As of September of this year, one of the greatest video game series known to man will turn twenty years old. That's right, the original Fallout was released in 1997 (feel old yet?) and while the sequel came out just a year later, there was a ten year gap in there during which there was no outlet for our wasteland withdrawal. Yes, there were two spin-offs, the Brotherhood of Steel games in 2001 and 2004, but the third official installment of the series took ten years.

Of course, Fallout 3 breathed new life into the series, switching from a turn-based RPG format to an RPG-shooter look, and offering a first person view, along with brilliant (by 2008 standards) graphics. New Vegas took us back to the West Coast for a Mojave Desert experience, and most recently, Fallout 4 took us to Boston for an epic showdown on a new generation of consoles.

Fallout 4 blew many people away with upgraded graphics, some new gameplay mechanics and an incredible cast of characters aided by a familiar, but creative and entertaining story. With that said, however, like any of the more recent games in this series, every time you play through, you can find something different. With that in mind, here are fifteen things you didn't know about Fallout 4. 

15 Codsworth Knows Many Names

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We'll start out with something funny and lighthearted with regard to the lone survivor's neurotic robot butler, Codsworth. This is the first game in the Fallout series in which a character can actually hear their chosen name spoken by a character in the game. Players were known as nothing more than the Vault Dweller in Fallout, Chosen One in Fallout 2, Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3, and of course the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas. 

This time around, the developers recorded Codsworth saying over a thousand names, purely for the player's experience. There are plenty of "normal" names such as John, Paul and Michael, some unconventional names such as Markiepoo and Python, a few shout-outs to awesome movies such as Rockatansky and Morpheus, and of course some names that are awesome and there for the laughs, such as F*ckface, Orgasmo (not Orgazmo, the cult movie made by the creators of South Park) and @$$face.

Here's a mostly complete list.

14 Lynda Carter's Cameo

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We don't want to gush over her or anything, but Lynda Carter looks unbelievable for age 65 (cosmetic procedures can do that for a person). Come to think of it, she'd still look pretty awesome if she was fifty. She's also multi-talented, having won beauty pageants, on top of her singing and acting careers. For those of you who are still unsure of this name, she's the original Wonder Woman.

She's been acting on and off since the 1970s and has also sang, and provided her voice for a few of the Elder Scrolls games and most recently Fallout 4. She provided the voice for Magnolia, a Synth former prostitute who now works in Goodneighbor as a singer. Lynda Carter not only sang the songs for this character, but also wrote them specifically for the game.

13 The Number of Weapons and Mods

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It actually drew some criticism from some fans that New Vegas had more base weapons than Fallout 4. This isn't to say that Fallout 4 doesn't have an impressive arsenal however. If you include all forms of projectile firing weapon (ballistic, energy, plasma and so on), along with explosives, traps, melee weapons (both bladed and blunt), and fist weapons, there are over 150 in the game (this includes DLC weapons). But where Fallout 4 really shines is with respect to modifying weapons. New Vegas featured a few mods and only select weapons could be modified. Fallout 4 on the other hand, expanded this game mechanic to include over 700 different mods, which can be created from component parts. This led to a game in which there are thousands of different weapon variations.

12 Celebrating Holidays

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It goes without saying that there will be Easter eggs all throughout any Fallout game, and this one deserves some credit. As you likely know, there is an in-game calendar as one of the functions of your Pip-Boy. Check out Diamond City around 12/25 and you'll see lights and some Christmas trees. If you show up on 10/31, there will be some decorations and pumpkins everywhere for Halloween.

While Fallout 4 isn't the only game to provide some different content for the Holidays, as games like Destiny and Overwatch do an incredible job of also providing holiday content, Fallout 4's, like everything else they do, is incredibly unique.

11 The Glowing Sea

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Many who played through the game only visited The Glowing Sea out of necessity for the main quest, in which you need to head south past the Crater of Atom, in order to find Virgil in his laboratory. Some don't realize that this actually takes you off of the map for the game. More interestingly, however, the southwest area of the map includes a large portion of The Glowing Sea outside of the map and outside of the area most of us would travel to get to Virgil. Other areas worth exploration in the eastern portion of The Glowing Sea are Sentinel Site, an old military installation, a plane wreck, and to the north of Virgil's lab are a church and an old reactor site.

10 Inon Zur - Music

If you liked the music throughout Fallout 4, and we don't mean the 1950s tunes on the radio, we mean the ambient music, there is good reason for that. The score was made by Inon Zur, one of the most renowned names in the realm of video game music. He's done a great job with the previous two Fallout games (3 and New Vegas), along with a few Prince of Persia games and a couple of games in the Dragon Age series. The Israeli composer started out in television and movies but moved to writing video game scores in the early 2000s.

9 The Future of the Series

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Sorry, virtual wasteland dwellers, there is no solid information regarding a sequel to New Vegas or a fifth Fallout game at this point (as of mid-February, 2017). Given the success of the fourth game and the dedicated fan base that the series has built however, rest assured that there will be more games in the future, there is no accurate info right now. Obsidian Entertainment, the group who came up with New Vegas, have indicated their desire to work on another game and Bethesda Softworks, who own the rights to the Fallout games, would have to collectively go insane to not come up with another game.

Every so often, an article will pop up and quickly have everyone drooling but end up being false. This happened twice in the last few months, when a phony leak was announced about "New Vegas 2" and more recently when a voice actor joked about "Fallout 5," though neither of these have been confirmed by any studio affiliated with the series. Therefore, while we should rest easy knowing that other wasteland themed games will help us escape from our own lives sometime in the future, we do not know enough to publish information as of yet.

