Seven hours ago, I made a fateful decision regarding this game - I decided I would treat it as a hostile challenge. Instead of playing it for its own sake, I would grit my teeth and power through until I reached my quota. It's a reaction all out of proportion with Fallout Tactics quality as a game, but I am physically relieved that I don't have to play it any more.
It's a tough feeling to explain, because as far as I can tell, there was nothing concrete that I disliked about this game. I think what happened is that I could not stop playing it wrong. Some mental block, possibly caused by the fact that I just got done playing the first two Fallout games, led to me viewing it as a casual rpg, where combat optimization is not quite so important. This being in spite of the fact that the game is called Fallout Tactics. So I'd do things like move my squad as if it were an adventuring party and pop into abandoned buildings just to explore, and the result would be the ignominious deaths of my characters because what I should have been doing is individually positioning my squad members based on what weapons they used and line of sight considerations while treating the environment as a hostile deathtrap where every bit of unknown scenery is a potential ambush.
It's just that playing the game the "right" way is sooo slooow. You move your character across an insignificant portion of the map, hit the next turn button, and then wait while the computer resolves the actions of one npc after another until it finally gets back to your turn, and if you're lucky, the enemies are finally close enough that you can plink away at them two shots at a time. I was fortunate to get a level every two hours out of this game.
Switching it to continuous mode sped things up considerably, but then you have to split your attention six ways and basically treat the game as the world's most complicated RTS. Or at least you should. I didn't. I just moved my guys as a blob and completely neglected you use any particular "tactics."
Now that I see this written out, I realize it would be pretty cheeky of me to complain about a game I stubbornly refused to engage with. So I won't.
Instead I'll talk about the plot, which at hour 20 was just starting to take shape. As the Brotherhood of Steel continued to expand, it encountered a strange group of telepathic "beastlords" who could control all manner of wasteland creatures, including the fearsome deathclaws. I later discovered that the reason they could control such formidable creatures is because they captured a deathclaw matriarch. Liberating her, I gained the ability (if not the opportunity) to recruit deathclaws into my squad. Nifty.
From there, I was subsequently deployed to the front of a new battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and a contingent of super mutants, whose goals and origin are unknown, but who are apparently kicking the Brotherhood's ass. My elite squadron was sent in to rescue some of my comrades who were in over their heads and find out the fate of the general who was leading the charge.
That mission was fairly easy, due to the fact that they provided me with a pretty beefy vehicle, so I didn't have to worry much about enemy damage. After that, I could finally take the fight to the enemy . . .
In theory. In practice, I died. A lot. And now I'm at 20 hours playtime, and I think this is where I take my bow. I'm actually pretty interested in where the story is going, but not so much that I'm willing to go back to playing the game.
I have to assume, in the end, the Brotherhood triumphs against their enemies and transforms the post-apocalyptic American mid-west into a fascist hell-hole, dominated by an elitist technologically advanced aristocracy that keeps the "primitives" in place with their unstoppable weapons. The mutants are probably related to Vault 0, somehow, but I can't imagine they escape extermination.
What I know for certain is that none of this matters when it comes to one's enjoyment of Fallout 3, which I get to play next. I'm hugely looking forward to it, which could not at all have helped with my ability to enjoy Fallout Tactics on its own merits.
My bad. I never really gave the game a proper chance. It's just so awkward, placed as it is between the two rpg eras. It doesn't really serve as a bridge, its heavy combat emphasis being a disappointment after the freedom of Fallout 2 and its shallow world-building being completely eclipsed by the epic accomplishment that is Fallout 3. As much as I wanted to enjoy this game, due to my natural tendency to sympathize with underdogs and the forgotten, it never became more to me than a speedbump in the middle of the "real" Fallouts.
That is so transparently unfair that I kind of hate admitting it. But what am I going to do? Continuing playing a game I don't enjoy as a form of intellectual penance for the fact that I didn't give it its proper due as a true member of one of my all-time favorite game series? That is too bizarrely sentimental even for me.
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