Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel

aka: Fallout Tactics: BoS, Fallout Tactics: Bratrstvo oceli, Fallout Tactics: Die stählerne Bruderschaft
Moby ID: 3552
Windows Specs

Description official descriptions

After the great war, the wasteland is inhabited by a wide variety of mutated species... And one force of order and justice: the Brotherhood of Steel. As a new initiate to the Brotherhood, you will undertake different missions to take on Raiders and such as you attempt to protect the fragile respawning of civilization... and discover the new threat to the west...

Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is essentially the combat portion of the original Fallout series, with a new campaign, graphical polish, a set of random encounters, and a world map. The emphasis is on squad tactics and tactical combat, though your characters will grow like in any RPG.

Spellings

  • 異塵餘生戰略版:鋼鐵兄弟會 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 辐射战略版:钢铁兄弟会 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

199 People (195 developers, 4 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 35 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 93 ratings with 10 reviews)

It's buggy and it falls a little short, but it works for me.

The Good
Let's see, I think one of the real good things you can say about this game is that it really manages to capture the Fallout feel. It doesn't feel like a forced spin-off, and it plays like a legitimate member of the family. The cursing is there, the black humor is there, the wasteland is there, essentially everything is back and it is all good. The wastelands are now seen under a higher resolution engine which gives much more detail to the gruesome post-apocalyptic cities and towns, and it's shady cast of characters who now come in much more varieties and colors with newer music and great sounds. Clearly the npc interaction is not as important as in previous games, so that aspect of the game is somewhat toned down, but what little there is, makes you feel like you are "in there" just like in the previous games.

The game has a well laid pace, and a balanced learning curve which slowly introduces each aspect of the game as missions go by. And whenever you do play a mission the battles can get really exciting when your squad faces hordes of enemies and you are forced to think of different ways in which to deploy your squad members. The amount of options and control you can have over your squad is quite impressive, especially under ITB, and it gives you a feeling of real satisfaction when you take out a bunker with the combined forces of a pincer attack or luring your enemies to a cleverly made ambush with the consequently gory results. This is not really new, since such things have been seen since the days of X-Com and Jagged Alliance, but the scale of the battles have never been like this, and the detail and destruction never looked better. The rpg element is quite fun to toy around with, since it makes it possible to get those seemingly stupid perks and options you never did before afraid of wasting exp. Now, you can have a fully thief-like character without worries, since you can complement it with a war machine-like character anytime.

As far as I'm concerned the game is immersive, fun, has a nice story (with several endings) and is an engrossing post-apocalyptic experience. Really a worthy addition to the Fallout series.

The Bad
Well for starters it's buggy. I think this is a tired subject since everybody knows how the industry treats the games nowadays (release it when it's profitable to do so and patch it up later) but really the Q&A boys at Interplay deserve a kick in the balls for this one. Even after the final 1.27 patch the game is prone to occasional crashes and slowdowns, heck I ran the thing on a 550 Mhertz CPU with 194 megs of ram and a Geforce2 MX and the thing kept giving me choppy scrolling and animations whenever things got a little crowded...It really pisses me off how they treated this game.

But well, moving on, the only big gripes I have with the game design-wise, is the fact that it doesn't really take advantage of all the features it boasts. Sure, you can have mutants, robots and ghouls in your squad. But you can be nothing but a human. Sure, you can use vehicles around the map, but not so in 90% of the missions. Sure, the game throws some subquests and bonus thingies at you every now and then, but the game is completely linear and your behavior doesn't have a lasting impact on the game (I really hated that you didn't have a rundown of how you affected each town and location based on your actions like in the originals), etc., etc.. See what I mean? The game has all the stuff to propell it to stardom, but makes no use of most of them, essentially falling short of what it could have been. Also the game has a serious lack of variety. I know the combat is good and all, but every mission can be summed under one type: assault. Go that place, kill every enemy, achieve objective, return home. There are variations thrown into that, but that's as far as it goes. You won't find any espionage mission, any ambush mission, nothing, zip, nada. Plus I really hated it that you can't return to a mission location and see what changes have occurred due to your actions, all that's different in the towns is the corpses lying around.

Since we are in the "bad" I should mention that the bundled editor is nice and all, but really misses the point. It is cool to have a powerful editing tool available, but if in order to use it you have to make a part-time job out of it then it ceases to be fun. Only the hardcore "mod-ers" will dig into this feature and the rest of us will have to learn C++ and enough programming lingo to become John Carmack the 2nd in order to fulfill the time-honored tradition of crafting a level based on our local mall.

The Bottom Line
Fallout:Tactics is a good game, it is worthy, engrossing, with lots of neat features and a great sense of style. However, a series of crappy design decisions prevent it from attaining the gaming Nirvana the previous Fallouts have and make it look like the black sheep of the family. But make no mistake, it is IN the family, and that means a lot.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

A good, but far from perfect, continuation of the Fallout universe.

The Good
Fallout Tactics is easy to learn, especially if you're already familiar with the combat system (which is a slightly expanded version of the one used in Fallout and Fallout 2). The learning curve is balanced just right, just steep enough that you have to work to complete each mission, but not so difficult that you have to constantly restore and try again. The emphasis on tactical combat, while retaining the RPG elements from the first two games, keeps the play fresh.

