Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Gaming Made Me series looks at the influence of Fallout 2 on the author:

I still distinctly remember the first couple of hours of Fallout 2. Fallout 2 was the first game I picked up of my own volition, and the first game I finished on my own. It would also be one of the only games where I played as a woman–it’s one of the rare instances where, though obviously largely written for a male audience, I still felt acknowledged.

I modified one of the starting characters, Chitsa. I appreciated that she was optimized for diplomacy, though I tweaked her to have high intelligence (“like me!,” I thought) and got rid of her sex appeal perk. No, I didn’t really want to “have a way” with the opposite sex–not in the manner the game implied, anyway. Not realizing I wasn’t “supposed” to be playing this game this young, I was confused as to why I couldn’t make my character younger than 18. At least I could rename her–and to this day, that Fallout 2 character is the only character I’ve named after myself in a game.

The Big Cow Punch: A Guide to An Idiot's Fallout 2 is an after-action-report at Rock, Paper, Shotgun as the writer describes his experiences with Al, a Fallout 2 character with zero intelligence:

Al is an idiot. Not in the mean-spirited, pejorative sense, but in the literal ‘there are dead fleas that make better conversation’ sense. I’ve made a moron. When he was told to quest for the GECK he probably didn’t stoically grit his teeth or ask every question in the conversation tree – as your typical post-apocalyptic typical heroes do – he more likely dribbled from tooth to toe and burbled a few rhymes. GECK? Heck. Neck? Feck.

Huh-huh-huh.

Chosen One? It’s a wonder his tribe didn’t kill him at birth. 

What Al lacks in smarts he compensates for in his capacity for violence, however – he’s bigger than a Radscorpion and his Perception rating is so far off the charts that they had to invent a new kind of telescope. I am, in other words, fairly confident that this lummox can handle Fallout 2’s wastelands even despite his skull-headed handicap. It’s not like the Science skill is ever actually useful for anything and, even if it was, Fallout 2 is my game. The one I know inside and out; it’s the one I play in my head when my boss is talking to me. Low Intelligence score isn’t going to hold me back for long. Or so I thought.

News from NMA that Killap's Restoration Project for Fallout 2 has been updated to v2.1.2b, offering a new playable character type ("bald dude") and numerous bug fixes.

Killap has also released an updated Unofficial Patch for Fallout 2 with the 100 odd fixes that are included with the Restoration Project.  Full details here at NMA and thanks again to Toni.

Killap has released v2.0 of his Fallout 2 Restoration Project, overhauling all the additional dialogue, restoring even more content and fixing 100 original bugs along the way:

The monumental day has finally come. Some of you lost hope; many patiently stuck around to the end. The beyond long awaited 2.0 release of the Restoration Project is at hand. This is a MAJOR release, which boasts overhauls to nearly all aspects of the content already in the mod. In addition, the eagerly awaited addition of the Shi sub can now be enjoyed, as well as several other minor/moderate new content additions. It seems like we're finally running out of cut content to add. Of course, no release would be complete without a slew of bug fixes to ensure a stable and enjoyable playing time. Not only were bugs fixed in the mod, but nearly a hundred bugs have been squashed that were in the vanilla version of the game and were not yet fixed by my unofficial patch. To me, this release is what I wanted version 1.0 of the mod to be. I'm extremely proud of what has been accomplished and ever so grateful to those who helped make it happen. It only took me about 2 1/2 years to get here. [...]

A sample from the notes:

Major Changes:
--------------

• Complete dialogue overhaul for every RP location and character

The dialogue in the RP often left much to be desired and it never quite fit with the rest of the vanilla dialogue. Well, this should no longer be the case and nearly all the dialogue at RP locations has been rewritten and should seamlessly fit into the rest of the game. A big thanks to community member Dravean for his help in this area.

• Kaga Redone

Kaga has been completely overhauled to be more true to his original intent. His encounters are no longer scripted sequences and nor are they forced. Kaga's encounters are just like normal encounters, but deadly ones at that. You'll get some dialogue to go along with it too, but it has completely been rewritten.

