What's the story

(WARNING:Gory)

 "Set in the aftermath of a world-wide nuclear war,Fallout will challenge you to survive in an unknown and dangerous world..."

   

 It is 80 years after a world wide nuclear war and you are a 'Vault Dweller'. Having spent your whole live living in an underground survival vault, you have to venture outside to find a water purification device or all of the other Vault Dwellers are going to die! You emerge into the outside world to find it full of mutants, gangs and violence.    

Starting the game you are given a choice of three characters which have different strengths and weaknesses, or you can create your own character. The amount of different skills and attributes that you can modify is amazing, and everything is well documented in the game.    

 After you have selected or created your character you are thrust into the game. Fallout has two types of play, one is in real time and the other is turn based. This design works extremely well. When you go into combat the turn based game mode is used. You have a set number of action points which you can use to walk/run or attack. This gives you the time to think about what you are doing and lets you employ more tactics into the game.  

 

 The real time game mode is in operation for the rest of the time. In this mode you can pick up objects, use your acquired skills, talk to people and whatever else you want to do. Including this mode is good as you can move around faster and are not slowed down by turn based actions.  

 

 So, the game has started and I strolled on into the town where I was met be a peasant who warned me of the gangs who ruled the town. My first response was to arm myself with an MP9 sub machine gun, set it to automatic, and turn him into a new brand of Swiss cheese. Then, I walked into the nearest building and started shooting at a member of the Fools (the name of one of the gangs), and after he'd finished taunting me on my poor aiming, he pulled out a Mini-gun and relieved himself of those heavy 5mm rounds he was carrying.  

 

 This is probably a good time to mention that Fallout is not for the conservitive. On the other hand, if you like to see chunks of semi-human limbs being catapulted around the surrounding area after being shot to pieces, then you will be hooked on this game for a long time. Fallout is a game of variety; there are so many ways to kill and be killed, and such a large armory for you to choose from. The list of weapons so far includes shotguns, chain guns, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, sledgehammers, and knuckle dusters to name a few.  

 

 After killing someone/thing, you are allocated a certain number of experience points. The amount you get depends on how you killed them and if you were hurt in the process. You can also get points for completing missions and other activities. As your experience points add up your character develops new skills which you choose allowing you to create a truely unique character.    

 The graphics in Fallout are superb and there are excellent rendered animations. In order to include these stunning visuals, Macplay had to compromise on speed. This is represented by the minimum setup, which is a 75MHz 601 and 16MB of free RAM. I found that Fallout could be a bit jerky at times even though I was using a 180MHz 603e. Another thing to note is that you will not be able to use RAM Doubler with Fallout unless you want to seriously slow down the game.  

 

 

Overall? Well, Fallout is one of the most engrossing games I have come across for quite a while, and the way that you have complete control over how your character develops is a powerful feature. Normally when I see a good game I find out that it is far too short, this should not be a problem with Fallout as there are 15 different locations with over 50 maps to explore. The only real problem is that you require quite a powerful machine to play it in it's full glory. That said, the full version should have noticable improvements in speed and plenty more features than I have mentioned here.  

 

 Minimum Requirements  Test Computer
 CPU  601@75MHz  603@180MHz
RAM  16MB Free  32MB
 System  7.1.2  7.5.5

Retail Pice: $54.95

Developers - MacPlay

Download - 28Mb - http://www2.interplay.com/macplay/website/demos/demos2.html

- Small Chunks - http://www.interplay.com/fallout/demo.html

Rating :

 

Revieved By Cameron Jones