Ty Moore

For fans of the outstanding Fallout video game series, there’s a nifty app out there that you may not have heard about. First released on the iOS platform in June 2015, Fallout Shelter is also available on Android and MS Windows. The latter has been available since July of this year. Fallout Shelter is a different kind of gaming experience; you won't find a vast, open world with seemingly no boundaries here. The game is essentially one-dimensional (although when zoomed in the graphics have a satisfyingly rich, 3D quality .) The horizontal game orientation gives the vault an ant colony quality. At first glance, the layout might pretty simplistic may appear mildly unappealing. From the teasing glimpse of the world outside the front entrance to the fluorescent glow of the inner chambers, Fallout Shelter looks like an arcade game at first. While it might look simplistic, however, there is a lot going on inside each one of those cells. Fallout Shelter offers depth where a lot of other app-oriented games fall short. Various Levels of Character Happiness Players can zoom in close to their vault inhabitants to see and hear what's going on. Playing the role of “overseer,” the game player watches as various characters go about their duties expressing either joy or sadness. A percentage meter indicates not only overall vault morale, but individual employee happiness as well. This is one of the first organizational details of the game. As in the other Fallout games, each character has a series of attributes identified as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. These letters stand for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. Much like role-playing abilities, these attributes help the character succeed in endeavors related to the ability. Each ability fits the function of a room. When the paired to a room where they have aptitude in that ability, characters improve happiness and morale. Morale drops for those dwellers at work where their aptitude is low. They no longer smile, and make negative comments in hopes the overseer will hear them. As with any overseer game, it’s important to keep the people happy. To keep the dwellers satisfied, the overseer must assure that the proper resources exist for the health and well being of everyone. There is still more to the vault than running the day-to-day. Occasionally an emergency occurs inside the vault; Fires break out, production falls below minimums and people get sick, or one of the chambers fills with creatures. Proper layout is important for successfully overcoming these breakouts. A monster invasion of rad rats, or a fire, can quickly spread to other rooms, overtaking the vault and killing the inhabitants. In addition to the internal emergencies, dwellers must also fight raiders and monsters during periodic attacks on the vault. [arve url=https://youtu.be/XJ2pHe2U260" align="center" description="Raider Attack, Fallout Shelter] Infinite Development in a Finite Structure There is a limit to how much development your vault can undergo. It takes a while to achieve, but there is a cap on the number of vault dwellers allowed inside the vault. While making babies and inviting in the occasional wanderer helps expand the fledgling vault, after a time the population maxes out, and the overseer must deny newcomers or release existing members of the vault community into the wild. In addition, there are only so many rooms that can be built. Weapons development takes a long time, and isn’t entirely necessary at the higher levels. Outfit design becomes useless as explorers return with countless uniforms. As the explorers continue to fill the vault to capacity, there’s little beyond the uniqueness of the various missions to keep the game interesting. Eventually everything devolves into a series of daily repetitions with little reward for the gamer. Additional Humbugs in Fallout Shelter Another challenge in the design of the game is the hold-and-drag feature. When moving a character from one room to another, players must press on the figure, then drag them across the vault to the new location. Moving characters to a full room will cause the lowest skill character in that room to switch places with the new character. Movement around the vault requires a swipe action on the screen. In the act of this swiping motion, it’s too easy to accidentally grab a character in one room and swipe them to another location. This causes havoc as characters run through the vault, switching locations and disrupting the assignment structure the player has put in place. A feature that would be nice to have is an ability to see the full stock of equipment being used in a given room. Currently the player must look at every character individually to determine the type of weapon they carry. For some missions, it is necessary to equip the explorers with a specific weapon; with 200 vault dwellers to look at, the one-by-one method of searching is frustrating. All of this action goes on inside the vault, but there is more to do beyond home for the successful overseer. Exploration: The Not so Great Outdoors One of the first things the overseer can do beyond the vault is to send dwellers on exploration missions. Sending well-armed and provisioned dwellers out into the wasteland generates the opportunity for external encounters. Explorers can also discover useful items and money(bottle caps) to help the vault thrive. Characters sent into the wasteland explore until the overseer either recalls them, or they die. Once outside of the vault, the character will radio in if they come across another site to explore (truck stops, markets, and other vaults.) The overseer can then decide whether he or she should enter. The overseer can also tap on the outside landscape and see how the explorer is doing. While exploring the wastelands, the explorer keeps a journal of his or her discoveries. Quests: Don't Lose Your Head Dwellers also go out into the world via a series of quests found in the overseer’s control center. Up to three dwellers can form a party to travel and complete various missions for items, caps, lunch boxes, pet crates, and Mr. Handy bots. Some of the more interactive missions include a questions/answer game called “Lose Your Head.” The team is able to avoid a fight by correctly answering a number of difficult questions. All the Charm of the Original Fallout Shelter maintains the spirit of the original series with the same quirky, 1950s oriented post-apocalyptic kitsch. The music sets the mood and the figures' cartoon charisma blends with an edgy violence to create the unique blend of sweet and savory that is the Fallout world. While the setting is nowhere as detailed as the console games, there is a very convincing sense that you are operating in the same world. The nostalgia of the parent games carries forward through various encounters in a way that is satisfying for fans of the franchise. The action is substantial and the challenges are consistent enough to offer many hours of entertainment even to players who have never tried the console games. Parting Thoughts Fallout Shelter is a fun game to play and is especially rewarding as an interlude between releases of the major console games. The shortcomings aren’t insurmountable, and for those who enjoy being an overseer, the reward is perpetual. Building a successful vault is an enjoyable challenge, and there are a lot of discoveries throughout the game-play experience. While the repetition becomes a bit of a drag, for a free app, it’s worth the time invested. After that, it's a matter interest.

