“My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams... This wasted land.” - The narrator of The Road Warrior
I really had no idea what I was in for.
But after watching the opening sequence to Black Isle Studio's Fallout, I knew it was something special. Actually special may not be the word; I think, perhaps, distinct may be a better choice.
The thing you have to understand about Fallout is that, in a lot of ways, it is a game without precursor. Sure, there was that shitty Mad Max NES game that had you ceaselessly driving around the desert, scrutinizing nearly indecipherable graphics, looking for gasoline and food, and though I really don't know for certain, I'm sure there had to be an apocalyptic MUD of some sort at some point before the release of Fallout. Certainly, an argument could be made that a company like SSI laid the foundation of what would become the modern day western role playing game. But hell, SSI is also responsible for the unmitigated thundershitstorm that was Thunderscape.
The game bears its influences without shame. One instance has you attempting to recruit canine companion named Dogmeat. The requirement for recruiting him as your supporting non-player character requires that you be wearing a piece of armor that is identical to Mel Gibson's one-sleeved leather jacket from The Road Warrior. Whether you're roaming the wastelands with your dog beside you, or investigating the game's underground Vaults, you know the creators have seen the seventies cult classic film A Boy and His Dog. It's clear they played SSI's Advanced Dungeon and Dragons games as well. But that's just it, Fallout blends these the best of these disparate elements, and then subtly fuses them with Raygun Gothic aesthetics into something utterly novel.
Fallout is a game that lives and dies with its ambiance. And fortunately for its creator's, that atmosphere is the game's keynote success. It's like a bolt of lightning when the needle hits that crackling vinyl at the beginning of the game's intro. The titular font starkly fades in, white on black, as The Ink Spots' “Maybe” plays over various propagandist images. Following that, the player is treated to one of the best world introduction videos ever put into a video game, a pitch perfect end-of days voice over tape delivered by Ron Perlman. Seriously, check it out.
After the intro, the player starts a new game. This is followed by a quick character select/create screen in which the player can either choose from a short list of preconstructed, archetypal characters or create their own by going in and modifying base stats. It's worth mentioning here that the character creation and level system are one of the many places that Fallout shines. The stats system is instantly manageable, and is easily manipulated, even by someone new to the genre. Any time you hover the mouse over a stat, you are given as concise and cogent explanation of what that stat is used for, accompanied by a wonderfully quaint hand-drawn cartoon of the game's mascot performing the associated action. By contrast, older games of the genre had oblique and often inscrutable stat leveling systems, that were probably a turn off to those who considered the price of entry too high.
Once finished selecting their character, the game moves into a short third video using prerendered graphics that introduces the game's present conflict. Essentially, generations have passed since the nuclear holocaust that vaporized half the world, and a lucky few people have been hiding underground in self-sustaining, autonomous “Vaults”, yours of which happens to be enumerated “13”. Funny, right? Well, as Vault 13's luck would have it, the water chip needed to produce fresh drinking water for its inhabitants has konked out. Your vault has 150 days worth of water left. The elder, or Overseer, of your group asks you to go out into the world in search of a new water chip, suggesting first stopping by a Vault (15) to the west. The catch is, the vault door hasn't been opened in, oh, maybe just shy of a 100 years. Your avatar has never seen the natural light of day. You agree to go.
After this scene you are quickly whisked away to the cave outside of the vault, at time which the game proper begins. And this is where game quickly becomes erstwhile innovative and just turns into pure fun. The combat, which is turned based and on a hex-grid, is superior, taking only a few rounds to figure out. It's very simple, with six action points alloted per turn. Some actions, like punching or accessing your inventory, take only one or two points, while others like firing a pistol or an automatic weapon take five or six. Needless to say, its a simple point managing system, but the number of permutations available in acting keep it fresh.
