I think I can with confidence that I hate the Brotherhood of Steel. It seems like whenever I finish a mission the general pops up to tell me about the terribly shitty things the Brotherhood has done in the wake of my victory. One minute I'm riding high, tooling around in my cool new vehicle, the next I'm hearing how the Brotherhood swept in after me with an "extermination squad" and plans to put any survivors into forced labor camps. Even when I manage to reach a diplomatic accord with a tribal chieftain and receive an extra fusion battery as a gift, they still cop this incredibly condescending imperialistic attitude.
The non-story portion of the game is getting stronger. I think. When I got the vehicle, it led to a running battle through some city ruins, where I would have to periodically exit the vehicle, kill some bandits, open closed gates and tear down barricades. When I was sent to retrieve fusion batteries from a primitive tribe, I had to dash past some unbeatable turrets, slaughter cockroaches by the dozen, and make a moral decision about whether it was worth disarming an ancient facility's defenses if it meant the destruction of the town (although, perhaps my strategy of refusing to engage the turrets was more a product of me being under-leveled and under-equipped than it was a reasonable military decision - it's hard to tell with these level-based games).
So, there's some nice diversity in the mission goals and circumstances. That is mark in the game's favor. It really forces me to stretch my tactical muscles and not just take for granted that the combat is a solved problem. And the different types of weapons and ammunition are interesting, adding a logistical wrinkle to the strategy that many other similar games lack.
Yet if I'm being perfectly honest, Fallout Tactics still feels like work to me. It's not something that makes a lot of sense. It has all the ingredients of a game I should like - I enjoy turn-based tactical combat, inventory management, rpg-mechanics, exploration, and the Fallout universe. I'm not thrilled about my role in the story, but it seems interesting enough (the Brotherhood is looking for Vault 0, the prototype Vault meant to house all of the pre-war society's greatest geniuses). But for whatever reason, it is not gelling. I face the prospect of starting the game up with no small amount of dread.
In a way, I'm finding finishing harder than an objectively worse game, like Secret of the Magic Crystals. Because it is so close to something I like. Because it feels like something I should like. Because I can't figure out why I don't like it. It's vexing.
I guess it just goes to show the myth of objectivity. As much as I like to think of myself as an enlightened, open-minded person who judges games on their merits, rather than rank prejudice and whimsy, the truth is that it's not like I have some internal list of criteria that I compare to the observed traits of the game and then calibrate my enjoyment accordingly. Chemistry counts for something. As does timing. I played Gat out of Hell at right around the time I started this game. And my Exalted pnp game has recently started heating up. And the wife and I have been watching The Simpsons on DVD. So, when I look at my computer, I can't help but think of all the super-fun things I could be doing instead, and while that hasn't stopped me from playing the game, it has made it seem worse by comparison.
That's obviously not fair to Fallout Tactics. It's not even a reasonable way to feel. But it's what's in my heart. I feel guilty that I don't love this game. It is better than my impression of it. So much better, in fact, that I don't understand why I'm not obsessed. It's tough, sure, but it's not more punishing than Fire Emblem, and I played the hell out of that.
Yet maybe it is absurd to feel guilty about not falling in love. Sometimes things just don't work out, and what can seem on paper, to be the perfect match between player and game, can simply fail to light a spark. I still have, on a gut level, an aversion to thinking of video games as a disposable form of entertainment (growing up, they were so coveted, and so scarce), but empirically speaking, my actual behavior says otherwise. I have the luxury of not having to settle. I have a long line of games just waiting to be played, and so I need not entangle myself with Fallout Tactics for any longer than strictly necessary.
Which I guess is seven more hours, because if it is not a game to make me fall in love, it is also not going to be the game to defeat me. My impression of it is mildly positive. I took a quick peek at the wiki to see how many more missions there are, and I'm certain I won't finish it, but banging out three more of the remaining 17 shouldn't be too much of a problem.
And who knows, maybe something in one of those missions will get me hooked. Though I kind of feel like I've been with the game long enough to take its measure, stranger things have happened.
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