"All this for nothing?"

I have to start by saying this is a FPRPS! That is a First Person Role Playing Shooter! Like Oblivion meets <insert shooter game>. So it's very hard to explain in one review!

Story 3/10:
Well it's hard to explain. There's a short clip and the games starts! In typical RPG (its also a FPS) fashion you get more story as you go along. There is two problems with this though. For one the story is WAYYYY out there, yeah Chernobyl is something that happened but what is going on here is beyond crazy! So much so I can't even tell you without ruining it!

Second, since you find out immediately that you don't know who you are or what you were doing; well let's just say there really is no story, at least not right away! It's mostly made up of your typical RPG missions with a FPS style where about you learn more about your story, yourself and the game! That is if you can even take in everything that is going on! This is one crazy game! So crazy, hard to understand at points and lacking story its gets a low score!

Game play 5/10:
Another half and half with this game is its game play.

The good Game play:
You basically run around, do missions, collect new items like guns, suits, health, weird items that effect your stats (like and RPG), radiation health pack things….etc. You can also trade with anyone and talk to anyone and make friends or enemies with people except creatures who always hate you along with weird anomalies from the fallout. To weird to explain that. You have a nice PDA with a fair amount of info like maps, stats, info…etc on it.

The AI is really smart. Probably some of the best AI I have seen! The mutant dogs at the beginning work in groups. If there is one by itself or the only one left it leaves you alone and/or flees. You can lead enemies to fight other enemies and save yourself ammo and health! If your fighting one guy, another one will sneak up behind you!

Its semi-well put together and shows that a FPS/RPG “could” work. But its FAR from perfect.

The bad Game play:
Guns are inaccurate, even then ones that say they are accurate. Damage is weak, so when you facing a lot of enemies you die first unless you have a lot of health! The game play itself can be so confusing since there's always new things happening that you you're always dying because you don't know what to do!

There's literally no info on missions besides what you're told to do! You can spend hours and hours trying to figure it out just to go on a forum and look it up and say “No way! That was what I had to do?”. And if you take to long you fail a mission and never get to try it again, unless of course it's a important mission. A lot of the game doesn't make sense since there's literally no explanation of anything. You'll wonder what everything does or doesn't do and where to go! Unlike fantasy RPGs where everything is the same and you pretty much know what to do, here it's a basically real world based FPS (with a scary element) and things are a new experience! No orcs, wizards, swords, magic, castles!

Multiplayer ?/10:
I can't honestly say. I been to busy with the SP!

Graphics 5/10:
The games major downfall is this. There are tons of arguments about where the slowdown comes from. You're bad PC? The games optimization? Who knows? Even new computers are having problems running this game! Hopefully a patch will fix this problem!

Graphic wise the game looks amazing for an open ended, free-roam scale game! Even with the graphics chopped down to low settings it still looks amazing! I was actually surprised at that. Expect a lot of special effects and night/day time when you play. If you played Oblivion then expect something like that, but in a more eerie and dark fashion, although not as big. There are something's though that you can tell they didn't spend too much time on. Gun animations are lacking and stale. Sometimes characters lips don't move and if they do sometimes, they are so badly moving or flat looking it looks silly.

Controls 7/10:
Let's start with the mouse. If you're like me, you got a nice mouse with tons of buttons on it. Good luck with that in the game! Sadly, some companies don't take advantage of extra buttons! You can get as far as the 3rd mouse button and that's it.

The keyboard setup seems rather simple although there are a lot of keys. Since its part RPG you expect as much. Your grenade launcher (on guns) for instance is a separate button. Then when you add in the extra MP buttons you have to figure out where to add them!

Sounds and Music 9/10:
The music was so-so. “Scare” games don't seem to do much for me anymore so the music was nothing special. However, the sound was excellent! Of course guns are nothing new but in a massive nuked out landscape with weird things going on they make everything from mutant dogs to screaming men manage to sound great and almost, yes almost creepy!

Pros & Cons:
Pros:
-Fun to play no matter the settings!
-Great design mixing FPS and RPG.
-Sound makes for creepy game play.
-Possible fix for slowdown problems.
-Nice selections of weapons.
-Lots of fun missions.

Cons:
-Horrid slowdown even on high end pcs!
-Story is lacking.
-No use for extra mouse buttons.
-Game play needs work in spots.
-Items are boring (check out the anomaly items).
-Lack of info on anything, more of run and gun.
-Guns are crappy regardless of selection.

Overall 5/10:
Even with its issues including the slowdown it's a great game. I had a awesome time playing and still got sucked into the game! With the patch, I bet it will be great since they are addressing everyone's concerns on the official forums. It's really the first RPG/FPS of its kind and it's been 6 years in the making! Hopefully games like it will learn from this ones mistakes. I would wait until the patch comes out and see people's reactions then decide to buy it or not!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/07