Review:

Imagine a world after nuclear devastation. In the distant future, the planet is a radiation-scarred world full of violence, raiders, and giant mutated animals. Such is the world of Fallout, Interplay's post-nuclear role playing game. You play a vault-dweller, a person who has literally grown up in a protected vault, with little or no knowledge of the outside world. The water purification chip of the vault has malfunctioned, and it's up to you to help your colony. The water chip is the reason you leave, but the world outside offers you much to explore. While on your quest, you will meet many people and creatures, both friendly and unfriendly. Fallout utilizes a proprietary role playing engine, created specifically for this game. You won't find character classes here, what you become is wholly up to how you develop yourself. Character stats are pretty much what you would expect, and abilities are based on percentages that you may modify as you gain experience. Level advancement is acquired in standard style, experience points are gained through kills, discoveries, and more. The world of Fallout is a rich one, you will discover many people who do not rely on the safety of a vault for their survival. Civilization is beginning all over again and you will encounter raiders and mutants as well as good folk just wanting to live a decent life. The role playing system allows you to interact with anyone you meet and even develop a reputation among those you have influenced in some way. Do good deeds, and the associated people will have a higher opinion of you. Scorn them, and your name will become a black mark with them. I found some interesting programming in this game, at one point a character asked me to find something for him. Once I found it, he wouldn't take it or acknowledge I even had it. I though perhaps I had encountered a bug, or was still unfamiliar with the interface. Turns out he didn't appreciate my waking him up at 5am! Now that's good programming. As you may have surmised, the game does indeed have a day/night cycle, and sometimes WHEN you do something is as important as HOW you do it. The excellent graphics in Fallout reminded me very much of Diablo. Three-quarter perspective, good animations and light-sourcing are the staple for most of the gameplay. Unlike Diablo, which was more of a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl than a true role playing game, Fallout features much deeper relationships with non-player characters, and a tactical, turn-based combat system that allows you to plan your strategy, and even target specific body parts if you like. Sounds in the game are good, voice acting is a mix, but overall quite well done. I would have liked to have heard more voices in the game, too many character interactions are presented in text only. Occasionally, you will encounter certain characters where you will get a close-up shot of them while they actually speak to you, but it happens too rarely for my taste. Gameplay covers a lot of ground. Normal movement is 'click and walk there', and of course you may use your abilities during this process to 'sneak', 'steal', and the like. When NPCs are encountered, the game starts plotting your movements against theirs, something that is quite noticeable. Fortunately, if the NPC is threatening in any way, your character will cease movement to it's destination point, and allow you to react. Clicking clear across the screen does NOT mean you can be taken advantage of because of it. Interactions with other characters is a fairly simple process. Using the action icon on them prompts a default action, usually talk. Topics are somewhat limited, in one situation I was travelling with a friend I had made. I could ask him to use a better weapon the next time we went into combat, but I could not ask him to use a lesser one. So even if we were fighting simple cave rats, he was determined to waste his precious ammo on them. While not a party-based role playing experience, you will encounter NPCs that will join on with you for a time, either for the adventure, glory, or just for profit. In addition to the water chip quest, you will stumble upon some 50 or so sub-quests within the game. You may choose to accept them, move on to the next, or just explore. No matter how you choose to approach your situation, it will be an enjoyable experience. Multiplayer is not included, the game was developed specifically as a single player experience and the option is not missed here. Exploring the world of Fallout is an enriching experience that will envelop you and draw you in.

Bottom Line: Great gameplay and a large world to explore. Very moody and well put together.