Quote Originally Posted by LibraryOgre View Post
IMO, it's a textbook case of a sequel that is released right after the main game:

The first game has a better story, the sequel has better mechanics. Because they were able to take their time writing the first one's story, but able to refine some mechanics in time for the second one. The second one also usually has more bugs, because it got shoved out the door before QA was finished.
The way I saw it described today is that Fallout 2 is a better sandbox. Each zone (The Den, Vault City, NCR, etc.) is better than the first game, but there isn't any cohesiveness holding the plot together. You just sort of wander around until you stumble into the Enclave, whereas with Fallout 1 there was a clear progression.

In many ways, Bethesda were the perfect company to take up the mantle, because that's how I would describe their best games.