The game in the Fallout series released on Mac and PC nearly 20 years ago, and it has been feeding our post-apocalyptic fears (and fantasies?) ever since. When gamers think of survival, it is one of the first franchises to come to mind. It masterfully combines survival gameplay with RPG elements to keep players engaged in the Wasteland, its inhabitants, and various protagonists—not to mention it is one of the few franchises that does the alternate history timeline justice.
Whether you are searching for a water chip or trying to find your son, you are bound to be captivated by the post-nuclear world around you. It’s an interesting mashup of 1950s innocence and nostalgia with heavy doses of Mad Max. It sounds strange, but it works, especially when you manage to find a radio. There is nothing like fighting a swarm of bloatflies while listening to “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” by The Ink Spots.
Speaking of fighting and survival, players are bound to encounter various weapons, consumables, and junk items while traveling across the Wasteland. With so much stuff lying around waiting to be collected, it is easy to become bogged down with useless items—especially if you are the pack rat type—or ones that can help you out when you are in a bind—for a cost! We have all been forced to use terrible items. It wouldn’t be a survival game otherwise.
Join us as we countdown our favorite items to hate.
15 10mm Pistol
Ah, the lowly 10mm pistol. If you are a fan of the Fallout series, then you are all too familiar with this weapon. This trusty pistol often rears its ugly head early in the game. Often it is the first weapon worth its weight in metal that you encounter. However, similar to choosing a partner, one shouldn’t settle for the first shiny face they encounter.
In Fallout 4, the 10mm pistol deals less damage per shot than every other pistol in the game except for the flare gun. It has a decent range, but none of that matters when it is one the more inaccurate weapons in the game. The only thing this gun is good for is keeping you alive long enough to find something better.
14 Grenade Launcher
When people think of grenade launchers, they think of damage on a widespread scale. For many, that means trying to take out a group of cazadores before the winged creatures can get to you. Unfortunately, if you hope to accomplish this goal with the in-game grenade launcher, then you will be sorely disappointed.
The grenade launcher made its franchise debut in Fallout: New Vegas amidst hopes that it would be an upgrade from the grenade rifle. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. In fact, when compared to its rifle counterpart, the launcher is rather lackluster. The launcher may hold more rounds, but it is twice as heavy, and its rate of fire is over a third slower. It is also difficult to range. Often, you have to shoot enemies at point-blank range for it to be effective.
It is no wonder this overpriced weapon didn’t return in Fallout 4.
13 Raider Power Armor
Sure the Raider Power Armor looks cool and intimidating, but unless you are playing on very easy difficulty, you will want to ditch this one as soon as something better comes along. Yes, all the raiders are wearing it and maybe, just maybe they will think you are just as battle-born and hardened as they are. Unfortunately, for them—and you if you choose to wear it—the Raider Power Armor has the worst stats of any power armor in the game.
The full set only offers 500 points of damage resistance and 250 points of energy resistance, which is terrible when compared to the T-45’s 310 points of energy resistance and the T-51’s 750 points of damage resistance and 490 points of energy resistance. At least the Raider Power Armor is how easy to repair. Regrettably, there are few upgrades available for this set, making it useless to higher-level players.
12 Radroach Meat
Typically, two things come to mind when people think of what could survive a nuclear fallout: cockroaches and Twinkies. It is unclear who started the Twinkie myth, but Mythbusters tackled the cockroach theory and found their survivability plausible. With their legendary status still intact, it is no wonder Fallout’s Wasteland is overrun with radroaches, the cockroach’s in-game counterpart.
In Fallout 3 and 4 you can find the irradiated critters everywhere. Radroaches may be a nuisance, but they are pretty easy to kill. Once dead, players can retrieve the radroach meat from their corpse. When eaten, a small portion of the player’s health is revived, and a dose of radiation is given (the dose is higher in New Vegas and 4). No one ever wants to eat radroach meat, but there comes a time in every player’s life when, due to low health, they have no other choice.
11 Flare Gun
We all know what a flare gun is. A few of us may have even fired one before. They are most commonly used to signal for help, as seen in Fallout 4. The player is given one to request backup from the Minutemen. Okay, so what’s wrong with that? Well, on the surface, nothing. Until you realize the gun’s treatment in the New Vegas add-on, Lonesome Road, is markedly different from Fallout’s latest title.
In Lonesome Road, the flare gun doubles as an effective weapon, frightening abominations and dealing fire damage. In Fallout 4, the gun is primarily used for signaling. There is nothing stopping the player from using it as a weapon, but it soon becomes clear that doing so is a waste of time. The flare gun only deals 10 points of damage and has an insanely low fire rate. You would be better off fighting with your bare hands.
10 Railway Rifle
What would Fallout be without a really good rifle? A completely different game, duh. Anyway, there is nothing like wandering around the Wasteland with a rifle in tow, and the railway rifle is one of the many options available to players. However, despite its cool name, it isn’t the best one out there.
The railway rifle deals 100 points of damage, making it initially seem like a decent weapon. Yet, the reality is that its rate of fire is well below the average of most of the other rifles available in the game and isn’t nearly as accurate as other standouts such as The Last Minute (with a damage output of 204 points). On top of all this, the railway rifle reloads slowly and its ammo, the railway spikes, are hard to find.
9 Buffout
Chems are the backbone of the Fallout universe. Okay, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but it certainly is not a lie. Players love experimenting with chems to get quick, temporary stat boosts and to play Russian roulette with the game’s addiction system. Buffout, which has been present since the first game’s release, is one of these chems.