Where the game really shines is in the area of intangibles: the ability to thoroughly immerse the player in a post-nuclear Midwestern world, to the extent that you merge yourself with the game. I found myself making up little back-stories and personality quirks for all my squad members. The AI is random enough that you don't get the same behavior every time, which can give your heroes all kinds of cool stories to tell their buds back at the base: Like the time Stein, my sniper, was really badly wounded, and probably would have died if the raider'd gotten off another shot, but then Keith my medic (who's normally a miserable shot) hit dead-on, saving his life. Or the time Farsight ducked just in time and the rocket went over her head and hit a group of enemies behind her. It has the same open-endedness as the original Fallout RPGs. There are no "right" or "wrong" choices. THAT'S immersion done right. Fallout Tactics OOZES with intangibles.

Using vehicles in combat is particularly fun, especially if you try to run down enemy raiders.

The Bad
The bugs. 1.25 is the minimum acceptable version for playing. Anything less, you'll want to download the patch Interplay has at their site. Even so, it's still prone to occasional screen glitches, random crashes, and long delays that make you wonder why it's pounding the disk so hard. I thoroughly agree with the previous reviewer who said Interplay shoved the game out the door about a month too early. It shows, and it hurts my overall impression. Game publishers, are you listening?

Also, the AI is a bit uneven. Most of the time it's good, but the enemies usually behave the same way (blindly attacking). Only rarely will they use any sort of strategy, such as trying to sneak up on you. Sometimes the AI exhibits outright stupidity, like the raider who blows himself to pieces with his own grenade. Also, enemies only react when you're close enough that they can see or hear you. They don't really patrol the area actively looking for intruders, which mars the realism a bit.

I also had some trouble getting used to the continuous turn-based mode, and found my characters dying before I had much of a chance to react. Unless you're a keyboard god and can master switching between six characters while keeping track of what they're all doing, you may prefer the individual turn-based mode, which is more like the RPGs. CTB is great fun with the vehicles, though.

The Bottom Line
Fallout Tactics is overall a very good real-time strategy / combat game with some nice RPG elements, and a welcome departure from all the fantasy and historical titles out there. It's a great game for people who like to really get into their games, but be prepared to have the illusion shattered every now and then with a GPF message.

Windows · by Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe (1674) · 2001

A fairly good continuation of the Fallout Series.

The Good
This grime, continuing in the tradition of Fallout 1 & 2, is gritty, grimy, and dirty (in more ways than one). Having control over an entire squad of characters enables you to realistically change the environment of the wasteland without having to play a Messionic character. The plot is fairly strong and, though it has its occasional holes, it provides a nice backdrop for splattering mutants.

The Bad
Unfortunately, you don't have as much control over your squad as might be nice some times. There is a formation system, but it falls short of being as useful as it could be. Additionally, you can go through a good 2/3 of the game and find yourself with totally inadequate characters for completing it. With some careful planning you're alright.... but the first time through can be murderously difficult without that foresight

The Bottom Line
A tactically-based combat game with just a pinch of roleplaying, Fallout : BOS is a continuation of the acclaimed Fallout series. Prepare to roll up your sleeves and do some dirty work, as you get the "opportunity" to duke it out with several mutated creatures and races of the wastelands, some of whom are smarter than others.

Windows · by Michael Miller (2) · 2001

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
never played fallout, start with fallout tactics? cow (333) Dec 22, 2007

Trivia

Art

Fallout Tactics did NOT use any of the arts used in previous Fallout games. Interplay was unable to retrieve the archive of previous art on the backup tape. This caused quite a bit of problems for the developer as extra artists had to be hired to redo all the art from scratch.

Corrupt files

Following the tradition of "fatal bugs" that have plagued the Fallout series and which prompt you to get a patch right from the start, Fallout Tactics was initially released with some corrupt files in a batch of "bad" CDs that make it literally impossible to play. The only fix for this is to download a 85MB file from the Interplay's FT:BOS site and replace it following a series of precise instructions. That is in addition to the regular bug patches.

Development

MicroForte was contracted by 14 Degrees East to do Fallout Tactics. They caught Interplay's attention when they demoed a game featuring their isometric game engine. Interplay didn't like the game, but liked the engine well enough they suggested MicroForte to do Fallout Tactics instead.

Endings

There are four different endings, depending on your final choices. Destroy, send someone else, or submit? The last depends on how much karma you got.

Extras

Fallout Tactics had a special bonus mission CD that was available only by pre-ordering the game from Interplay or certain outlets (Amazon, etc).

German version

In the German version all blood and death animations were removed.

GOG release

In December 2013, Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics were given away for free on the download distribution platform GOG. This was the last month Interplay had the distribution rights for the games before they went to Bethesda. The games were pulled from GOG on January 01, 2014. They were readded to the catalogue with Bethesda as publisher on August 26, 2015.

Photoshop

If you try playing Fallout Tactics with Photoshop running, you'll be told Fallout Tactics cannot run "due to Photoshop's evil presence."

References

The "stinky meat platter" you find in various places throughout the game is probably a nod to Mahlon Smith's "StinkyMeat Project". As of 2001 it was available at http://www.thespark.com/science/stinkymeat/

References

  • The game has many pop-culture references that mentions everything from Diablo (the game) and Everquest (the game) to the movies The Terminator, Die Hard, The Sixth Sense, The Space Race, Pitch Black (the character Riddick makes an appearance) and plenty of things in between.
  • Morte from Planescape: Torment, does a little cameo in a special encounter. As you can see in the screenshots section.

Information also contributed by Kasey Chang, kbmb, Kyle Levesque, Zovni and Evolyzer

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

Windows Apps added by Koterminus.

Additional contributors: Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe, Kasey Chang, Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Vaelor, LepricahnsGold, 6⅞ of Nine, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Evolyzer, Đarks!đy ✔.

Game added April 3, 2001. Last modified March 17, 2024.