During a recent visit to the GameSpot offices, Interplay representatives brought by a copy of Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel for us to play with. While we were quite familiar with the single-player demo that has been available for more than a month now, this newest demo boasted more than 10 missions--quite a selection, and, needless to say, we were quite eager to dive right in.

　　Click for full size image Though designer Chris Taylor mentioned that the missions were in something resembling final form, he added that there was still a bit of tweaking and balancing to be done. That said, the variety of the levels included in the demo is quite pleasing. Among the selection was everything from early levels that starred low-level, relatively weak characters to later levels in which you command a capable, impressive squad.

　　The sheer size of the maps really hits home once you get to play some of the more complex missions. Every square foot of them seems intricately designed and perfectly conducive to the type of tactical gameplay the game is designed for. The maps are replete with semienclosed barricades, bunkers, and all manner of debris in general, behind which your gunmen can hide and pick off your enemies. The landscape is definitely in keeping with the series' theme, and the Fallout world has never looked better: The 32-bit sprites that the world is composed of are marvelously detailed, bringing every element on the maps to life. When set to the highest supported resolution (1024x768), the game simply looks great and plays even better--with a greater view of your squad's immediate surroundings, you'll enjoy a definite tactical advantage.

　　Click for full size image The selection of missions included in the demo varies greatly when it comes to their individual objectives. Several of the earlier missions feature infiltrate-and-destroy objectives, which call for equal amounts of stealth and firepower. Early on, we learned the value of scouts--without them, traversing the often-deadly terrain is much akin to running a marathon through a minefield. The raiders whom you'll encounter throughout the early missions are quite canny when it comes to setting up patrols, and during most of the early missions, they'll have canine support. During these instances, a stealthy scout is essential, as he can pinpoint the locations of the patrols, which your snipers and machine gunners can quickly dispatch. In this respect--especially when you play with the continuous turn-based (CTB) setting on--Fallout Tactics seems very "stop and go." You'll clear an area, regroup your squad, and send your scouts out again until your objectives are met or things perk up.

　　The later missions get quite perky. As game narrative goes, after the Master's defeat in Southern California, the Brotherhood headed east to track the scattered mutant horde. Eventually, they find them, and, as you can imagine, their confrontations aren't diplomatic. One mission in particular has the mutants capturing a character that's important to your cause. To rescue him, you have to penetrate a mutant-occupied town aboard your armored personnel carrier (APC), avoiding countless mutant snipers on rooftops as well as a handful of armed patrols. Needless to say, encounters are plentiful and satisfying. From the safe confines of your APC, your gunners can take potshots at the mutants--but at the expense of the APC's armor. Ultimately, you have to ditch the APC and continue on foot. At the end of the mission awaits one of the bloodiest firefights you'll ever engage in.

　　Despite the tenacious quality of computer-controlled mutants, though, we found it much more engaging to play against sentient opponents. Since the demo that Interplay brought over included some fairly robust multiplayer code, we were much obliged.

Multiplayer Impressions

　　Click for full size image As many have undoubtedly experienced by now, Fallout Tactics' multiplayer game is quite engaging. Though the final version will indeed let you craft your own squad within a set point value, the demo we played had assembled a squad from a set of pregenerated characters. Each character focuses on a particular combat skill; there are snipers, machine gunners, grenadiers, "sneakers," and demolitions experts. There are also a handful of medics available for when your squads need some patching up. Success in combat mostly depends on assembling a balanced, capable squad. Usually, at least one sniper is a necessity; they can pick off the foes at long ranges, which makes them invaluable as base guards. Machine gunners work best during close-quartered combat, when their weapons' burst settings are most effective. Grenadiers, as logic would dictate, are effective at clearing throngs of enemies with their hurled explosives, and demolitions experts are primarily used to plant mines around your base.

　　The person hosting the games determines each match's settings--factors such as turn length, time of day, line-of-sight settings, and game type can all be altered by the host. Most importantly, though, it is up to the host to determine whether the game will be turned based or if it'll make use of the continuous turn-based (CTB) system. Traditional and CTB games differ greatly from each other, and they each call for different types of skills.

　　Click for full size image Playing CTB games against a living opponent is quite an exhilarating experience; since there's no interim between actions, you're never quite sure of the locations of opposing squad members, leading you to constantly shift your own squad members' posts, stances, and AI settings. Furthermore, having a heavily scattered squad seems more feasible during CTB, as you can more or less instantly execute any relevant strategies. CTB is, in effect, real time, the only difference being the slightly perceptible pause in action during the moment when a character's action points are refreshing. During CTB games, you'll doubtlessly make much use of the sentry mode, which determines how your squad members will behave in regard to enemy squad members. As CTB is, for all intents and purposes, real time, you'll need the AI boost to maintain squad functionality during many busy moments. There are three sentry settings: normal, defensive, and aggressive. On the normal setting, characters will act only if directly commanded to. If they're on the defensive, they'll ignore enemies unless they're shot at, in which case they'll return fire. On the aggressive setting, your squad members will attack enemies on sight. As appealing as the aggressive sentry setting sounds, oftentimes, it'll invariably blow your cover--try getting a scout into a heavily guarded fortification while forgetting to turn off the sentry setting, and you'll quickly see the folly.

　　There are two types of turn-based settings: individual and squad-based. The former relies on individual characters' sequence attributes to determine who goes in what order. For example, the character with the highest sequence goes first, and all others go in descending order. Squad-based, as the name implies, has entire players' squads acting during one large round. The turn-based modes seem to work better on smaller maps; on the larger maps, precious game time is spent locating your enemies, as opposed to actually fighting it out. The ability to manually set your squad's spawn point seems like it would be a useful remedy to this, because it would limit the time spent uselessly wandering the map and looking for enemies. Turn-based battles, at any rate, truly resemble the classic Fallout game experience. Squad members are limited by their action-point total, within which they must work around every turn. Every action depletes that total, greatly emphasizing the importance of every single move made.

　　Limited as our current multiplayer capabilities might be at this point, we're having a great time with the game. Once we get our hands on some more complete code, we can only imagine how much the multiplayer capabilities will increase. Fallout Tactics is due out sometime this quarter.