It's nothing to be ashamed about, really.

Until a few years ago our curiosity with this concept could only be satiated with cheesy Mad Max movies and half-conceived science fiction books. It took a team of demented and visionary game designers to really exploit the concept of a world gone mad and create a gaming universe that would become a cult hit among PC RPG gamers. That company was Black Isle. The series is Fallout. And the newest violence-driven game in the series is Fallout: Tactics.

While the title may have Fallout fans believing this is in fact the third game of the series, FT is anything but. Instead, this wasteland-romp is mission based strategy title set amidst the Fallout universe and populated with all the weapons, locales, inhabitants, and gore patterned from Fallout series. However, there less emphasis on role-playing and more on battle strategy. The easiest comparison is Final Fantasy Tactics to the Final Fantasy; all the fun of the series with a dramatic twist on gameplay.

Similar to the past Fallout games is the ability to tweak and mold your main character straight from the beginning. Initially, you are presented with a handful of pre-determined characters to call your own, but no matter which one you pick, a good chunk of time before you even begin playing is spent tweaking their performance in an amazingly long list of skills and traits. Everything from hair color, to their inherent ability to operate heavy arms is adjustable using available skill points which are given in the beginning of the game as well as whenever your character causes enough death to level up. As well, the ever-popular 'traits' and 'perk' systems are back, allowing you to highlight certain unusual abilities which your character alone will be able to use. One particular trait is 'bloody-mess' where-in your hero has the innate ability to cause the most violent deaths to anything he/she touches. Useless as a statistics helper, but far too fun to pass up.

FT's story unravels via 20+ immense missions; each with varying locations, objectives, and risks. As a Squadron leader for the Brotherhood of Steel, it is your sworn duty to lead a team of five brotherhood recruits and yourself throughout these missions and bring peace to wastelands under the Brotherhood banner. While you are given specific goals to meet, there is no set method completion, leaving the average joe-warrior with a decision to make. Do you sneak around like a pansy and get things done? Or do you lay waste anything that stands in your way, leaving a trail of gruesome destruction behind your righteous team? There is no one answer ... mind you there is a more enjoyable answer. Instead, FT rewards both strategies at varying times throughout your journey. Essentially, while one strategy may work for one mission, it may have you strung up by your skin in the next. But hey, you didn't think the wasteland would be predictable would you?

At your disposal for bringing peace to this post-apocalyptic paradise is a number of recruits, weapons, vehicles, and items all of which grow in quantity and quality depending on your successes. For the most part you will obtain these from Brotherhood bunkers which serve as rest stations between each mission. Vehicles ( one of the cooler battle devices ) require the most work to obtain, and usually mean stealing it from the battle scene. While all of these are important to the mission, nothing is as vital as understanding the recruit system and the dynamics of a good team - something which you will probably not grasp completely until the game comes to a close.

Dependent on how many people you may have saved or fatally burned in your journeys, this pool of recruits swells and decreases. As well, there are a number of specialized fields in which the recruits come from. These areas of specialization range from passive roles such as medics, pilots, and spies, to more aggressive personalities such as explosives experts, heavy machinery pros, and snipers. Aside from being an expert in one field, however, you can alter your recruits to the degree you can your own character as long as you keep them alive long enough to build up experience points. As well, these recruits can be traded and decommissioned, based on each individual mission and how important one skill may be over the other. To aid you, the recruitment center in the bunker provides a summary of each available squad member and their background as well as rank. Choosing them is easy, making a balanced team is the hard part.

Essentially, like all life-lessons, building a good team comes with experience. For instance, I've learned that while a doctor is essential in a squad, multiple doctors are just cannon fodder. As well, while brutes armed to the teeth may look impressive, without a sniper covering their back, the only action you'll be taking is finding bigger bodies bags in which to ship them home. Basically, there are many different ways a team can be built, and the only way to gauge their success is in battle.With over 20 super-sized missions to do this (aside from random encounters in traveling), you should develop a good feel.

Which brings us to battle. And as someone once said, "Get busy living, or get busy dying." Get ready to do a lot of the latter.

