Duck and Cover

Cipher wrote:I am thinking about buying FOT, I have played through both FO 1&2 and soon to be 3, as soon as they release it at least..

I realise that this post is old, but I felt I should put forth my opinion as I actually quite liked the game as it is. I have read various criticisms of the game before and, while I actually agree with most of what was said (much of it negative), I was overall pretty pleased by it.

Cipher wrote:So, does FOT capture the feel of the FO univers?

I think Cipher's question really hits the nail on the head; the biggest attraction of the Fallout setting is, well, the setting. In terms of its broad themes, I felt the title did a really good job. The "retro-punk" combination of the futuristic and the old-fashioned, which is what makes Fallout unique, is maintained with great voice acting and dialogue, although the focus has shifted from the "swell" vibe of the '50s to depicting the Brotherhood of Steel as futuristic crusader knights. The other main concept of Fallout for those like me is the questioning of what humanity is working towards, which is expressed by the conversations with Raiders, Mutants, Reavers and even a computer about whether or not the Brotherhood's cause is as righteous as it seems.

However, I understand the line of thinking that Fallout Tactics butchered the setting. The development team took a lot of liberties with the background, such as making Deathclaws furry and mostly intelligent. I didn't really take that much notice myself; actually, I was more disappointed in the way that Fallout 2 depicted Deathclaws, where they were depicted as mutated laboratory lizards (or whatever they were) rather than mysterious, unbridled rage of the wasteland made physical (which was more of the case in the original Fallout).

I also largely liked the storyline and the way it was presented. The way the game was divided into military campaigns where a general debriefed you after each mission gave it a sense of continuity. In the first two games, for example, what you did in one area rarely affected the other parts. However, in Fallout Tactics, characters that you've met in the early areas show up in the later parts of the game, which makes the experience more dramatic.

There were two problems for me, though. First, I was not terribly impressed by the robots, which I cannot help but think as a pale imitation of the Terminator movies. They also didn't live up to their predecessors, the Super Mutants of the Master and the xenophobic soldiers of the Enclave. Furthermore, if anyone saw the recent Animatrix short films, the idea of retro-punk robots could have been much more interesting than it was in the game. Second, the game was very, very linear, from the way the missions were laid out to the gameplay focus on being a sniper. The game felt very tedious at times due to this.

Anyway, I'm guessing these aren't really new points, but because praise for Fallout Tactics seems to be in shortage, I just jotted a few of my thoughts.

I'm editting this post after seeing the sceenshots for the Fallout Brotherhood of Steel game for PS 2 and X Box, which looked disappointing (I was hoping for more of a Deus Ex game when I heard about the 3D Fallout title). I just want to mention that although Fallout Tactics was pretty fun for a tactical simulation that was related to Fallout, offering an unique little sidegame to the series, I probably would not play Fallout Tactics 2 if it ever came out; I think this sort of game is only fun as a minor one-off. I'm slightly afraid that the Fallout series is going to focus on doing strange spin-offs; Tactics was a fun little experiment, but I hope the developers don't focus on this side-track.