Wasteland was and still is a very popular role-playing game. People have often wondered why there wasn't a sequel to this game, especially since a sequel was all but promised in Faran Brygo's hideout in the game. The reason is that after Interplay's split with Electronic Arts, Electronic Arts held the rights to many of Interplay's most popular games including Wasteland and Bard's Tale. Wasteland 2, named Meantime, was already under development but serious complications ended that project's chances of ever seeing the light of day. Years later, Interplay has released another excellent post-apocalyptic RPG named Fallout. It may not be the direct sequel to Wasteland, but they definitely share the same genetic traits.

Fallout places you in a world that has survived nuclear devastation. You are a member of Vault #13, an enormous bomb shelter/living area that was designed to sustain large populations of life for a long time after a nuclear war. Unfortunately, your Vault's water recycling chip has failed and you are sent into the wasteland by your Overseer to obtain another one. Scouts have been sent out to the wasteland before but none have made it back...

Fallout was initally positioned as a GURPS game, which is a universal gaming system Interplay had licensed from Steve Jackson Games. Earlier this year, the GURPS system was dropped because of various politiking between Interplay and SJG. Many have wondered how this would affect the game, and I am happy to report that Fallout definitely has no need of the GURPS license to be a great game. Character generation is very detailed, allowing you to distribute points to various Attributes and Skills. One gripe I have is that all the skills are presented at the beginning of the game; you do not discover any new skills during the course of the game. For example, although you do not encounter energy weaponry for quite a while, you already have some skill points in that skill at the beginning of the game. Otherwise the Character System is excellent, allowing you to pick up certain traits that benefit and hurt your character. You can also choose perks as you advance in experience, allowing for you to tailor your character to your imagination.

The game is presented in a bird's eye perspective. The city maps are non-rotatable, meaning although your character is automatically seen through walls when behind one, some objects can become hidden behind walls, enemies can be hard to target in combat, etc. There is also a map screen for traversing outside of populated areas. The game moves along in real time when you are walking around town or trekking the desert, with day/night cycles and events that can only happen during certain times of the day. As mentioned quite often in the newsgroups, there is a 150 day time limit for the initial quest for the Water Chip and a 400-some day time limit afterwards. The latter time limit is hidden from the user however, and some have complained that there was no warning before they lost the game because they had reached the second time limit unknowingly. Although I ran into no time limit problems (there are ways of extending the initial time limit), I can see how some who did not realize there was a second time limit would be upset. The game should have made it more clear that you were working with a limited amount of time, to help keep the player focused on the second goal. When the game enters combat, it automagically switches to a turn based mode of gameplay, which much like X-COM, uses Action Points determined by perks and Agility. The combat system is quite good, and you can finally see in SVGA glory the violent acts of death described in text by Wasteland :). There are many different types of weapons and armor in the game, but none that make you into a walking tank. Even with the best armor and weaponry, death is sometimes just around the corner if you are not careful. Much like Wasteland, ammo is also sometimes in short supply. Be sure to try to conserve the most exotic forms of ammunition for those "special encounters".

Fallout is clearly above Wasteland in character interaction and it handles Non-Player Character conversation in three distinct ways. The simplest just involves text appearing on top of the NPC's head, there are no choices of conversation, just standard one liners. The next type of conversation is one where it switches to a conversation/barter interface and time stops. There you may choose different routes in conversation or barter for goods. The highest form of character interaction in the game features animated character heads, which depending on your conversation choices, can display pleasure or anger. The NPCs remember your deeds and hold you to them. Fallout uses a reputation/karma system which is shown as a number. A higher number will earn you respect from the good people in the Fallout world, whereas a lower number will earn you respect from the more disreputable people. There are also tags you can earn such as Champion and Child Killer in addition to your base karma score, and that also figures in how NPCs respond to your attempts at conversation.

Fallout handles the recognition of deeds very well, with characters congratulating you on a job well done or despising you for the heinous deeds you commited. It also features an excellent and well though out story, with many side quests and little things that add flavor and life to the wasteland. Fallout also handles events happening in real time well. For example, I was late getting to a certain city in the game and when I arrived, I had found out that the faction I was supposed to help had been wiped out because of my tardiness. These little details add to the feeling that Fallout is a living, breathing world, where your character's actions have great impact.

While Fallout is definitely the best RPG so far this year, it does suffer from a number of shortcomings. The most obvious is the Inventory interface. It is unecessarily awkward to use and difficult to navigate. As mentioned before, the town maps could use some reworking on how to handle objects and characters obstructed by walls because of the view. Also, the ending is quite brief and kind of an anti-climax. It is nice how they tell you what happened to the communities because of your actions, but I would have prefered they let you play on, such as in Wasteland, so you could experience more of the world that you might have missed while pursuing your objectives to a ticking clock. There are also some bugs that need to be stamped out but I personally did not run into any problems while playing the game.

Those complaints however, are small and do not detract from the enjoyment Fallout provides. The sheer number of options for your character and random encounters make for an immensely replayable game. The depth of the story and the different ways to approach problems make sure this game will last long after you finish it for the first time. Combining these with its excellent combat system, great neo-1950's SVGA artwork, and many other terrific qualities make this _the_ role playing game to have this year.

In summary, go out and get Fallout. Interplay is back, with a vengeance.

Rating: Worst -> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 _9_ 10 <- Best (9/10)

+ Cool character generation and system
+ Excellent combat system
+ Great artwork
+ Great sound effects
+ Excellent NPC interaction
+ Huh huh, cool weapons, huh huh
+ Many different story branches
+ Many different random encounters (based on luck and perks)
+ Excellent Intro
+ Definite Wasteland feel
+ Well done manual
= Nonexistant music, some ambient sound effects
= Only get to control one character
- Inventory system unnecessarily awkward
- Second Time Limit hidden from player, Time Limits make the game a bit brief
- Ending not as good as I hoped
- Maybe a move to full polygonal maps and characters would help
- NPCs useless in combat in latter stages of the game
- No cool, neato skills like Clone Tech to discover
- Long loading times