I am skeptical about the term "uncslop" because it's more of a problem that modern kids know nothing beyond the slop
but I am going to hit the hornet nest with a stick: Fallout 2 is uncslop
and it's not just slop: it's slop and a slog
I just completed this game and I suffered
I don't like to suffer while playing videogames
yes, I suffered in the first Fallout, too, but the first one was poorly made slop (affectionate) because at least it didn't overstay its welcome and was Fallout *1*, of course I will be more lenient towards 1 than 2
and while it was made, as they say in Russian, "from shit and sticks", at least with its writing, ambience, graphics, and pacing it had great atmosphere, and outside of when I had to fiddle with a save editor because something got bugged or when Ian shot me with burst, I wasn't annoyed
(I still had to fiddle with a save editor in Fallout 2, but I began to miss Ian and his burst shots)
and all of what made Fallout good was poorly recycled in the sequel: ambience fit only for certain locations was randomly reused and graphics showing special locations became just an asset, because the development cycle of the sequel was about what, 8 months? and you, as a player, will feel that in your aching bones, because the insanely short development time (even for that time) combined with way too many ambitions and of course resulted in the dent in the development team
and yes, I played the restoration patch, which only prolonged the torture, but then again, it was absolutely necessary because a large chunk of quests would just meet dead ends otherwise: no complaints to the dev team, because it felt absolutely vanilla
which maybe is a bad thing, because the more or less serious tone of the first game indeed shifted to total immature clownfest with the characters named Long Wang and Dick Richardson; you know how many options you have for RP dialogue-wise? two: either a goody-two-shoes or a total psychopath (will block you from the majority of the meatiest quests forever!), and if my SO is to be believed, the second option is completely impossible if you're playing as a woman because too many "evil" NPCs won't even give a woman their time of a day, resulting in a total questline shutdown
but looks like they (he? I believe there's only a single guy behind the text in the credits?) had all time in the world to write 1000+ "haha funni" lines for the prostitutes in New Reno and make a porn studio for the world with no video available! (i ended up ignoring New Reno): that's marvelslop before marvelslop, millenial writing done by X-ers, Bethesda could only dream and aspire to be like Fallout 2 and looks like they chose the completely correct direction no matter what "true fans" say, that could only devolve in whatever there's in Fallout now, except much more family-friendly, and ironically, resulting in something much less immature (from what I know, because I know the Bethesda Fallout just tangentially)
the main quest? again, as the Russian meme says "go there, I don't know where, bring me something, I don't know what", resulting in loops like "need a strong packmule companion, in order to recruit him, need to fix the town's troubles, in order to do that, need a FUCKING POWER ARMOR, and in order to get a power armor, need to go to a high level location, and in order to do that, need a strong packmule companion, and in order to do that--"
"haha, what a loser, you can get endgame gear right after Arroyo", no, it's only viable if you're a nerd or just played this game previously: I played mostly blind
this was NOT pleasant
I didn't even get the car, because I carried a supposedly necessary thing through the entire map and it turned out to be not the thing I needed
yes, I had a meme build with 2 STR and 10 CHR, and guess what? I had that because the dear fans were repeating like a preacher does, that this was completely viable, and to be fair, yeah, I was able to complete the game, and again, in Fallout 1 the end felt incredibly enjoyable, like all the effort paid off, which was not the case in Fallout 2
my "mistake" was creating a character with 2 PER, because turns out it not just cripples you in fight (fine by me), but also blocks some quests because 10 INT and CHR apparently is *not* enough to persuade a grieving family into sharing their grievances, and maybe it would be fine, but in other quests the PC has NO problem noticing that something is wrong and someone is upset
it also cripples your abilities like First Aid; the funny thing is that items that are supposed to help, do not, because fuck you
but it's all borderline offtopic, because the end build doesn't matter: you are going to suffer even with the most min-maxed character, I've seen people playing those and still suffering from the stiff combat and dumdum AI and random encounters made of "10 vs 10 random bums and you have to wait while all of them complete their turns (+ you also spawned right in the middle between them because your PER is 2)"; and no matter how strong and invested and outfitted and min-maxed you are, you are NOT safe from some critical exploding in your face with "haha, 300 damage because fuck you"
or you could get a crit with 0 damage, because also fuck you
in fact, you will
and you WILL get a stat check fail even with dedicating all necessary effort in order to level it up; and you will not see some dialogue options because of that and it results in the player having no idea that it's even there
but hey, at least the prostitutes have over 1000 unique lines in New Reno and this game is regarded as a "milestone in LGBT representation" because you can have a same sex shotgun wedding
I heard the opinion that it was either that: the rushed game with reused everything, or nothing; and after completing the game I am of the opinion that nothing would be much better