As for the open world… fucking flawless, spotless, but something I did not fully realize until playing through Fallout 2 is that the actual GAMEPLAY might rank 3rd on the list of things most important to me from Fallout 1. What I’m about to say might seem like a stupid ass criticism, but this game needed more talking heads. I mean holy shit, every character with a talking head has been permanently etched into my brain, and their dialogue and motivations immediately become about 100x more interesting than every other NPC. This really bleeds into my main problem with Fallout 2, which is the story. I am terribly sorry, but there is not an ounce of shame from me when I say “The Enclave” has enough conceptual depth to barely oversaturate a faction quest line. Yeah yeah, America is the mediator of everything evil in this universe, but is anyone seriously gonna tell me with a straight face that PRESIDENT DICK RICHARDSON is even in the same league as THE MASTER? This guy has such a boring and obvious polarity to the Master’s plan, and it is really disappointing. Neither Dick nor his science fair project, Frank Horrigan, are worthy to smell the Master’s farts. When I walked into the cathedral and saw the Master’s grotesque talking head animation with my own two eyes, a chill ran from the peak of my neck to the deepest pit of my butthole. When I walked into the Enclave base and saw Dick Richardson standing there, it felt like I just bumped into Al Gore at a Denny’s, and got stuck talking to him about renewable energy.