"Duck and Cover!" - Yes, you Fallout fans... It's saving grace is the multiplayer, and it isn't even that much of save.
Story: Well, there is a story, or… was. From the beginning of the game, you are on a quest to find the other Paladins of The Brotherhood of Steel, such as yourself, and aiding their efforts where possible. That is it. I could say how the game starts off with the impression of it not being linear as you can perform a few side quests from the beginning of the game, but these side quest actually end up being compulsory and necessary to progress in the game, and basically railroads the main story. But there isn’t a story, so that ok… if it wasn’t called an RPG. People who haven’t played a Fallout game before might be intrigued by the post-nuclear apocalyptic setting and fighting in it, but that introduction is over after you pop the game in the disk-tray and the game is just winging it on the fact that either you’ll be playing because you get to shoot things, or you have previously played a Fallout game. If it’s the latter, stop playing right now.
Gameplay: You can select from 3 characters which look rather like a rag-tag team. You have the heavy stereotypical black guy Cyrus, potentially deals lots of melee damage, and has more health… You have Nadia, the petite woman, small and quick, and skilled with ranged weapons… then you have Cain the ghoul, who can gain health from radiation and good with explosives and flame based weapons. Too bad that these characters don’t have any real differences when they start off except Cain who has much less health, and Nadia with a slightly faster running speed, which that could be rendered negligible (except Cain – less health is a big body blow). You can find and buy weapons and ammo, and armour for your character which range from knives and baseball bats with nails through them, to sub-machines and grenades. You don’t really want to waste ammo of crappy rad-scorpions and rats… Getting good with both melee and range skills is essential really.
When you level up you character, you obtain a certain number of skill points which you are free to distribute between certain skills and abilities. Example, Slayer increases the rate of critical hits by +5% for each level it goes up by to a maximum of 5. Each level requires a different number of skill points. People who have played Fallout will see the resemblance and be familiar with the skills. Some skills are only available to certain characters, like Cain, who has the Rad Child skill which makes him heal health from radiation. Now, I know these characters are supposed to be different, but Cain is amazingly crappy because he gets the least health and his abilities are poor (Rad Child is mega crap). And the character most notably being the brawler, the big bad black guy Cyrus that says profanities every time he swings his melee weapon wildly like any ***** would, is able to use some of the best ranged weapons in the game. Nadia cannot use heavy weapons, so no rocket launcher. You would only play as Cain if you want your life to be hard or thought he was pretty attractive, which then you would need help.
Now actually playing the game, it’s really repetitive. You shoot lots of rats, rad-scorpions, and rats again for a large portion of the first chapter, then you fight some other interesting enemies… a few ghouls, more rats, bigger rad-scorpions, more ghouls, and a few mutants. I just went through the whole bestiary in the game, although there are a good number of bosses in this game. And robots. I forgot those. The game has one damn linear concrete path that has you running around in mazes, buildings, caverns (all basically elaborated mazes with various décor), aided by a mini-map with a flashing marker that shows you where the exit is so you don’t get lost. Also this game is reasonably short, with that meaning if you played it by yourself you wished it was shorter. But game is fun when it comes down to the co-operative multiplayer. There are a few sections that can only be accessed with two people playing, but these bits are just filler, like giving you more money, which I just read into it being, “God, you know you are only going to play this game in multiplayer right?!! So we give you something special because of it!!!” Like I really wanted to see a dancing Pip Boy?
Sound/Music: As the backdrop of the game is stolen from the Fallout series, it being post-nuclear apocalypse (and this game being familiar to Fallout in name only), the music has a dose of the heavy metal sound throughout the game. It does indeed fit the game but also it made me realise how the game would only do well because it has the setting of Fallout, somewhat like how Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games are (which are better I might add). There is music from Cult of Luna in this game, so I have nothing bad to say about it.
Graphics: How the game comes together, the graphics are not very exciting for an Xbox game. They do the job, but it does look retro. I thought I was playing Gauntlet is some parts, but Gauntlet was a better game (for it’s time - nostalgia), and Gauntlet: Dark Legacy looked much worse than this (like it was a PSX game with a better poly count and improved lighting effects), though Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel comes off meh. Some parts of the game, I didn’t know I was looking at as I couldn’t distinguish a petite white woman from a big black guy. Co-op gets that hectic at times, but I could blame the camera for that. The art in the galleries are cool, but when I look at the rendered videos of the game in extras also, it looks much better, and I wonder why I couldn’t like that easily. Maybe a lazy port? Meh.
Summary: Short, repetitive, grindingly dull in single player, about good in multiplayer, a shooter that comes from the line of Loaded, but comes off short from being above average. Not worth playing unless you want to get some kicks from shooting lots of rad-scorpions, or your mate like these type of games. It isn’t an action RPG, and it’s a amazingly average action shooter that has some unique things about it, but does it so by the numbers like it’s reciting a nursery rhyme, you won’t even realise why this game different from other “action RPGs”. Also it’s plagued by childish dialogue, but the voice acting is really solid you can ignore that fact.
Most importantly, tarnishes the Fallout name. Enough said.