Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

Of the many features the Fallout series is famous for—a sly sense of humor, the melding of '50s-style artwork with a post-apocalyptic setting, and flexible character development—the one that gamers remember most fondly is the ability to sleep with prostitutes, pre-Grand Theft Auto 3. Indulging in such a vice is still possible in the upcoming Xbox title Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. (Not to be confused with the PC's RPG Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.)

Much like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Fallout for Xbox streamlines a deep RPG system into a workable console action-RPG. "Brotherhood is a console action game from top to bottom," says Producer Chuck Cuevas. "But we give the player a lot of things to explore, develop, and interact with, true to the style of a good Fallout game." The engine has players running around in third-person view, locking onto specific enemies (or not, if they just want to hit enemies with wild abandon), and pounding their sorted targets with fists, Super Sledgehammers, rocket launchers, homemade laser-rifles, grenades, or any one of 60 weapons...a far cry from the RPG Fallout's methodical turn-based combat. Cuevas describes a typical scene where the player interrupts some raiders watching a dogfight and gets into a brawl using his knife, a Desert Eagle, and a grenade to clear them out.

Fallout's deep SPECIAL system—employed in the RPG versions of the game and used for character development—is streamlined for the console versions; between mutant-killing bouts, players gain experience, which is then poured into weapon skills, combat statistics, and miscellaneous skills, such as bartering. Cuevas says NPC interaction is more than just "accepting quests and fetching objects. You can trade with the town merchant, get a drink from the bartender, sleep with the prostitute, piss off the mayor, lie to the doctor, collect junk for the engineer (who will assemble it into a weapon), and so on."

Working with the Dark Alliance engine, the Fallout team has made heavy modifications to support options such as: tons of guns for ranged combat, allowing the player to move and shoot simultaneously, and the ability to target specific enemies.

At the beginning of the game, players can select from three initial characters—with a few more to be unlocked later on—all with the goal of joining the Brotherhood Of Steel, righting wrongs, and kicking heads in left-and-right. These heroes include Nadia (maneuverable and good with small weapons) and Cyrus (the requisite male bruiser who likes hitting things hard or shooting them with a very big gun). Cuevas describes the third character as "sort of special," and opts to keep it a surprise; considering past Fallout titles have allowed for ghouls, super-mutants, robots, deathclaws, and even dogs, chances are the third character is not even human. While players only control one character throughout the game (multiplayer will be two-player cooperative), there will be chances to hook up with other allies. "You'll meet lots of friendly characters and allies, some of which may join you for portions of the game or simply act on the same side as you," Cuevas says. During one mission where the player gets wounded, he'll need to follow an NPC to safety while successfully avoiding the critters in the area.

Many of the original game's enemies are still muckying around the gameworld, along with newly invented foes such as weird radioactive beetles and ghouls hopped up on drugs and loaded with dynamite.

All of these enemies are standing between players and several types of mission objectives spread across 50 areas (such as the two main towns Carbon and Los). These include assaulting a base, escorting NPCs, tacking down specific items, and assassinations. Cuevas promises numerous sidequests as well.

Xbox Nation has yet to try playable code, so it's uncertain as to whether Brotherhood will be a fun little action-romp with the Fallout license, or an actual piece of PC to console fallout.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Xbox Nation.