I loved both of these games and spent a lot of time with them. The Baldur's Gate review here stays pretty close to others I've read, but the Fallout 2 review is the more interesting part because it's more opinionated, and in ways I disagree with. It's interesting how much everyone involved seemed to dislike the game, but very much fits the late 90's vibe. It's also what made it one of my all-time favorites. I never felt like I was playing through someone else's story. It felt like a set of content you could actually create your own character and play through, directed by your character's own motivations rather than the writer's. It's a quality that's rare to find in games, but the conditions of a bunch of people creating as much content as they could without a specific direction make sense for how this kind of thing would have to come together. Baldur's Gate is great, but much more linear and gives less opportunities for choices and role-playing. I wish more games would revisit the freedom of Fallout 2.

Two favorite games. The infinity engine / interplay crpgs were all a blast until iron heart where they rushed it out the door. Even that has a ton of promise first half to third if the game.

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10505

I got my start with CRPGs playing Bard's Tale, all the SSI Gold Box games, Wizardry and then Ultima Underworld.

I really miss the variety of CRPGs we used to have. I don't like real-time games. I like being able to chill playing turn-based games (including strategy games like Civ). I don't think I'm alone in that and it's one of those fundamental misunderstanding game publishers have: thinking players want "hard" games, which for a CRPG (or, rather, an ARPG) really means how fast you can react.

But I really dislike the Bethesda CRPG model, which is really the only model left. I hate scaling content. It's lazy. I really dislike that in games like Skyrim you have to level efficiently or you get weaker (because of content scaling) and that forces you to do some non-fun things to optimize your levelling.

I know a lot of people enjoyed the Fallout serivce. For me, the aesthetics killed it for me. A brown wasteland just isn't aesthetically pleasing as a fantasy environment.

To contradict myself, I have to give special mention to Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I wish I could erase my memory to play that game for the first time again. It's not without its issues but the feeling you have of being in the world is virtually unmatched by any other game.

One thing I dislike the Bethesda games is that quests are too shallow. So many times, I wondered while playing the games, someone could put some extra love into some of the quests to make them much more in depth and more interesting.

Alas, budget and time limited I guess.