Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

"This is probably one of the worst action-adventure RPG’s I have ever played."

As soon as I hear the name Fallout, I jump to get my hands on one of these games. I am a huge fanatic of this series and I rabidly want to own any game that bears its title. I'm rapidly starting to rethink this though. After hearing that Bethesda has bought up the Fallout franchise, I'm seriously starting to rethink my allegiance to this series. But the main reason for that leeriness is this unholy game.

The story for this game is kind of threadbare and it's hard to say anything about the little bit there is at the start without giving away spoilers. The long and short of it is that you are one of three new members of the Brotherhood of Steel, the elite group of warriors who fight to bring good to the wasteland of the Fallout universe. You are sent to a small village to investigate the strange things that have been happening in the area.

From this start, you will find yourself embroiled in a storyline that seems to tail on the heels of the original Fallout game, complete with what seems to be an appearance by the Vault Dweller himself. You will fight your way past all of the old enemies, ranging from Radscorpions to mutants and even the dreaded Deathclaws. These enemies are just as tough as you will remember them from the original games, doubly so if you are playing by yourself… you have my sympathies.

However, the gameplay side of this game is where the game starts to fall apart. While you would imagine it is simple to make an action RPG, what with the Dark Alliance and Champions series among others. You would be wrong if you make this assumption. The combat in this game is so disgustingly sloppy, and hard to manage when you are fighting groups, it almost physically hurts. You will often find yourself needing to somehow manage beating a large horde of enemies, or super tough bosses, and your controls just don't hold up through these times when you desperately need it to.

Don't get me wrong, you have a number of options to customize your character with and these do help the game. You have plenty of abilities and perks to choose from to enhance your character, as well as plenty of weapons for both melee and ranged combat. From gloves to enhance your damage to sledgehammers you will be able to turn your enemies into a fine mist in close range, or simply take out one of any number of firearms and go to town, I like the rocket launchers personally. Just make sure to take the abilities that assist you with your preferred fighting style. Otherwise, you will find this game to be yet harder than the controls leave it to be normally.

Another serious disappointment in this game is the graphics. By the time this game was released, there was plenty opportunity to have some really great graphics, but oddly enough only the enemies are well done. Your character looks nice at the character selection screen, but once you see him on the screen, they don't really look all that good. However, the larger enemies are really well detailed and it is nice to see. However, the backgrounds and environments look only okay, nothing to praise or really complain about. The cities look a lot nicer than the outdoor and cave areas, which tend to look like brownish blobs to me.

The audio for this game is pretty good though. There are some really good voice actors in this game and you will likely even know a few of the voices if you play a lot of video games. The audio is basically what you would expect otherwise, with all the requisite sounds of death and mayhem that you would come to expect from a Fallout game. The vulgar language, something that was quite prominent in the melee games is also to be found here, complete with curses, death threats and prostitutes trying to convince you into a romp. Gotta love Fallout.

This game is bad and I mean really bad. Take unresponsive controls and add in incredibly hard bosses, annoying platforming and hordes of enemies and you get this game. I hated playing this game so much, I had to take a break from playing Fallout 2 because I didn't want to even deal with the game universe for a short time. That takes so doing. Honestly, the only redeeming quality for this game is the fact that it is an action-adventure in the vein of Champions of Norrath, but that's about it. Do yourself a favor and don't play this game, lest your opinion of the Fallout universe be tainted by this pretender to the series.

Pros: Three different characters to play, melee and ranged combat choices and a number of abilities to take for your character.

Cons: None of these abilities are particularly good, you can kill each other with explosive weapons in multiplayer and the game is hard in a seriously annoying way.

Score: 3

Recommendation: If you are a Fallout fan, then pass on it before you taint your memory of the great game.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/07