Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

As 2003 wound to a close, Interplay axed its Black Isle division due to financial difficulties. Presumably, this puts an end to Fallout 3, a PC title that had been in development and was to follow up the popular Fallout and Fallout 2 that had come out in 1997 and 1998, respectively. Keeping their focus on the console market, Interplay is instead continuing to come out with Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, an action title with some RPG elements that was developed by Interplay and takes place in the Fallout universe. What then takes place is a classic hackfest that's set in a post-apocalyptic world. While it won't make you think too much, it's got enough action for a Saturday afternoon.

The premise here is that the world has gone to hell after the atomic bombs have all been dropped. Some humans hid in underground vaults while the rest were forced to live on the toxic surface. Radiation has created a new race of mutants that relentlessly attack the humans and often use captives to radiate into even more mutants. Some humans are still surviving on the surface and the Brotherhood of Steel has arisen to fight back against the mutants. F:BOS takes a tour of this universe as a Brotherhood of Steel initiate tries to fight back against a secret mutant plot to find a new weapon to kill all the humans.

Just like the Fallout games on the PC, the world of F:BOS is lewd with plenty of foul language. While this often feels a bit forced, there were some genuinely hilarious moments with some of the dialogue that only a sailor would love. When even the goals have foul language in it, you know that this game is not for kids. The gore is nothing major, but there is a prostitute who services you with a black screen and sound effects and a few other colorful characters.

Gameplay

The game engine for F:BOS is based on the same engine that Snowblind developed for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and the similarities don't end there. The gameplay is largely based on roaming and killing with the occasional sidequest to add to the exploration. As the characters level up and get more powerful, they also get skill points that can be used towards enhancing their own abilities or learning entirely new skills such as combo attacks or laying down mines.

Despite these few RPG elements, the basis of the game is really wandering around a futuristic post-apocalyptic land or a vault/dungeon and killing monsters for money and better weapons and armor. In this way, the game works great. With a co-op mode where you can play with one other person on the screen for the whole game, it's a fun hack 'n' slash title that provides plenty of mutated bodies blowing up. At its best, F:BOS brings back memories of playing Gauntlet at the arcade.

Since F:BOS features plenty of ranged weapons, it has a lock-on feature where one enemy can be selected to aim at with a ranged weapon or a melee weapon. While being locked onto one enemy, it's possible to dodge by doing a quick roll in four different directions when you push on the d-pad and the triangle button. It's a bit of an odd button combination and a little awkward, but it does work out.

When an enemy is locked on with a ranged weapon it helps by keeping the aim on one enemy and making sure that every shot hits the target. While a lock is held, the character can only move at half-speed. The only way to move faster is to do a roll. If you're still facing the enemy, the lock can be maintained and this enables some quick dodging action while holding strong in a gun battle. The only difficulty is during a close-combat battle and using a ranged weapon. Doing a roll here often leads to enduing up on one side of the enemy and losing the lock. This forces a turn to re-establish the lock.

Using the lock-on with the melee attack is a much different story. Locking onto an enemy in melee mode keeps your character facing the same enemy. If you're playing in single-player mode, the camera automatically turns as well which can lead to some dizzying situations with squirrely enemies. It also brings up a quirky nature of the lock-on function. The lock-on holds onto the enemy who is currently in front of you, which explains the guns losing the lock. In a melee situation with a group of enemies, the lock simply means that whoever is closest and in front of you will get hit. It does not mean that you can lock onto the weakest enemy and kill him first. For most of the game this was not a problem, but during the occasional hackfest with lots of bugs it can get more than a little confusing.

F:BOS starts off with three playable characters, but more become available as certain goals are met. Even though the characters look very different and have different sizes, all of them play pretty much equally. The main differences are the unique skills that each character can develop. Most of the skills are identical, but there will be a couple that mark each character as different. Cain, a ghoul, can eventually work his way up to being able to heal up from radiation. The other characters have similar abilities that create differences that are unique, but don't create a significant advantage. Mostly, each character is a matter of personal preference for looks.

If you're not familiar with Dark Alliance, the game has a top-down perspective similar to Diablo or Postal. Where Dark Alliance had a little more of an isometric perspective, F:BOS uses what can be almost called a skycam that's set about fifty feet in the air and looking almost straight down. The right analog stick can turn the camera left and right, but there's no ability to get any closer to the action, limiting the playable characters to looking quite tiny on the screen.

The only time the camera zooms in is when you run into another character to talk to. Even though this provides an easy and solid system that keeps the framerate silky smooth, it's still limiting in that there is a fixed distance ahead that you can look. This causes problems especially when you're using ranged weapons and your range of fire expands beyond your view. I found myself turning the camera to take advantage of the extra viewing distance of the corners of the screen to see what I was up against.

Oddly enough, even though the camera has a pretty much fixed position there were a couple moments in the game in which the camera had a change of heart. In one instance, the camera dropped further back and got closer to an almost third-person shooter perspective in order to give suspense on going through a door. Another time, during a boss battle, the camera zoomed in to show off the character design of the big, bad beastie.

Despite these flaws, F:BOS still provides a decent hack'n'slash adventure with a sci-fi setting and plenty of weapons to play with. For the most part the action is pretty even and balanced, but there are a few boss characters that suddenly up the ante a ton. While most of the enemies slowly walk around and are pretty predictable, a few bosses are quick, nimble, and very powerful. Instead of taking them on with brute force, it's better to use the environment to your advantage. Standing against a wall will minimize some attacks and hiding behind a counter or a pillar is the only way against a couple of other bosses. All in all, though, it's about the button mashing and F:BOS definitely delivers that.

Graphics

The graphics are very similar to the those of Dark Alliance with no noticeable improvement. While Dark Alliance was brilliant back in 2001, F:BOS is showing its age just a little bit. Of course, that's not a bad thing. There are still good lighting effects and lots of colors on the screen to mix it up.

With the camera so far away most of the time, the characters all look tiny on the screen. While it helps out the action in being quick and easy to fight big battles, it takes away from seeing the monsters all that well. A key factor of the game is the ability to get better armor, but the change in appearance is negligible.

Sound

The soundtrack to F:BOS is practically nonexistent. When you die there is a brief heavy metal interlude and boss battles have some power riffs chugging away, but for the most part, the game is eerily silent. The only time some background music came into play was during some of the later levels with an ambient electronica soundtrack. It was roughly implemented too since the tracks had obvious start and end points that cut into the music. It would suddenly stop and start all over again. There is supposed to be a full soundtrack with Slipknot and other bands so perhaps the build we have did not have the music put in yet. At least we hope so.

The sound effects are decently done with plenty of gunfire sounds and voice acting. Everything sounds just as it should. The only weak moments come during some of the melee weapons and especially the energy weapons. Using an electrically charged battle hammer sounds like the audio engineer sampled white noise and turned the pitch up. The rest of the electric weapons are just as grating and when using them on a constant basis in a battle can get annoying.

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