I'm new to the forums, but this seemed like a good place to start posting.
It was December 1997. My brother was in college with a gamer (my brother didn't play much past Doom) and he'd told me his friend had been playing an interesting game called Fallout. Being 12, I idolized my brother's every word, and gathered all the money I could (my birthday being November I still had money left) and raced to Electronics Boutique.
I was a little thrown off when he told me it was a turn-based game, having played a few and disliked them. I started out with making my own character, falling in love with the little Action Boy pictures for everything you clicked on. I tried to finagle something together that looked like a viable character, and started off.
"War... War never changes..." I turned up the only working speaker I had connected to the computer so I could hear every word. By this point I was already enthralled. It took some working to figure out action points and the whole turn based scene, but once I did, my outlook on games and media changed significantly. I wanted to watch every post-apocalypse movie, play all the games, listen to bands with a nuclear theme, anything close and I was there.
I know, I sound like Grandpa talking about the first time he met Grandma, but Fallout has been a big part of my life since I was 12. I'm 25 now, so over half of my life has been in wonder of Fallout. I'd love to be a part of the Fallout team making the games, but unfortunately I only have an associates degree and nobody is ever looking for someone to just provide creative ideas.
I've been reading the forums for a bit, and I think I'm gonna like it here.