Born without a butthole
I really thought this was going to be worse. Hearing about 2004’sFallout: Brotherhood of Steelin the years sinceFallout 3introduced console players to the franchise, I thought it was going to be an abomination. IfFallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel(don’t get them confused) is the series’ black sheep, then surelyFallout: Brotherhood of Steelwas the sibling that died early because it wasborn without a butthole.
I was led to believe it was a barely related cash-in made by people who paid no care to the license it was based on. It has advertising for Bawls in it; that caffeinated energy drink with the cheeky name.Bawls. There was no way it could possibly be good.
It’s not, but it definitely has a butthole.
Lowered Expectations
I guess there’s a lot to be said about lowered expectations.
To be fair,Fallout: Brotherhood of Steelwas being developed around the same time as the plannedFallout 3was at Black Isle Studio. Black Isle was having its own issues. A lot of the team responsible for the originalFalloutleft because of adisagreement with Interplay. In 2001, Interplay was bought up by Titus, which is a name I can’t say without my body trying toreject my vocal cords. The remaining team at Black Isle continued working onFallout 3, only to have itcancelled and the studio shutteredin 2003.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steelcontinued development in-house at Interplay. It’s not the development team’s fault that Black Isle got the shaft, as they so often did, but you’re able to see why fans weren’t exactly receptive to its existence. It probably would have been more welcomed if it was a console title that was arriving alongside another whole-fat title in the series, but that wasn’t the case anymore.
Conceived as a console-focused spin-off ofFallout,Fallout: Brotherhood of Steelbuilds on the same engine asBalder’s Gate: Dark Alliance. Rather than a full RPG like the main series, it’s more of a dungeon crawler not too far removed fromDiablo. There are still a number of RPG systems running beneath the action, but it’s a much more linear experience. You won’t be getting a car, driving out to Reno, and becoming a porn star.
And that’s a bit of a shame.
Nuclear F-bomb
That said, when taken as a spin-off,Fallout: Brotherhood of Steelis… fine. It’s amusing to look back at the reviews that came out about it at the time, since they’re very quaint by today’s standards. The complaint I saw repeated frequently was the game’s use of “four-letter words,” and crude humor. Fuck, I’m glad we’re past the days when dropping an f-bomb was considered shocking and obnoxious. This was 2004, just shy of the 2006 release ofScarface: The World is Yours, which set a new standard for fuck’s sake.
It’s honestly not that bad. It wasn’t so intrusive that I even really noticed thatFallout: Brotherhood of Steelhad an affection for the word until I checked the opinions of others. The humor is a little, er, ‘aughties. I don’t personally see how it’s so intrusive, but it has aged poorly. But, I mean, inFallout 2, you could lose an arm wrestle with a super mutant, then wake up with a ball gag in your inventory. The implicationsaren’t so subtle. I’m just saying, the bar wasn’t set particularly high when it comes to the sophistication of the humor.
A lot of other complaints were more on the mark. The combat, for example, is boring. This isn’t really too out of the ordinary for dungeon crawlers, I just don’t particularly dig it. You have a lock-on system, but you can only move while firing if you’re playing as one of the female characters. There’s a dodge button, but since this isn’tDark Allianceand enemies are using firearms, it’s not all that useful. You can really just turn your brain off for much of the fighting, which will probably be a positive from some perspectives, but I don’t love it.
A varied wasteland
The level design holds up a bit better. I generally have a distaste for dungeon design, regardless of whether it’sZeldaorFallout. However, through the game’s three chapters, there’s a lot of variation in location. Even when you get to areas where you’d expect things to become samey, there manages to be distinct visual differences.
There’s maybe a bit too much love for instant death here. Fortunately. save points are extremely frequent, and you may always find one at the beginning of each section.
But while there’s a lot of variety in the locations ofFallout: Brotherhood of Steel, there isn’t so much when it comes to equipment. New weapons and armor are very gradually drip-fed, and a lot of them are largely interchangeable. Ammunition is really the bigger concern, as firearms tend to eat up a lot of it in an effort to deal damage. For much of the game, I simply went with melee weapons, which themselves are very interchangeable. It just meant that I didn’t have to deal with ammunition, and it made the combat feelslightlyless mindless.
War never changes
Altogether, you’re looking at 10-12 hours to get throughFallout: Brotherhood of Steel. There is some replay value, as playing through it will unlock additional characters. Still, it feels like too much game for what it is. While the levels get more interesting as you progress, the gameplay feels too monotonous and worn thin by that point.
I’m sure this isn’t going to surprise you, but it also doesn’t adhere very strictly to continuity. The developers were obviously familiar with the world ofFallout, so it’s not as though this spin-off is completely unrelated, but they seem to have been more focused on making a title for console gamers rather than make their mark on the series. ConsideringFallout 3didn’t do the best job of sticking to the established narrative, it’s maybe more forgivable today.
I’m mostly bringing this up as a warning. I don’t have much reverence for the continuity of the series, but some people do, so there it is.
Fox on the box
I’m going to be honest; I kind of enjoyed the experience. This may be to do with the fact that my expectations were dredging the ocean floor. I was kind of expectingFallout: Brotherhood of Steelto be painful to play, and it’s definitely not that bad.
However, it’s easy to see where the rather loud complaints came from. Interplay was a pretty horrible parent to theFalloutseries to begin with, and that only seemed to get worse when Titus took over. Maybe the game itself isn’t that bad, but the company politics going on around that time certainly were.
The developers definitely didn’t just phone it in. WhileFallout: Brotherhood of Steelisn’t a great game, it’s not just a quick write-off. you’re able to tell the team behind it at least cared to some extent about the quality of the final product. I guess what I’m saying is; we can all blame Interplay and, by extension, Titus for whyFallout: Brotherhood of Steelreceives so little love. We all rely on reputation, to some extent, to decide on what games we play, so it’s a bit of a bummer when the real reason for a game’s derision has to do with the company behind it and not the game itself.
On the other hand, I now want to try theBaldur’s Gate: Dark Alliancegames. The older ones, I mean. IfFallout: Brotherhood of SteelwasDark Alliance, but not very good, thenDark Alliancemust at least be better than not very good.
