I was trying to replay F:NV, and I just can't get over how fucking silly everything is. I played the OG Fallouts as a teen and I've never seriously replayed them, and I know why now. The whole premise is just too pants on head retarded. Fallout is great for its roleplaying mechanics, but the setting is beyond help.
I'm not even talking about logical inconsistencies here. I'm talking about the basic elements making up the setting, the layers of it. First there's the 50's sci-fi, which in itself has always been retarded. And not in a charming way. Fight me over this. Then there's the pop culture references and humour, which is not an aside but really another layer, because it's a consequence of the first element. Devs were like "we know this is silly, we get it lololol you don't get it!!". Maybe if they had gone with actual, hard sci-fi it wouldn't be as cringey. Still, even the 50's sci-fi elements might have been tolerable, if they hadn't tried to marry it with post-apoc on top. These three layers never really coagulated into a cohesive whole. They stand side by side and it's jarring. And every game builds on these shortcomings and adds more shit that just stands out and feels weird.
tl;dr Fallout as a setting is retarded but would have been tolerable if it was just one game
inb4 there are no Fallouts after the first