You play the role of a recruit that has been brought aboard by a splinter group of the Brotherhood. They give you orders and you carry them out. It is really as simple as all that. The story lacks quite a bit at the beginning but as a person works through the game it does deepen a little as the player’s character assumes more responsibility. Since the game is comprised of combat missions there is very little room for NPC interaction. Instead of pumping missions full of story, they have worked in some very interesting situations where how you handle objectives that truly affect how things turn out in the long run.

For example there are many situations where your primary mission goal could be made easier but it would be at the cost of innocent lives. Since the Brotherhood is always looking for recruits it is a good idea to save the innocents and gain some approval. Yet, getting to your objective would be a whole lot easier with those five turrets out of the way, you might even save a few lives in your own group. It is because of these lasting effects that the missions seem less like a bunch of objectives thrown into specific groups, and more like a campaign. The downside to this is living with the responsibilities of your actions. A lot of gamers still don’t like the idea and it may be a turn off for them. An easy way to get around this is to save frequently. Despite a players inability to predict when these kinds of decisions will pop up, preparation is still key.

The actual combat is where things get a little bit shaky. There are several difficulty levels but the first two are probably the hardest to deal with. In easy, the game is a bit too easy and your death in combat depends more on the number of enemies you face. In normal the game becomes quite difficult. The skills your characters develop don’t seem to give them the edge they need and melee combat almost always beats everything else. In one case one of my team had a shotgun and was assaulted close range with brass knuckles, and he missed his shot, and even the two characters supporting him with mp5s (another good close-range weapon) were unable to down the guy before he took out my warrior.

These kinds of situations can really frustrate a person since even with the use of tactics the results tend to be the same. Of course there are some instances where one burst of gunfire downs an enemy. The player may be able to build up their skills but, in the early game, they cannot readily depend on them. This leads to a lot of saving/loading situations but once you get far enough, and through character growth, the game becomes fair. Your sniper can actually snipe, and the guy with a shotgun can actually hit something right in front of him. I think the primary problem is that at the beginning of the game things are just a bit too hard for four recruits.

The visual presentation is really nothing to scoff at. The stuff seen in Fallout Tactics, while not in popular 3D, is easily some of the best stuff seen in a group tactical strategy simulation. Buildings are worn down, burnt out, and even full of the sick and the homeless. The game’s audio is functional. Footsteps, muffled sounds of hand-to-hand, and the fragmentation grenade explosions all sound great. The bits of music included in the game are regrettably forgettable, but when the team is pinned down I guess the last thing to care about is a loud musical score.

Fallout Tactics features both Turn-Based and Continuous Turn-Based Combat. When starting up a game the player isn’t committed to either mode since they can switch back and forth at any point during the mission. One thing I can really appreciate is Fallout Tactics team AI. Some games (Star Trek Away Team) completely lack friendly AI, depending completely on the player’s attention 100% of the time. Fallout Tactics has three very different alert modes, which allow them to handle themselves if you decide to leave them in a position while you tend to other matters. As much as this works out, there is still the case of my characters shooting through one another to hit the enemy as well as some odd pathing issues. Getting stuck in places where you shouldn’t get stuck is a minor problem, and hopefully it will be addressed in the next patch.

Carrying out this bloody business requires a load of ammo and funding and that is something this game never leaves a person short of. Fallout Tactics is packed will all sorts of familiar and not so familiar weapons. The great thing is that the difference in performance between these weapons can actually be noticed. Of course like most games there are the useless but plentiful items like, the broken bottle, the baseball bat, and the moon pie. Along with the weapons are the miscellaneous items that do everything from unlocking electronic locks to bandaging a broken arm. The amount of useful items in this game is quite astounding, and that really does aid the tactical combat that this game focuses on.

The business of trade is taken care of back at the bunker, and how well this works for a person depends on a few personal traits. Some characters can cut a good deal while others will get the shaft for just a few shotgun shells. The most infuriating thing about the bunker is the medical attendant. I read through the instructions, I tried everything and the guy would not heal me. Eventually even my medic character couldn’t even buy a med-kit. This would have been more of a problem if each level wasn’t carefully peppered with medical items.

The trait/skill system is perhaps one of the coolest things carried over from the Fallout Series. The primary skills are very important and will get most of your warriors up to fighting status with the gain of three to four levels. Traits like, Strong Back, Night Person, and Rabid are what really allow certain members to grow identities and become uniquely useful members of your team. The player might be limited to using only a handful of warriors at any one time but since you can swap them around it is easier to focus on each of their finer points for particular missions. The loss of one member isn’t the end of the world, but it can be for the player who has spent seven missions raising that character to be a super sniper.

Fallout Tactics is a difficult game but one that proves to have some very rewarding gameplay if you can just hang in there long enough to experience it. The mission structure is thoughtful, the character skill/trait development is fantastic, and the tactical combat is challenging. It may not live up to the Fallout titles before it, but it really does an admirable job.