First Impressions: It’s gonna take a Brotherhood of Steel to screw this game up…
Back in the days of the 2D RPG, the Fallout series somewhat dominated the market – Fallout and Fallout 2 (especially the latter) were extremely addictive and presented the user with a fairly open-ended gameplay experience. These games sucked up your time like nothing else, but it was most certainly time well spent, and five years after the release of Fallout 2 I still pick it up and play it every once in a while. However, that may change soon – Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel takes place between Fallout and Fallout 2, and brings a slightly altered gameplay experience to the Fallout world along with some sexy new 3D graphics.
Interplay has undergone some re-arranging and internal company shifts in previous years, but it seems that someone managed to remember what is perhaps the company’s best-known franchise despite this and hand it off to Vivendi Universal to develop. With a decent but not astonishing track record for developing games (though there publishing record is exquisite), BoS could very easily make or break the company. However, it looks like they’re very much on the right track, making the needed adjustments for the console market – not only is the world of Fallout (which is post WW3) now rendered in gorgeously gritty 3D glory, it’s also now more action oriented – with around 50 weapons to choose from (complemented with nearly a dozen types of armor) the game is aimed at the more casual gaming market where players can easily jump in and out of the game without having to spend time re-orienting themselves.
Is this a good change though? Well, on the one hand, you do still have the option of co-op with a friend, but it looks as if you’ll be limited to starting off with one of three predefined characters, whereas you could previously create your own. However, the RPG style elements will still be in place for these characters, allowing you to level up as you progress through the game, which has a projected 20-25 hour playing time. Not much in comparison with the originals perhaps, but the beauty of the Fallout games has always been their almost infinite replay-ability: you can customize your character, yes, but more importantly, every choice you make affects the world around you, making Fallout a game of choices.
Fallout 2 was perhaps one of the fathers of games such as Deus Ex where not only the enemies you shoot at but also the entire world around you reacts to your situations and how you react to them. While it still remains to be seen if this level of depth remains intact in the franchise, without it Fallout: BoS just wouldn’t be a Fallout game.
On the other hand, just because it may not end up being a completely true-to-series game doesn’t mean it won’t be a good game by itself – the levels, characters and weapons are all well done, the camera is effective and dramatic, and you will certainly be presented constantly with a series of important choices. The only question is how important those choices really are.