Fans of the old battle system in Fallout will enjoy the old feel of gruesome non-stop combat and welcome the changes and options which have been bundled into the system as a means of making the game akin to the bloodiest game of chess you have ever played.

The two main choices for combat are either the constant battle-readiness offered by the Continuous Turn-Based option or the paused decision-based paced of Individual-Turn Base (ITB) and its variant Squad-Turn-Base (STB). Each can be switched on and off throughout the mission.

The major difference between the two is the speed in which combat is carried out. With CTB, your squad can be set on levels of alertness and may attack or be attacked off-screen without any warning or pause in the flow of game. Meanwhile, ITB or STB works much like the old Fallout system in that once an enemy is spotted, the action becomes turn based allowing for an unlimited decision time in which to have your squad member act in battle. In these turn-based modes, each character draws from their own source of 'Action Points' which are an allotted amount of points which the character can spend either moving, firing, adjusting position, performing a skill or utilizing something from their own personal inventory. While it may seem absurd to watch the enemy simply stand there while you decide which of his body parts you are going to shoot off, this setting of combat allows for less trigger happy results and crippling surprise attacks. In CTB, action points are still used, but regenerate while the action is being played out.

There are definite advantages to each system, and the option to switch between the two allows for the mission to be handled at varying speeds given the circumstances. Sometimes ITB becomes tedious - slowing the action down whenever an enemy is spotted, while in CTB you can simply avoid the danger and sneak on by. Reversely, in CTB, sending your members off in different directions may mean certain death if one of them is left to fend against a pack of drunken rebels. The option is therefore left to the player's best judgement. Sucker.

In all, learning to play Fallout:Tactics takes a trial and error approach...albeit a try and bloody gruesome error approach at that. There are so many factors and decisions to make regarding your strategies that even a novel sized manual might not even come close to covering it all. Essentially, the key in this game is to be experiment, be creative, and expect to be killed many times.

Graphically, FT is designed much like the series; a top-down isometric view of the action. The characters, vehicles, and enemies are all sprites. Environments are impressively massive and diverse, but as two dimensional as before. What this means simply, is while the world of Fallout:Tactics may be beautifully drawn and planned, it is a static image with only one angle in which to view it. Nevertheless, the Fallout world is widely detailed sight to behold, but not greatly improved from the last Fallout game a few years ago.

Animations are also the same, but just as fun to watch. As before, the wasteland is a violent place, and before the game ends you will most likely see every conceivable means in which a body can be abused in gory bloodletting animation. Let your team get trapped in by turrets and you'll melt to the ground. Let a machine gun rip at close distance to the enemy and he'll splatter like a rag-doll all over your finest suit. Come too close to the swipe of a death claw and you'll watch your own heart pump its last few seconds.

Basically, all the pretty things in life. However, if for some reason you purchased a Fallout game and wanted to avoid the violence, there are options to filter all these nasty bits (including repeated profanities) out. And hey! That's perfectly fine...sorry, I have to sneeze...*cough* WUSS *cough*. Beautiful are the CGI movies that are sprinkled throughout the game as well. In fact, I wish I could see them myself without having to get my friend to load them on his computer, but such are the pitfalls of any PC game - unless you've shelled out on all the current technologies, you are more than likely going to find performance problems with current titles like this. Be warned, while everything may be nice to look at in FT, without a fast processor and tons of that 'RAM' stuff, you may experience extreme slowdowns.

Last but not least, FT comes ready for Internet play which allows up to 17 players all at once in kill-fest. Again, be aware that unless you're connection is among the fastest, single player mode might be the best option. Fallout Tactics may not be the most politically correct of games. It may not be for the weak of heart, defender of peace, or even animal rights activists. This game is for all those people who have long sought the nomadic cut-throat life of the wastelands. With its highly engrossing gameplay and features (as well as a healthy dose of morbid humor) Fallout Tactics is easily one of the more enjoyable strategy games released this year. Players: 1 (Plus Multiplayer) Developer: Micro Forte Difficulty: Adjustable Company: Interplay Type: Strategy/Action Available : Now

· · · Agent Smith