Fallout: London, PC [Part 4 – Why It’s Great]

Anyway, enough about the bugs and factions. Let me get into some of the reasons why I think Fallout: London is so exceptional…

Bare with me – this is a long one… 🙂

Reason number one: the environment. Not just the destroyed city (which is incredibly detailed with staggering levels of destruction), but also things like the extreme weather and lighting, the thunderstorms and lightning, radiation storms, and the many different atmospheric effects are all exceptional. I mean, when you consider that the Fallout 4 engine is last-gen tech, what they’re doing with it here is pretty incredible. When it rains in Fallout: London… Oh boy, does it rain… As a bonus, if you manage to break into the Expert-level computer inside Hidden Bunker (the southernmost location on the world map), you can collect a tape (called the BIMO Portable Weather Holotape) from inside a room guarded by a tough Legendary Robo-Margo. Defeat this, and the Holotape is yours. This will then grant you the ability to control the weather using your Atta-Boy! Which is a great touch, and is definitely worth finding and using. This device is good for brightening up locations that are usually always dark and gloomy (like the Crystal Palace Maze), and also for making you feel like God… 😀

Number two: the sheer number of weapons and items to find and collect… It’s pretty amazing what they managed to squeeze into this mod. There must be over a couple of hundred different useable weapons (all with their own feel, rate of fire, accuracy, and way of using, and each one has a 3D-modelled and animated representation in-game. There are literally thousands of different items, in six common categories (Weapons, Armour, Aid, Misc, Junk, and Ammo) to collect (again: each existing in the world, in 3D, as well as in your inventory). Fallout: London is a hoarder and a base-builder’s dream, and the intuitive inventory system, and general interface speed, make it really easy/fun to manage everything.

Number three: the new monsters are great. There are loads of brand new creatures (like Leeches, Foxes, Ladybirds (fka Ladybugs), Radgers, Dryads, Famished, Wombles and Quantum Squirrels), and extensions of those found in the base game (like Bloatmothers, Mittenlurk Queens and Vampiric Bloodbugs), and all get more powerful – and go through changes (like being Rabid, or Glowing, or Tough or Mean versions), as your level increases. Some being Legendary or Mythical and often dropping valuable unique items. Having the apex predator in Fallout: London be a “Womble” is also pretty funny, and a nice tribute to the classic British children’s TV series. 😀

Number four: the characters and factions are many, and mostly hostile. It doesn’t matter in which direction you walk in Fallout: London, you’ll soon meet with some hostility. As you play through the game the Legendary enemies get tougher, and carry more powerful unique weapons and armour that you can obtain and use yourself, if you loot it from them. You’re occasionally presented with a group of red-skulled enemies (the red skull being a warning that they’re a number of levels above you), and unique-named opponents, throughout the game. Rabbit and Pork introduces bigger battles against more enemies than in previous versions. “The Battle of Lewisham” (my name), with the many Hooligans, is now much more intense than previously, and it feels like a great battle every time I do it now. The dryad swarm near Oval Underground Station is always good fun to blast through. Watching monsters aggro factions is always fun – especially at night, when gun fire and explosions light up the skies. There’s also a recurring red-skulled Hooligan leader – called Morrison – who will attack you on sight. Occasionally you’ll meet other unique characters who are not hostile and who you can talk to, and possibly recruit to work at one of your settlements.

Number five: Tunnel Cough. The new, deadly disease in Fallout: London, caught by inhaling particles in the air, without wearing a gas mask or a working hazmat suit for protection. Tunnel Cough is always fatal and condemns the victim to a slow and horrible death. Those infected with Tunnel Cough are forced into nightmarish walled ghettos, created to contain the infection. In Rabbit and Pork, a mysterious new faction is introduced that “worships” Tunnel Cough, and they are up to no good in various newly-unlocked locations in the game. Like the interiors and caverns of Blackheath Crematorium, (which are very long and creepy); or inside the British Fuels building. Encountering any of these new fanatics will instantly reveal their hostility, and will also net you a new weapon (with its own in-engine intro animation of admiration) – The Photon Disruptor – when you enter The Barbican. There are also some faction quests related to this sinister new threat.

Number six: the raids. Fallout: London has some brilliant places to assault. Huge buildings (exteriors and interiors), filled with enemies and loot, and a fair few secrets to find. Attacking the Beefeaters who’re living in The Tower of London is great fun. Or the Hooligans on Ravensbourne Construction Site. Or the hostile Thamesfolk at Blackwall Citadel. As is clearing out the many public houses of London and ransacking them for everything you can pick up. There are countless great places to explore in this mod and many of them re-set after a set period of time. So you can do them repeatedly.

Number seven: the quests. Not every quest in Fallout: London is great, but some are outstanding. A few are really disturbing. Some are laugh-out-loud funny. Or genuinely tense and scary. And a small few are confusing or are overly complex, or too simple. The majority, though, are engaging and well-written, with hidden backstory in the environments. And there are countless interesting side-quests and challenges, as well as the main storyline quests. Hundreds of quests. Some quick, others taking longer.

