Coming off the success of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Interplay decided to create a console entry to the Fallout series. Originally they wanted to create a first-person shooter (imagine that) but instead they decided to just reskin Dark Alliance. Not only did they want to replace the slower turn based combat of the PC Fallouts with more action oriented gameplay, but they also replaced the soundtrack from ambient and oldies to heavy metal tracks from bands like Slipknot and Killswitch. They got rid of Nuka-Cola and opted for product placement instead. Bawls Guarana is the drink advertised in the game, it’s an energy drink and the designers felt it appealed more to a console audience. When Bethesda bought the IP they stated that Brotherhood of Steel is non-canon.
Taking place shortly after the events of Fallout 1 Brotherhood of Steel starts off with an Initiate of your choosing trying to find a group of Brotherhood paladins that went missing. The initiate you can choose from are Cyrus a tribal, Nadia an orphan and Cain the first playable ghoul character in Fallout history. All the characters have unique traits, such as Nadia being the fastest, Cyrus can wield the biggest weapons and Cain can withstand radiation. You can also unlock three NPC characters to play as. Shops and Quest giving NPCs will react differently depending on who is talking to them which is a nice little touch. The game can be played co-op and honestly I think they wanted you to based on the game’s difficulty. The game is a top down third person shooter with a much too high camera angle. I wish it was slightly slanted so that I can see ahead of me. The distance you shoot is minimal and when an enemy is off screen they are basically invincible, you do have melee weapons but the game wants you to use guns. You share resources so it’s best if playing co-op to specialize in different guns.
The game is mostly mind-less run and gun but there are light platforming elements like jumping over pits and lasers. This makes playing in co-op difficult since players share the same screen forcing them to stay close. The game is very linear, divided into chapters. Each chapter takes you to a different zone, you can return to the previous zone but the backtracking is long, tedious and not worth it. Characters can give you side quests to complete throughout the zone but these can be time sensitive, advancing the story may lock you out of a specific side quest.
It’s certainly a unique title in the Fallout franchise, it’s a relic of its time. This game is extremely broey hyped up on heavy metal, energy drinks and bodacious babes. I suppose that’s what interplay through the console gamers wanted. Honestly it’s not that much different from Fallout 2. It seems to be another parody of Fallout or maybe it was what Fallout was meant to be. With so many fingers in that radiated pie, Fallout is whatever you want it to be, dear reader, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. (Although I am still going to rate it.)
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