Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

Baldur?s Gate meets Mad Max in Interplay?s postapocalyptic action/RPG.

Based on Black Isle Studios' 1997 PC game set in a postapocalyptic milieu that can only have been ripped from the tortured brain of the most feverish Cold War paranoiac is this role-playing/action/adventure crossover. Using Snowblind's Baldur?s Gate: Dark Alliance engine as a template, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel has you skulking around smoldering city ruins, contending with genetically mutated ghouls (and really big mice), and conversing with cripples, prostitutes, and two-headed cattle while searching for members of the Brotherhood of Steel, self-appointed guardians of the wastelands.

World War III
If you've played Dark Alliance, think of Fallout as the same game with a facelift designed to resemble the Mad Max films. The core gameplay is the same -- you jaunt throughout slickly detailed environments and interact with dozens upon dozens of NPCs who give you primary (expunge the neobarbarians from the warehouse) and secondary (keep an eye out for my lost kitten while you're at it) tasks to complete. Rack up a sizeable body count, and you?re awarded points, which you are free to allocate to whatever skills you wish. While you're at it, feel free to collect insane amounts of ranged and melee weapons from foes, and be sure to clean out your enemies for credits that can be used for more equipment and upgrades.

Thermonuclear Warrior
Fallout could have been a monotonous hack-n-slash yawn-jerker in the vein of Hunter: The Reckoning, but its quasi-RPG elements help it avoid such pratfalls. Choices you make during conversations markedly affect the direction the game takes, while skill and weapon upgrades keep combat -- of which there is much -- fresh throughout. The icing on the cake is the game?s superb production value, which includes beautifully crafted sound effects like devastating explosions and the eerie whistling of radioactive wind, solid voice acting, and copious visual details that flesh out a nightmarish world decimated by nuclear warfare.

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