In the first Fallout, players who consume buffout are more likely to get addicted to it than any other consumable in the game. In Fallout 1 and 2 players who take the drug receive immediate, minor buffs to strength, agility, and endurance. If the player becomes addicted, then they will receive penalties in the aforementioned areas. The potential for addiction and the stat penalty make it clear that, like all steroids, players should avoid buffout.
8 Jet
Jet is the most addictive chem in Fallout 2, with a 50% chance of making the player reliant upon its effects. Like most chems, Jet gives immediate stat boosts that are difficult for many to ignore. Power can be addictive, especially when encountering Wasteland critters and enemies.
Players who take Jet will see an immediate increase in action point, strength, and perception. However, the effects only last about 5 minutes before the player is hit with extreme withdrawal symptoms, resulting in steep penalties to the same categories. Non-addicted players will eventually recover, but addicts will take a further hit to their stats. This easy-to-find and affordable chem should be avoided at all costs, as its addiction is permanent. We dare you to stay off of drugs.
7 Super Sledge
The only thing more satisfying than smashing something to bits with your bare hands is using a melee weapon to increase the damage tenfold. In Fallout 4, this means pummeling radroaches and ghouls with anything player’s can get their hands on, from baseball bats to rolling pins. However, there is one weapon that stands out from the rest, the super sledge.
The super sledge is a sledgehammer that draws its power from a miniature rocket propulsion system. Each high-powered swing deals 40 points of damage to enemies. It would be a decent melee weapon if it weren’t so heavy and hard to swing. Its swing speed is so slow that the player can actually get stuck if facing a quick opponent who blocks all of their attacks. Using V.A.T.S. can make it easier to use, but the large amount of AP it consumes makes it worthless.
6 Junk Jet
The junk jet sounds good in theory. I mean, who doesn’t want a weapon that launches junk at your enemies? It is the next best thing to Adam West’s cat launcher from Family Guy. It may not fire cats, but it does let you shoot cigarettes, baby bottles, teddy bears, and many other silly objects. This was fine and dandy in Fallout 3 when junk was useless. Fallout 4 makes it hard to justify wasting items that you will eventually need for crafting.
In addition to squandering resources, the junk jet just isn’t a very good weapon. It is far too heavy to be so inaccurate. When it comes to ranged attacks, the humble 10mm pistol will outperform it. This is because items fired tend to curve upward and then fall, as opposed to firing in a straight line. Save your precious resources and opt for a plasma gun instead.
5 Fat Man
In Fallout 3, the fat man is devastating. It causes over 1,600 points of damage and has a decent blast radius. It fires mini nukes instead of bullets, so each explosion is like its own mini nuclear bomb, making you feel like a world leader without obtaining the popular vote or taking over a small country.
By the time Fallout 4 came out, the gun saw major changes. For instance, it now only deals 468 points of damage—which is still a lot compared to other weapons—and has a smaller blast radius than its predecessor. Outside of these comparisons, the fat man, despite its damage output is still a poor choice for the Wasteland due to its magazine capacity. It can only hold one mini nuke at a time. Also, the blast raises radiation levels, meaning you have to use Rad-X on yourself to loot the items you need.
4 Booze
Booze has been an RPG staple for decades. It is now expected for one to encounter some sort of alcoholic beverage while out adventuring, whether the game is western or not. This is especially true in the Fallout games, as they are always set in post-apocalyptic worlds. I mean, who doesn’t want to drink after surviving a nuclear war?
Lore wise, drinking may feel like the appropriate thing to do. However, there is no real benefit to doing so. There is an immediate one-point penalty to perception, which is regained after 30 minutes. In the first two games, there is a 20% chance of addiction, as well. Alcohol addiction lasts a total of seven days and results in a one-point penalty to charisma and agility. There is very little benefit to being an alcoholic in the Wasteland.
3 Bloatfly Meat
Thanks to the lingering effects of radiation from the nuclear war, the common blowfly has mutated into the bloatfly, an annoying creature that typically doesn’t travel alone. Their quick movements and tendency to swarm the player can make them a reasonable threat to lower level players. Despite this, they are relatively easy to kill, as they have no damage resistance against weapons.
As one of the more common Wasteland enemies, players will find they have no shorter of bloatfly meat to scavenge. Trust me, no one wants to harvest this stuff—or eat it! But it’s good to have around if you find yourself in a tough fight on the wrong side of the Wasteland. Of course, eating the meat as-is will, like radroach meat, only restore a few hit points while simultaneously delivering a dose of radiation.
2 Codac R9000
The Codac R9000 is a camera and quest item in Fallout: New Vegas. The old camera is obviously well made, as it was able to survive the war. The camera is given to the player so they can take pictures of various signs across the Wasteland. The quest is easy enough to complete. The only strange thing about it is that you can’t view the pictures that are taken, although you can snap pictures of anything you want.
Also, strangely enough, the Codac R9000 “fires” invisible projectiles at people without dealing any damage whatsoever. As if all of this wasn’t weird enough, the camera also has an unusually high AP cost, at 1000 AP! Who decided this was okay? The Codac R9000 is a definite contender for the title of the most useless item in a Fallout game.
1 Dirty Water
Many items found across the Wasteland are hoarded out of necessity as opposed to convenience. Dirty water is a prime example of this survival mindset. It is the most common water found in Fallout 3 and beyond, and, like many other items in the game, it is irradiated. Unfortunately, humans can’t survive without water, and the purified variety is difficult to come by (especially in Fallout 3 and New Vegas).
Dirty water can be purified, but it is unrealistic to believe that you will only drink the clear stuff. You never know what you might encounter out in the Wasteland, so be prepared to down a few bottles or cartons when facing off against raiders. Depending on the game, dirty water restores either 10 or 20 hit points and gives players between 5 and 7 points radiation.
Be sure to pay your doctor a visit. You will need it.