Number eight: the subtlety. Fallout: London does have a surprising number of subtle references that not everyone will get. I mean: the constant references to the compass and set, throughout the game, definitely gave me a Masonic/Establishment vibe that no other game has previously dared touch upon. That, in itself, impressed me. The many humorous references to Britain’s chequered past history is also a joy to behold… The research needed to bring all this together must’ve been immense, and the developers deserve kudos for getting a lot of it right. And, at the same time, having a good old dig at the so-called Elites in the process. 🙂

Number nine: the special collectibles. Special items are often hidden in the hardest-to-reach places… Like: gramophone records, magazines, beer mats, and cigarette cards. Try climbing The Gherkin to get the vinyl record at the very top, and you’ll know what I mean… Each magazine and beermat that you pick up unlocks new, or enhances, your abilities. Some of which are unique, and quite clever. So those, at the very least, should be early targets that you’ll want to grab as soon as possible.

Number ten: building settlements is still great fun (and is an expanded version of that seen in Fallout 4). And, thankfully, in Rabbit & Pork settlements now seem to work properly, because they were riddled with bugs in earlier versions. Fallout: London does offer some impressive real estate to build on, including Covent Garden Market, Vauxhall Grove Construction Site, Lambeth Walk, London Bridge, Biggin Hill Airport, and even on the Wimbledon tennis courts. Extra settlements include: your private room in Thameshaven Market (for completing the quest “Defeating The Empress“), Emilio’s Cafe in Camden (if you join The Pistols), or Camden Lock Penthouse (if you reject entry to The Pistols). I’d love to be able to acquire both but the game won’t let you without using the console. Rabbit and Pork also introduces The Garage Hideout in Bromley, which is useful but doesn’t allow settler recruitment, so is best used as a secret bachelor pad for yourself. 🙂

Number eleven: the companions. There are ten different companions who can travel with you – even more after Rabbit and Pork. And no doubt more to come in the next DLC. Each companion has their own characteristics, and they bitch and moan in their own special way. If you want a companion who doesn’t talk, choose Churchill the Bulldog. 😀 Each companion also has a special affinity questline, which unlocks when you make them like you enough. You can also refuse companions entirely and specialise in exploring on your own, boosting your own carrying capacity with the Lone Wanderer perk.

Number twelve: the soundscapes. Another fantastic layer to Fallout: London is the atmospheric music, which is superb throughout, and the varied sound effects. Big props to all the composers, musicians, voice actors and technicians who created the sounds for this mod. You are doing a great job. For the most part. Just please don’t use female voice actors to speak as young boys any more. It just doesn’t work… 🙂

Number thirteen: the voice acting. I should definitely spotlight the voice acting, which is excellent overall. It’s not perfect, but it’s a fair representation of the UK’s diverse collection of accents, with some clever mixing of historical and modern dialogue. All coming together as a dystopian, dark, comedic, sci-fi fantasy parody. Some voice actors’ voices do seem to repeat a bit. I really dislike the woman’s voice doing the squeaky voice of young boy Archie, one of the available companions. So much so that I never used him after trying him out on my first playthrough (which was “Ugh – get rid!”). There are some excellent, characterful voices in there, though, and – apart from a few pronunciation errors – the voicing in general is great. If you play Fallout: London for as long as I have, you’ll regularly hear multiple enemies say the same thing as they fall dead to the ground after shooting them, with their strained final words repeating like an echo… “Never… Got… To… Sail… The… Horn.“

Number fourteen: there is no level cap. That’s right: Fallout: London doesn’t stop at level 80 or 100. I actually expected it to stop well before level 100, but it didn’t. It kept going. You can complete Fallout: London before you reach level 50. Maybe even level 40. The good thing about this unlimited cap, though, is that you can keep earning perk points (you get one per level), if you want to, and can really build a perked-out character that is almost invincible, and truly become “Lord of the Wasteland”. I took my character to level 104 on my second playthrough, just to see what happened. I took my third playthrough even higher… Just to see if anything had changed in Rabbit and Pork.

Number fifteen: you can now gamble with Blackjack or fruit machines at casinos or smaller, private events, in the Rabbit and Pork update. It’s a mild update, thankfully, but if you want to spend time gambling in the game, well now you can. It’s not quite Fallout: New Vegas, but it’s something for those who want to gamble irresponsibly… This is an adult mod after all. With lots of violence and swearing. So adding gambling to Fallout: London was not a bad idea. It could easily be expanded in future DLCs. So ‘Parent Beware’, and remember that Fallout: London just a fantasy role-playing game – not Satan…

Number sixteen: there’s more Fallout: London to come… From what I understand: Team FOLON have two more Fallout: London DLCs in development, but no release dates have been confirmed as of yet. I can see where Fallout: London could be expanded or refined and look forward to seeing what Team FOLON has in store for us Fallout Londoners next…

More: Fallout: London on GOG.com
More: Fallout: London on Wikipedia
More: Official Fallout: London website