• Complete overhaul of the EPA

This location has been completely redesigned to be bigger and better than ever - new map, new dialogue, new quests, new secrets, etc. A big thanks to Pixote for his awesome mapping and graphic skills.

• 3 new recruitable npcs available

To go along with the EPA overhaul, there are now 3 npcs that can join you which are found there. The one you get depends upon the skills you have chosen to develop.

• Improvements to every RP location

Not only has the dialogue improved at every RP location, but the quests have also been altered. The quests at these locations have been improved and new ones have even been added.

• Shi Submarine

Sailing to the Enclave no longer requires just fixing up the Tanker. The undead guardian of San Francisco is preventing anything from entering or leaving the harbor and something has to be done about it. This content has finally been realized thanks to the beautiful graphic work of community member Continuum.

• Improved maps

Both vanilla and RP locations look better than ever thanks to help of community member Pixote.

• Vertibird is no longer flyable to the Enclave, but...

You no longer can fly a vertibird to the Enclave, as there really wasn't enough evidence supporting the intent of this. It didn't even make sense logically - how could everyone from your tribe, etc fit on board? However, evidence instead points to the intent for the player to stowaway on a vertibird during the Salvatore-Enclave transaction. Thus, in much the same way as the player could get to the Military Base in F1 at an earlier time than usual, the same concept is now possible in F2. The chance of survival is slim, but it's not impossible.

Head to the thread at NMA for the full details and installation links.  Not an April Fool's joke, by the way.  Thanks, Toni!

A retrospective on Fallout 2 can be found at Good old Games as part of their week of Fallout.

Creatively speaking, the sky was still the limit, but a stringent schedule and lack of resources dictated just how much time the team had to touch the clouds. "We had one full-time programmer on it," Avellone says, "with some occasional assistance from Chris Jones, but the title probably could have benefited from help on the programming front. Our lead programmer was pretty overwhelmed with dealing with issues on the title and occasionally had to field surprise feature requests and the tricky AI."

With few resources and even less time to use them, Fallout 2's team narrowed their task to two intertwined objectives: use what worked in the original and fix what didn't. Chosen for improvement were hand-to-hand combat skills, a broader selection of weapons and abilities, and random encounters.

With something on project V13 as well.

Rather than create a single-player experience, Project V13 will take its place in the ever-growing massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) genre. To ensure that the experience maintains the atmosphere that made Fallout and Fallout 2 so renowned, many former Interplay employees have returned to lend their skills to the project. Chief among them is Chris Taylor, who couldn't be happier breathing radioactive air and fighting mutated humans once again.

 "Project V13 is so far off from release that we really can't get into specifics," Taylor says. "So many things are likely to change as we move from pre-production to full-blown production and into testing. It's going to be a long time, but this is the project that I've been trying to work on for many years. I'm a fan of the MMO genre, and I hope that we can bring some of the same goodness to MMOs like we brought to CRPGs will Fallout."

NMA is hosting a new version of the Fallout 2 High Resolution Patch, which adds an in-game resolution setting.

Alec Meer brings some Fallout 2 Mods to light.

These’ll be of little interest to the more ardent Fallout 2 vet, who’s doubtless played all of these long ago, and is already preparing to spam-cry ‘OLD!’ below. If, however, if you’re coming to the game fairly fresh or are replaying it for the first time in ages due to excitement about Fallout 3 or because GoG.com’s made it so cheaply available, you might find much to delight and enrapture your young mind here.

It’s Moddb’s round-up of the best Fallout 2 total conversions, from the quest-expanding Restoration project to the tri-part Wasteland Merc series. Oh, for more free time.

From NMA comes a collection of updates to various worthwhile Fallout 2 patch/mod projects.  This newsbit ties them all up nicely, so head over for details of Killap's Unofficial Patch hitting v1.02.25 and his Restoration Project reaching 1.2, as well as Mash's Resolution Patch at v1.2 and Magnus' weapons mod at v1.3b.

