Fallout Tactics - 4/20 hours

Fallout Tactics has yet to set fire to my imagination. In fact, I kind of dread playing it. To be fair, that's not entirely the game's fault. I've been dealing with some unrelated stress that has dampened my enthusiasm for gaming.

However, I don't want to entirely let Fallout Tactics off the hook here. It is an odd game that is not quite one thing or another, and I'm not sure its split identity works to its benefit. A good example is the continuous battle mode, which speeds up combat significantly by turning it into a psuedo-RTS. Yet I discovered, to my dismay, that if you set you posture to aggressive and move your team as a group, it is inevitable that at least one of my squad will be shot by their own teammates because the game simulates line of sight, but does not have a sophisticated enough AI to realize that I probably don't want to hurt my own people just because one of them spotted an enemy.

But you know what, that would be fine, except the game also lacks some basic RTS functionality. There's no way to quickly pause the game to assess the situation and give your squad orders. And despite the importance of positioning, there's also no easy way to move your squad in formation, and without micromanaging, they all tend to clump together. So (at least when it comes to my one-track attention span), the only real way to play the game is in turn based mode, which is fine except that the levels are usually pretty large, and the characterization of your enemies is virtually nonexistent, and you don't really get a clear view of your objectives or enemies. As a result, the game seems to drag on excessively.

I'm probably being too harsh on the game, though. Like I said earlier, I've been kind of distracted recently, so Fallout Tactics' deliberate, detail-oriented gameplay is putting too much of a cognitive load on my already strained mind. I have a feeling if I'd started playing this game a week earlier or a week later, I'd probably be celebrating its depth rather than cursing the fact that it's not a mindless killfest. I guess I'm just going to have to power through it and throw myself at the game until I start to like it.

It's happened before, so I'm not entirely cynical about this plan. Besides, there are parts of the game I like. My commanding officer has told me of rumors of some major force to the west (i.e. between me and the Brotherhood's California HQ - they must have flown over them before the blimps crashed) who is suppressing bandits and may be either a threat or an ally to the Brotherhood. My interest is piqued. From Fallout: New Vegas the obvious candidate is Caesar's Legion, which I would definitely be keen to learn more about, though considering the canon shadow zone occupied by Fallout Tactics my guess is that it's some other force not mentioned in subsequent games. This expansion of the Fallout universe may be the most exciting part of the game so far.