Fallout Tactics

Fallout Tactics or Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is a tactical computer role-playing game developed by Micro Forté and 14° East and published by Interplay Entertainment. Released March 15, 2001, it is the third installment in the Fallout series, following Fallout 2.

Background
The story revolves around a group known as the Brotherhood of Steel, established in the post-War United States, spreading from the former state of California eastward. The isolationist, technology-focused group found itself at odds with its ideals once the need to recruit outsiders became a reality.

The Brotherhood forces found they had much to offer native populations, many of whom had never seen advanced equipment. They developed a working relationship with the locals, offering protection and medicine for food and labor. The Brotherhood drafts recruits from this population. The player character is a new recruit to the Brotherhood called the Warrior, tasked to lead a squad of soldiers made up of their peers against several threats in the surrounding area.

Gameplay
Fallout Tactics is the first non-standard CRPG and the first to feature a multiplayer mode in the series. The gameplay is similar to real-time strategy games, focusing on squad-based combat and introducing a continuous turn-based play style.

Fallout Tactics emphasizes tactical combat and strategy, not roleplaying. Players are not able to respond to non-player characters, but they can still trade and gamble. The game centers around Brotherhood bunkers and missions. The bunkers serve as a central point for the Brotherhood, and players can obtain the services of quartermasters, mechanics, personnel yeomen, and medics. Characters from completed missions occasionally visit the bunkers.

After receiving a mission briefing from the general in charge of the bunker, the player's squad can then move to the area where the mission will take place. Among these locations are towns, factories, military encampments, or vaults. There, the player is given a map of the area marked with objectives and notes.

Setting
The game takes place in the former American Midwest beginning in the year 2197.

Combat
Combat in Fallout Tactics features three modes of combat: Continuous Turn-Based (CTB), Individual Turn-Based (ITB), and Squad Turn-Based (STB). In CTB, everyone can act at the same time, and action points are regenerated at a rate based on the Agility stat. ITB is the system used in the original games. STB is a variation of that wherein each turn is given to a squad. Other changes include the ability to change stance, modifiers for height, and setting sentry modes, which let characters shoot automatically in CTB upon encountering an enemy.

Multiplayer
Fallout Tactics has a multiplayer option of creating a squad and or person based on a value of how many points you can put into your person or squad. The game can be played on Gamespy Arcade. It can also be played online via Steam with its multiplayer option, using Steam's very own servers.

Recruits
Although the main character in the single-player campaign has to be human, recruits from the Brotherhood and characters in multiplayer matches can be of any of the six races featured in the game. Non-player characters have different natures and demeanors assigned to them, determining their behavior in any given situation. Each race also possess unique taunts.

Character creation
Fallout Tactics uses the SPECIAL character system. The game difficulty setting does not affect how much experience characters will receive. When creating a character, there is a Tough Guy setting which awards 30% more experience at the cost of being unable to save while on a mission. This is increased to a 100% increase in experience points with Patch 1.27. The game may still be saved inside Brotherhood bunkers.

Skills
Fallout Tactics largely uses the same skills as Fallout and Fallout 2. The only exception is the removal of Speech and the addition of Pilot.

Traits and perks
Fallout Tactics features the same traits as the original Fallout with a few race-specific additions. The arsenal of available perks is expanded.

Endings
After defeating or pacifying the threats to the region, the squad is given the choice to either destroy the endgame boss the Calculator, sacrifice a character to merge with it or allow General Barnaky to merge with it, if the general is still alive.

Music
The game soundtrack for Fallout Tactics was composed by Inon Zur, which contains only Fallout style background music and is the only Fallout game that has no ambient music from the 1940s and 1950s.

Reception
Fallout Tactics received a Metacritic metascore of 82/100.

Fallout: Warfare
A tabletop battle game based on Fallout Tactics was added to the game's bonus disk. It uses a simplified version of the SPECIAL character system. It was written by Chris Taylor and was available in the 2006 UK White Label DVD Release of the Fallout Collection.