That said, one major gripe I had with the game was the NPC companions that are available throughout the game. The man I selected to be my hetero life mate was called Ian. He was a biker jacket clad badass that made poor combat decisions and had a very bad habit of standing in my way. Firstly, when fighting, whether or not I told him to stick close, he would wander towards the nearest enemy. So after we killed an enemy, still in combat but before healing up, he'd wander off, breaking up the group and dying before I could support him. I found no way around this besides trying the fights you knew you had to fight multiple times. Secondly, he could force a restart by moving and blocking in such a way that you couldn't exit an area. In one such instance, I was in an abandoned Vault looking for some phat lootz and I moved into a corner between a bed and a nightstand; he walked up directly behind me, locking me into the square I was standing on forever. I think Ian was trying to tell something. This gripe is somewhat significant for two reasons: first, when the difficulty starts to ramp up, you basically have to recruit a partner, so there's no way around this problem by simply not participating, and second, it would have been easily fixed by letting you walk through your NPC companions. I got stuck and had to restart three times while playing. It's not that big a deal though. If you're going to play, just make sure you use multiple saves and use them often.
But back to fresh combat. After you leave the original cave, you exit into a large world map. Something happens on the world map that I'm fucking shocked I haven't seen in a game since. Here's the thing. The world map includes random battles...
Now hold the fucking moan-train! These random “battles” are one of the bona fide joys of the game, quite often not battles at all, but instead, perhaps, a man wandering the desert looking to sell his wares. Sometimes you'll find wildlife fighting in groups and you can either run, or kill the last one standing and take all the booty. If you're near a city, you may run into its guards who will simply greet you “good day,” or, assuming you don't have a good reputation with them, attack. Or maybe those guards will be fighting a group of bandits come to loot the town, at which time you can pick a side. I really think a lot of Japanese role playing games could benefit from implementing something like this. It keeps random battles fresh because its both realistic and unpredictable.
OK. This ends the gushing part of the review. The are two particular parts to the game that I think are especially deficient. The first I'll say right out. The graphics are terrible. While the concept art and sound design are beyond reproach, the visuals implemented are muddy and basic. This game was released the same month as Final Fantasy VII, with Metal Gear Solid arriving just a few months later. And while I understand that FFVII set a new benchmark as to how games should look, I don't even think it looks as colorful or sharp as some earlier PS1 efforts like Beyond the Beyond and Suikoden. And those games were rough around the edges at best. In fact, if it weren't hex based, I'd almost swear it was an especially good refinement of the same engine X-COM used, which came out four years prior. It's not that significant a quibble, but I personally think they aren't just kinda bad; they are flat out shitty.
My second, more major problem is the lack of focus to the story. That, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a problem. Unlike, I assume, Fallout 2 and Elder Scrolls, the game aspires to have a significant story, first about saving your vault, and then second about stopping a genetically modified mutant attack against humanity. It may seem to the casual observer who just started them game that it is, in fact, a open ended western RPG, but when you couple it with the 150 day time limit imposed at the beginning of the game, it becomes clear that driving story element is finding the water chip. This is the problem. You have a time limit, but the game indulges in numerous story detours, most of which you don't have time for. So while your futzing about, paging through the endless dialogue trees of the world's countless characters, finding where you need to go becomes fuzzy in sea of side quest suggestions. There were a couple of times where I threw up my hands and put the game down. Basically, the game tries to serve two masters. The JRPG narrative, and the open world western RPG approach. I'll admit it; I had to reference a walkthrough a few times, just so I could complete the water chip quest on time. This however, doesn't detract from the overall experience as much as you would expect. The combat, setting, and urgency make the game entertaining despite.
Everything accounted, I'm staggered by how much this game did ahead of its time. I really have to question whether or not Elders Scrolls and its myriad copycats could have been appealing to a wide audience if Fallout hadn't made stat managing easy and fun. I have to ask if Bioshock could have existed, with its retro-futurist trapping, as I'm SURE Ken Levine must have played this game. It really is an illuminating piece of video game history. And while the game contains a few serious flaws, I'd suggest you try it if you get a chance. You really don't know what you're in for.
Final Score: B+
~James D
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment