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Fallout Tactics (in 2020)

StaticSpine

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Man, I played this back in the days when it came out. I was at school with almost infinite time on my hands and the game seemed okay. I tried to replay it now and it feels so boring from the get-go. The Steam reviews are overwhelmingly positive tho. The negative ones mostly about not being able to play on Win 10 properly.

Did it not age well? Was it ever good? What's the consensus? I didn't find any recent or general impression threads about the game.
 

CryptRat

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It was and is a good game, it was poorly received back in the day because everybody missed the "Tactics" in the title and expected another Fallout RPG.
I stopped playing it back in the day for the only reason that it kept crashing, if not for the crashes I thought it was very fun but it was basically unplayable, I think when I decided to stop it was because I just restarded and crashed during the same mission 3 times in a row.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Did it not age well? Was it ever good? What's the consensus? I didn't find any recent or general impression threads about the game.
People here either like or pretend to like it so that's mostly the reply you gonna get. Personally, it always seemed like an extremely meh game for me, despite having a premise with potential for enormous incline. The combat system from F1-2 was barely updated here (there's what, ability to go prone, crouch and uhhh...) and what mostly worked there is not nearly satisfactory enough for a tactical game. Things like being able to shrug off a grenade going under your feet or carry 6 assault rifles with 2k ammo have no place in squad based tactical game. And the mission/campaign design was whatever, going rt and just mowing down everything with left click to attack was way too viable.
 

laclongquan

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Man, I played this back in the days when it came out. I was at school with almost infinite time on my hands and the game seemed okay. I tried to replay it now and it feels so boring from the get-go. The Steam reviews are overwhelmingly positive tho. The negative ones mostly about not being able to play on Win 10 properly.

Did it not age well? Was it ever good? What's the consensus? I didn't find any recent or general impression threads about the game.

It was very good. But.
1. First mission is a bit of a force fight. You have to play with two more characters forced on you without configuration. And not very well configured. So 1st mission is not good. 2nd is better because you can build your team.

2. Graphically it's never good, equal to Fallout2 level but several years later in time~ Cant be helped~ It's a tactical game, not a RPG.

3. It has several fix and mods. In particular Equilibrium or Redux mod. It's not just fix the bugs but changing other things. You could should try it.

4. FT gamers doesnt gather here at Codex. Mostly in NMA forum.
 
Last edited:

StaticSpine

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Edija what aspects, in particular, do you like about it? The combat is mediocre, the encounters are samey, the missions are too long. I don't expect it to be an RPG, but tactics' components are lacking.

Zboj Lamignat yeah, I can relate to that: Fallout combat system is serviceable for RPGs but not enough to build up an interesting tactical game.

laclongquan I think it still looks good! But I'm an isometric 2D fanboy. I can't say I want to forcefully like it, more like to gather opinions, cause my own impression is ambivalent.
 

laclongquan

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Art style it's more in the line of Mad Max environment than Fallout2 even with the inherited graphic style. It's functional and not grating on players (a great praise despite how that sounds).

I like Fallout Tactic because it's the next great tactical game after Jagged Alliance 2, not because it's a RPG. Thus my demand for its graphic is automatically lowered.
 

ValeVelKal

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I like it, but you have to play it as a real-time game or the missions are too long and stuff like units surviving grenades after bullets is ... weird. Turn by turn it is really terrible

I like most mission design, but indeed the first map is fairly boring (it is a snail-shaped corridor inside a base, where RNG can really f**k you up because you have only 3 dudes, only one of them being a doctor), as are a few other maps (the APC evacuation, though there is this cool moment where you are attacked by civilians with stones and not much else and you just mow them down, ... or you can stop shooting and ignore them because they are civilians ; or that horrible map with the Super-Mutant trenches).

After finishing it the normal savescum way, I ironmaned it and it is very rewarding to do (+you get dead people to replace).
 

ValeVelKal

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I like it, but you have to play it as a real-time game or the missions are too long
I'm not a fan of RT combat, especially in tacticool games. It makes sense I'm not fond of FT cause it seems to be designed as a RT game.
Try it as RT combat, and you ll see it is a really different games. It works very well for instance because you can use the "Rule of Engagement" rules (start to shoot when you at 1% //33% //66% //95% chance to it), because you can really od funny stuff like crawl to a position and then suddenly stand up and shoot (and for reasons you ALWAYS shoot first doing this), ...

Of course, it makes melee almost impossible to use for YOU, except deathclaws who have a chance to reach melee, but honestly you lose nothing.
 

Dayyālu

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Did it not age well? Was it ever good? What's the consensus? I didn't find any recent or general impression threads about the game.

I love Tactics (because amusingly enough it was my first Fallout and it's pretty as fuck) but as a tactical game it's deeply flawed.

As everyone said there are two main problems: one, the basic Fallout combat system isn't that good - even if they tried to spice it up with more fine control - and the RT/TB hybrid system , typical of late 90ies games, is a ungodly mess.