A welcome resolution patch for Fallout 2 made by "Mash" is being hosted at NMA.  Head over for some explanation, links and sample screens that were taken at 1152x864 (and showing the interface working fine).

Version 1.1 of killap's Fallout 2 Restoration Project has been released through NMA:

Version 1.1 of the Fallout 2 Restoration Project is now ready. Hopefully most, if not all, of the issues found in 1.0 are fixed. Starting a new game is not required, but many of the fixes will not take effect unless you enter the area for the first time (New Reno and EPA are such examples) Thus if you haven't made it too far I highly suggest starting a new game. It's not required though and old saves will work just fine.

Grab the installer here or head over for comments and more info.

NMA has a couple of Fallout 2 Restoration Project updates - details of some possible crash bugs and a small update to v1.02.22 of killap's included unofficial patch:

Ok, it seems there are issues with the ammo mod and FO1 gun sounds which come as extras in the expansion. I suggest for those having odd crashes while in combat or really odd crashes in general to uninstall the expansion (use the uninstaller from the FO folder) and reinstall without those two extras. Don't worry your save games will remain and work just fine after reinstalling the expansion. A new installer is up which has these two extras removed.

After two years work, Killap's Fallout 2 Restoration Project has been released at NMA.  Here's part of the announcement and part of the notes covering the new areas restored  head over for all the changes to the existing locations:

The day of release has finally come. It has taken me about almost 2 years to get this complete and yet I still believe I can find stuff to add. The purpose of this mod is to add back into the game all the content that was originally planned by the Fallout 2 devs. You will find about 6 new locations (some quite large, other smaller) as well as a few new areas to old locations. In addition, almost every town in the game has new content whether it is new characters, quests, or items. Playing this will definitely be a new experience. Completion of this expansion would also not have been possible without several individuals who I thank in the readme of this mod. Big thanks to all of you! [...]

Version 1.0 includes:
 
New Locations:
-------------------
• EPA
• Primitive Tribe
• Abbey
• Vault Village
• Slaver's Camp
• Hubologist Stash
• Den Residential Area
• Enclave Vertibird Landing Pad
• Ranger Safe Houses
 
New Karma title:
---------------------
• New title given at the start of the game. Can be lost depending on the choices you make. 

The file is 26Mb for the full installer and grab the link from the NMA post. 

The final Fallout 2 fan patch from Killap is available at NMA, also incorporating (I believe) Timeslip's awesome engine tweaks.  Here's their newsbit, which contains all the links:

This patch has been in production for several years now and it fixes well over 800+ bugs left in the game since the official 1.02 patch. I suggest using this installer version as opposed to the manual one since the installer will do everything automatically for you. If you want to do things manually though, go ahead and grab the manual rar version. I hope you enjoy the best Fallout 2 experience yet! 

The first of a serial After Action Report of sorts is up at Evil Avatar, offering first impressions from a brand new player of Fallout 2:

Fallout 2. To most gamers, the very name brings up fond memories of late nights at the computer, eagerly plugging along in search of the GECK.

Many gamers played this when it was new, and many when it was old. It is a fixture in the world of gaming. One of the few games that has proven its mettle with countless audiences, and has strayed into the realm of legend. Almost any gamer you meet will have played - and loved - it.

I am not one of them. Until today, anyways.

NMA has revived their Fallout developer profile series, with this relaunch discussing Colin McComb and his design work on Fallout 2 (and PS:T) :

I've been as a professional writer for more than 15 years. I started working at TSR straight out of college. Somehow I managed to convince them to hire me on the basis of my philosophy degree and charming personality, and I was there for about five years. I was one of the co-designers of the Birthright campaign setting, and took over (with Monte Cook) a lot of the design work on the Planescape setting when Zeb Cook left for Interplay. I put out about twenty-five to thirty gaming products at TSR, and won two Origins Awards in that batch.