Let’s cut to the chase and answer the question everyone’s been asking: yes, I enjoy the new season of Fallout. You can stop wondering how the old Mike Drucker feels about it now. While I know some folks get mad when Lucy rambles, I agree with the idea that she’s a high charisma build.
I always play those characters and they always say the goofiest stuff, so I’m happy with that direction. My ideal roleplaying game character is someone who tap dances their way out of every bad situation and eventually, somehow, kills a god. And who doesn’t like a radioactive cowboy who says the phrase “your daddy” at least eight times an episode?
Why I’m Replaying The Worst Fallout Game
But with the new season of Fallout, I decided to go back to one specific game. No, not the short but foundational original Fallout. Nor the better Fallout 2. Nor the slightly worse but still really great Fallout 3. Nor the best Fallout, Fallout: New Vegas, despite it being the most foundational to season two. Nor the Fallout that I know people love but I missed that charisma-forward gameplay, Fallout 4. Hell, I’m not even talking about the quasi-almost-canon-but-not-really Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. I’m talking about the weirdest and worst Fallout game – Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.
Now, before I get into this, let me say that game development is hard. You’re often on a short schedule and sometimes companies are forcing you to make changes you don’t like. So, I don’t want to be mean to the developers here. And if you worked on this game, I apologize for what I’m about to say.
If You’re Waiting For More Fallout Games, It’s Time To Expand Your Horizons
After the success of the Fallout TV show’s second season, many people are looking for a new game. Guess what: it’s already available.
I know this isn’t the way you wanted it to come out, and I know that you still dream about the quests where you walk into a massive open space and just kill a bunch of enemies that seem confused about where you are and then leave. That is about 99 percent of the game.
Let’s start with the most obvious. The game is called Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel despite the existence of the game Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. That’s not confusing at all, and definitely a smart marketing move by a company that wants to distinguish its projects. One is a pretty decent strategy RPG and the other is a pretty far from decent action RPG.
While they’re both about the Wasteland’s dumbest assholes, I’m not sure who would ever think it was a good idea to name two very different games in a then-smaller franchise almost the exact same thing. And don’t tell me about the Game Boy Advance port of Splinter Cell because you know that’s not what I’m talking about and neither of us care enough to argue.
Brotherhood Of Steel Has No Idea What’s Canon
Of course, a Fallout action RPG is a really good idea! In fact, that’s why the last four mainline games were, say it with me, action RPGs! And it’s built around the bones of a pretty good game: Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. See how they didn’t name it Baldur’s Gate 2? That’s because Baldur’s Gate 2 already existed and not using that title made it easier to tell apart from the other game. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop with the name stuff. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance was a fun Diablo knock-off, even if playing it now is a bit like having an 8-year-old with a loose feeling for storytelling and rules DM your D&D game.
But Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is not a good game. And – more importantly – it’s a worse Fallout game. Let me list the ways it’s not canon for extremely understandable reasons!
Let’s start with the opening. Forget Ron Perlman, we don’t even get a “War, war never changes.” Instead, the introduction weirdly implies the big nuclear war happened in the 1950s rather than 2077. The game itself appears to be on the regular timeline, but it’s kind of jarring seeing the same mistake intentionally put in the game that people would later get mad at AI for doing.
Hey, it’s not like they had previous games in the franchise they could look at. Oh, and it also strangely uses graphics from other Fallout games when giving way too much exposition despite this specific game looking and feeling pretty different.
Oh, let’s get to that, too. The retrofuture vibe is toned down in favor of a BADASS, HARDCORE, EDGY APOCALYPSE feel. There are still robots and mutants, but a lot of the sci-fi stuff is background noise in favor of some dirty rooms and a handful of NPCs that have a couple lines each that drive the story forward. What’s the story? Super mutants are bad and the Brotherhood of Steel didn’t do a great job stopping them until you came around. Done.
There’s Nothing Fallout About Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
Also, hey, I know Fallout games have characters in wild costumes. I know Fallout games sexualize a lot of characters. I’m fine with that. They’re fictional adults theoretically born long after I’ll be dead. But it’s so embarrassing to see half the women in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel wearing these ultra corny metal bondage outfits that look like something your dad would have in a magazine printed on butcher paper.
It’s not sexy, it’s just weirdly awkward and dumb-looking, as if a 12 year old boy described what he wanted from a game in a series he never played. But don’t worry, at least these women are made of about ten polygons each, so it’s undeniably hot.
And you know Nuka Cola? You remember that? Big part of the Fallout series. Can’t have Fallout without Nuka Cola. Sorry, jerks, they replaced Nuka Cola with the product placement of the real world drink, Bawls. Which I love, love, love because if you don’t know Bawls is real, it just seems like a really cringey in-game joke.
Fallout’s Reality TV Competition Series Is Officially Happening
Give me shelter.
And if you do know it’s real, you gotta question how it’s the only company other than Vault-Tec to survive the end of the world. Maybe instead of plain old bottle caps being currency, they could trade Snapple caps with fun facts on them! I don’t know where the money from that product placement went, because it sure ain’t in this game.
But they couldn’t mess up the amazing sound design and sharp needle drops of the series, right? You already know what I’m going to say: nope! Rather than old, early-to-mid 1900s songs, we get heavy metal guitar riffs from bands like Slipknot. Which is cool, but not really Fallout. Even then! This wasn’t, like, the second game in the series exploring new things. We had a lot of stuff established already! It’s so jarring. Maybe this is some sort of primordial Borderlands? Does that feel better? I don’t know.
Don’t Play Brotherhood Of Steel. Leave That To Me.
And I know I’ve only briefly touched on the gameplay, but that’s because the gameplay only briefly touches on fun. There’s no open world, so don’t plan on exploring. Entering any building requires you to confirm that, yes, you do want to enter a building. And for some reason, almost every building is massive inside? There’s a bar you visit early in the game and it feels like a goddamn maze when you’re trying to clear out raiders. There are legitimately more rooms than raiders. I’ve gotten lost in this bar and usually that requires three drinks.
What else? What else? Leveling up brings the great enjoyment of choosing whatever 5 percent bonus you’re getting next. Dungeons may have different looks and layouts, but it’s mostly just hoards of one or two types of enemies running at you, getting stuck in a doorway, and then waiting for you to kill them. Sometimes these enemies will attack you and do no damage. Sometimes the same type of enemy will attack you in the same dungeon and do a ton of damage. The logic of it probably makes sense in some way, but I don’t know what it is and it’s destroying my brain trying to figure it out.
Also, you can play a ghoul who’s working with the Brotherhood of Steel. They don’t like “abominations,” as far as I can reckon from every Fallout game I’ve played. I can’t go too hard on this, though, because I know different Brotherhood factions have different levels of being a douchebag, but still – they’re usually not too friendly to ghouls! I don’t know.
If there’s one saving grace to Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, it’s that it’s not canon. You don’t have to play it. I do, because I want to punish myself for existing on this Earth. But you don’t. You’re missing nothing. Its story has no impact on the series. No cool things we’d later love originates in this game. There are no bottles of Bawls in Fallout. None of these characters matter, either. It’s an action RPG that not only misses the point of Fallout, but somehow also misses the point of action RPGs. It’s beautiful in its tragedy. It’s perfect in its sheer lack of direction. I love it.
- Released
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January 13, 2004
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Mature Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Interplay
- Publisher(s)
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Interplay
- Engine
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creation engine
- Multiplayer
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Local Multiplayer
