Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel Preview

While the long-awaited sequel to 1998's Fallout 2 is little more than a glimmer of hope to countless fans of the series, those hungering for another postapocalyptic romp will have their fix in the near future. Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is a squad-based tactical combat game, as the name implies, which is set in the Fallout universe. It also serves as a side story to the series' ongoing continuity. The game will feature many systems native to the series, so heavy RPG influences will seem implicit, which will no doubt please longtime fans.

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Whereas the two previous Fallout games were set in postapocalyptic California, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is set in the blighted American Midwest, which is home to many unique groups and forces. The game takes place sometime between the first and second games, and the story revolves around The Brotherhood of Steel, a powerful organization with whom fans of the series are no doubt familiar. Briefly, the Brotherhood's goals are to influence the reestablishment of human civilization by directly manipulating the flow of power, as well as technology. Needless to say, in the wasteland that is postnuclear America, the Brotherhood has become a force to be reckoned with. Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel kicks off after the defeat of The Master - the original Fallout's mutant menace - at the hands of the Vault Dweller. As The Master assembled a formidable horde of mutants with which to assimilate the rest of humanity, The Brotherhood was naturally concerned about the consequences of its subsequent dispersal. The game puts you in the role of one of the Brotherhood's young paladins and leader of a squad sent to track the scattered horde's movements throughout the Midwest. Throughout the course of the game's 22 missions, you'll make tracks through Chicago, Denver, and all the waste in between and investigate the mutant horde's activities and much more - that is, if the convoluted plots of previous games are any indication.

Though the game is undeniably Fallout at its core, you'll find that developer Micro Forte's reinterpretation drastically changes much of its focus. The series' combat system - on which Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel has logically focused - has remained intact, though a few notable refinements have been affected. Action points, which are central to Fallout's game system, are still dominant, and they dictate how often your characters can do anything, from shooting their weapons and moving across the maps to using stimpacks and altering their stances. Stances play a major role in the game's battles: They affect how likely your characters are to be hit and how effectively they can sneak past enemies. You can choose to have your characters stand, crouch, or crawl, and each change in stance costs one action point. As logic would dictate, characters move more slowly when they're not standing, and speed can have many implications, given the game's potential pace.

Perhaps the most significant change to the combat system is the addition of what Micro Forté calls the "continuous turn-based action system." Though Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is a turn-based game in the end, the CTB system allows for the illusion of real-time play, seamlessly segueing every turn into the next. Very much akin to games that use Bioware's Infinity engine, playing Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel in continuous turn-based mode feels quite "real time" for all intents and purposes. While purists will be able to play the game in a standard turn-based mode, the continuous turn-based action system seems very well suited to online play - an application that Interplay seems ready to wholeheartedly support.