Vehicles are also poorly implemented, despite being theoretically a great addition (one just has to check how they mangled the tank that requires a ungodly amount of effort to be practically useless). I have fond memories of using the buggy as a rocket launcher platform, even if it's incredibly suboptimal. It doesn't help that in typical Fallout way the enemy evolution is, despite effort, incredibly predictable and almost by rote

- Small arms (standard raiders, beastmasters)
- Big arms (Supermutants)
- Energy Weapons (Robots)

Everything else is pretty much suboptimal or useless.

They tried to spice it up with the Gauss weaponry (included the frankly hilarious Gauss Gatling that you'll never have enough ammo to properly run), but it still feels on rails at times. On-map encounters outside of missions are boring.

I still like it a lot. Tactics has some very nicely designed setpieces missions and quite the variety of recruits (if you don't go full genocide). You can build some weird stuff and some missions truly feel like "monster of the week" in Fallout form, from recovering the power cell under the tribal village (with the caveat that you're going to melt the village if you activate the security system) to the Beastmaster lair in which you can ally with the Deathclaw Queen to the robot piece recovery quest. Most of them are clumsy at times but there's enough variety to keep me interested, even if the combat is too chaotic to be properly controlled and ends up often in gunning down foes running at you. There's enough weird gun porn to make me like it (apparently AK platforms in Chicago run on 7,62x51 NATO) and the graphic design still holds up great, with the bots having that KKND2 feel to them.

It's not a game that will blow your mind nor a great tactical game like, 7,62 HC or the like, but it's a fun romp in the Fallout universe without much lore rape. It feels like they gave a shit and tried their best.
 
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Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/screenshot-thread.72409/page-1052#post-6624996

I've replayed it this year with Redux mod. Mixing RT and TB systems actually can work here, especially in the later missions where you can save a lot of time since your squad can survive more easily, than in the beginning. You should try it, instead of vanilla. I don't remember crashes or weird bugs during my playthrough, so it shouldn't make you quit in rage. The combat is really satisfying for me, with all the critical shots, blowing up people with grenades, etc.
 

RobotSquirrel

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- Small arms (standard raiders, beastmasters)
- Big arms (Supermutants)
- Energy Weapons (Robots)

Everything else is pretty much suboptimal or useless.
that's if you ignore the random encounters. Everyone does though. if you go with Random Encounters to grind then Melee characters make more sense as to not waste precious ammo. But you don't have to do that anyway as the game throws enough XP and loot at you that you can get by with just the missions.
 

Bigg Boss

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Xconn's Ultimate Ripoff mod is the way to play Tactics. If you don't play it you should go fuck yourself.
 

thesecret1

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I recall the writing being really retarded and the gameplay pretty mediocre. Still managed to be fairly fun on first playthrough, but I don't plan ever returning to it.
 

Poseidon00

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I can't see the appeal. The best tactics games have excellent writing and deep combat systems. Does this sound like Fallout, or a reasonable expectation of Bethesda?
 

RobotSquirrel

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a reasonable expectation of Bethesda?
you do know this was developed by two studios not affiliated at all with Bethesda or Black Isle right?
One was Australian studio Micro Forte and the other was Interplays Star Trek studio known for Star Fleet Command and Klingon Academy 14 Degrees East.
 

Poseidon00

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you do know this was developed by two studios not affiliated at all with Bethesda or Black Isle right?
One was Australian studio Micro Forte and the other was Interplays Star Trek studio known for Star Fleet Command and Klingon Academy 14 Degrees East.

That's the sort of thing I like to hear.

I always felt like Morrowind/Oblivion-era Elder Scrolls or NV-era Fallout had potential as tactics games, if they were done properly. The mechanics, setting, etc. are all laid out, it just needs a good story foundation.
 

Morpheus Kitami

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I played it earlier this year and came to pretty much the same conclusion as everyone else disappointed in it was. Missions took way too long, and the combat that was there wasn't all that satisfying. I was disappointed in the enemy AI, it felt like a step back compared to Fallout, let alone another tactical game.
 

Baron Dupek

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Xconn's Ultimate Ripoff mod is the way to play Tactics. If you don't play it you should go fuck yourself.

Played that one.
Slaughterfest map when you find Ace.
That maze-pyramid thing still gives me nightmares.
And it crashed on the final mission for some reasons, welp.
 

Baron Dupek

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luj1

You're all shills
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Idk mate, I think Tactics is great

- best graphics in the Fallout franchise, like Fallout 2 but sharper, while maintaining the same aesthetic (what Fallout 3 should have looked like)
- great atmosphere, urban tilesets and detailed hand crafted maps. Different feeling from Fallout but very bleak and haunting
- great tactical gameplay, turn based, isometric, party based (pure CRPG format). I rank it right next to ToEE and Dark Sun and KotC in this regard
- Its a pretty long game with serviceable story
- despite being instanced there is a lot of content, tons of weapons, enemies, feats, party members to choose from
- music is of course great, great photographic-style portraits too
- Good UI (better than Fallout 1-2)
- relatively quick progression which I like
 

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