The folks over at Gearbox know a good thing when they see it, and when it comes to the Borderlands franchise they’ve got a good thing. Since the release of the original Borderlands game in October 2009, the series has expanded through Borderlands 2, Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, and now Tales From the Borderlands, an offshoot from the Gearbox brainchild via Telltale Games. The entire Borderlands franchise is a DLC dream. This is Monty Haul crossbred with Seinfeld. The setting of Pandora, which is the central world of Borderlands, is unique, atmospheric, and enticing. In every instance, you want to get back into that world over and over again. With the game’s mix of story and action, cut scenes, role-playing, and adventure, the game far surpasses its status as a FPS, and moves into the realm of epic narrative. In Tales From the Borderlands, the aesthetic realizes its full potential: in plot, characterization, humor, and playability. It is built as a cinematic presentation interjected sporadically with timed options for the player to choose a response to various prompts, mostly determined through banter between characters. This is choose-your-own-adventure at its finest. Every choice the player makes in response to a prompt determines the arc of the story-line. The responses even determine the development of character relations. A third component of the game blends action and cinema to create a nearly seamless narrative experience. The player has a only a brief moment to react to combat prompts, usually intended to move the character out of harm’s way, before the character is smashed, shot, or otherwise killed. No Shortage of Personality The story centers primarily on Rhys, a Hyperion middle-runger hoping to climb higher on the corporate ladder. In short,Rhys finds out that his boss has been replaced by his nemesis, and that he isn’t getting the promotion he was expecting. Rhys and his friend Vaughn decide to make a trip from the Hyperion Space Complex to the surface of Pandora to conduct a little side business. Rhy's parallel story follows Fiona and her sister Sasha. Over the course of trying to make an exchange for a supposed vault key (the ever present motif in all of the Borderlands stories) Rhys and Vaughn get caught up with Fiona and Sasha and mayhem ensues. The writing is brilliant and the characters are unforgettable. The wit and flirtatiousness between Rhys and the female leads rounds the characters to form making every moment enjoyable, and it contributes to the player’s ever expanding understanding of the great Pandora and beyond. All of the beloved trappings of the Borderlands universe are here: dingy, dangerous Pandora; sterile, corporate Hyperion; cameos by the mysterious and enigmatic heroes of the Borderlands Hall of Fame. The graphics maintain the signature art-comic style of all of the Borderlands products, and while the style has been off-putting to some users in the past, fans of the franchise have nothing to fear in terms of the consistency and enjoyment they’ve come to expect. A Few Things That Bug, Tho At this point, it might seem like Tales From the Borderlands is a flawless gem of a game and that everyone who loves the Borderlands franchise is going to love this, too. Well, yeah, that’s probably pretty accurate. Still, for those who are tired of Handsome Jack and his apparent omnipresence, well, he’s back at it again. And it’s not like the story-line isn’t full of new characters to love and loathe. The story is rich enough with colorful villains and sideways anti-heroes that major personalities from earlier releases don’t need to be reprized. Another aspect of the game that some might find distracting is the interactive style. With its sideswipes and button mashing, one is reminded of the old arcade classic (and clunky at best mechanics) Dragon’s Lair, where dexterity and timing are the difference between success and failure. But the action in this game is fluid and it allows for a different sort of gaming experience from the straight up shooter that the other Borderlands products comprise. It’s worth mentioning that this game is episodic; since it came out in 2014, all five episodes are available for one purchase price. For those players who enjoy the serial nature of a good story-line, the episodic style probably isn’t a problem. For players looking for a more unified narrative, or straight up action, this isn’t the game for them. The Borderlands Elephant In the Room The ultimate tease throughout the entire Borderlands story-line is the adventurer’s pursuit of the magical, mystical vault. The mystery surrounding the vault, and the promise of hoards of weapons, wealth, fame, and bizarre technology, has driven the story along for nearly a decade – but one has to ask, will they ever reveal the vault? As Tales From the Borderlands proves, players want more of Pandora. The promise of finding a vault has become a side-story to the tributaries of intrigue that the deeply complex and wildly fascinating Borderlands universe creates. Actually adding the vault experience would seemingly deepen the satisfaction of this well-designed concept. With the question of the vault answered, the world can continue to develop and the franchise would still thrive. If not, the pursuit of yet one more unattainable vault becomes gamer click-bait, and the hope and excitement will fade with the realization that no one is ever going to see inside one of Pandora’s vaults. Tales From the Borderlands is a hit for all the right reasons. The storytelling is brilliant and original. The characters are fresh, yet still familiar according to the style of the franchise. The mix of the interactive game-play with uninterrupted cinema is a new twist for the franchise that only adds to gamer satisfaction. There’s a lot to like about this game and virtually nothing to criticize. The fact that it’s available across a variety of platforms and so easily accessible means that everyone who can play it, should. Maybe soon, with all of the love fans of Borderlands have for the game, we’ll get a peek inside that vault after all.