8 The Speedrunning Record

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For those who are unfamiliar, there is a style of gaming called a "speedrun" wherein one tries to get through a game as fast as possible. More often than not, a player will endeavor to use programming game mechanic flaws that may allow them to skip large portions of the game to finish quicker. There are various sets of rules for speedrunning.  For anyone who likes the Fallout games, we know they can take full days to complete. This game, however, has been completed in under an hour by several players. Kevbot43 currently holds the record for the fastest playthrough according to speedrun.com. This kind of thing could change next hour however. This is accurate as of February 13th, 2017.

7 The Sole Survivor's Voice

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For a long time, role playing games with dialogue choices did not feature protagonists with actual voices. This was true in the Fallout series including the third game and New Vegas. The main reason for so many RPGs having no protagonist voice was the fact that the audio they would have to record took up disk space that was not available.

This time around, they made it a priority to give the player a voice so that they could have a more complete and immersive experience. The male voice was provided by Brian Delaney, who has also worked on the Halo and Call of Duty game series, along with many more. Courtenay Taylor was the female voice. If you've played video games for a while, you've heard her voice before; she's worked on more awesome games than we can count.

6 Where Did VATS Come From?

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This little factoid isn't specific to Fallout 4, but actually sheds some light on a major combat mechanic of Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4.  The game's combat mode "V.A.T.S.", which stands for Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, allows you to slow down time and target a certain body part when shooting at an enemy. The origin of this system comes from two other games. Obviously the ability to target a body part comes from the original, turn based Fallout game, but the slow motion aspect was also inspired by the crash replay scenes in the Burnout series.

5 Many Fans Were Disappointed

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Writer's Note: I loved this game. I thought it was an excellent addition to an awesome series. However, New Vegas is still my personal favorite (far more replay value) and I understand these complaints, even if I do not agree that they take away from the experience of this game. 

There are a few key problems with Fallout 4 according to the more critical fans of the game. Most people, normal fans and critics alike, enjoyed the game. It brought much of what was promised. There were no significant changes to the established Fallout universe, the cast of characters were fresh and likable, and the story was intriguing.

There is, however, a small list of reasons this game was not what people were hoping for. The first of these is the fact that the gaming experience was far more controlled than other games in the series. While in number three and New Vegas one could practically lay waste to everyone within the entire game map, the ability to really be the bad guy was scaled back. Some have suggested that even working with the different factions did not offer a truly evil one to satisfy our need for blood-soaked savagery (the Institute were the bad guys, but by no means complete monsters like, say, Caesar's Legion).

Other fans considered there to be a lack of instruction for new gameplay mechanics. Building settlements had a gradual and brief "how-to," but not nearly enough. Similarly the overall game had little familiarization for players who might be new to the series. Even V.A.T.S. had no mention and it is essential given the poor gunplay in the game.

Speaking of which, some fans criticized the fact that there was a new engine created for Skyrim and subsequently upgraded for this game, but the shooting mechanics were still far from fixed. Finally, (we disagree with this) many fans argued that the graphics were not up to the standard of a next-generation game. There was a vast improvement over New Vegas, but there is always room for improvement.

4 Why Is The Game Set In Boston?

via fallout.wikia.com

This is a pretty simple question to answer really and anyone who has been could just say "well, because Boston is awesome." Say that with a Bostonian accent and add "next question, numb-nuts" at the end and you're cool, by the way.

But the real answer to why the developers chose Boston has two parts. First and foremost, looking back to Fallout 3, which took place in the wasteland ruins of Washington, D.C. there were numerous references to Boston, so it seemed like a logical next step to continue the story in that part of the country. The second reason is that the city itself is a bastion of American history and technology and for these reasons, it fit perfectly with what the Fallout series is all about.

3 Shaun's Appearance

This is an interesting little piece of information that many characters are likely not even marginally aware of. Spoiler alert for those who haven't played the game, and just a refresher for those who haven't played the game in a while, Shaun is the player-character sole survivor's son, but we don't find this out until at least halfway through the game. Shaun is the leader of The Institute, a group of people who create synthetic humans that can pass as real ones.

Shaun's appearance changes depending on what the player makes the two characters look like during character creation at the start of the game.

2 People Are Still Complaining About the Cows

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This again?! Really?! Yes, of course because the game came out in late 2015 and some people want nothing more than something at which to be offended these days. "Brahmin" are the cattle in the Fallout universe. This term is also used for a priestly caste in India. Because Brahmin in the game are cows and Brahmin in real life exist primarily in India, where these animals are revered, some players have argued that Bethesda is being culturally insensitive.

Of course, the real reason for the name of this fictional species being named as it is comes from the Brahman breed of cattle; one of the most popular for meat in the Americas. Alas, here we are dealing with forum posts like this.

It has been suggested that it would be easy to modify this name in future Fallout games since the first game came out in 1997, but if it hasn't been prioritized yet, who knows if it will ever happen.

1 The Dialogue

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We left this for last because there are two separate points to be made about the dialogue in this game. While there were always options in previous Fallout games, Fallout 4 limited you to just four in every conversation, while previous titles had up to ten for every conversation. This caused many gamers to feel like they were playing some Mass Effect knockoff in which your choices were limited to agree, disagree, be a jerk, and ask a question (Not to bash Mass Effect, of course, but the conversation choices were one of the strongest points older games in this series had going).

But to move away from the criticism of the game, our second point with regard to the dialogue reflects just how big Fallout 4 really is. In terms of the amount of words you can hear during one playthrough of the game, there is more dialogue in Fallout 4 than in Fallout 3 and New Vegas put together.