[typing]
Fallout Shelter
*is* a Fallout game,
but it's not a FALLOUT game,
if you catch my drift.
Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play mobile app,
with time-based mechanics and microtransactions...
that... [incoherent garbling]
Yet, somehow I've been playing it off and on for weeks on end,
largely because it's a Fallout game.
Now, as a Fallout fan, I felt it was my duty
to give this tiny tower alike some kind of token respect.
The same way you'd show respect to the son of an old friend.
Even though it never *earned* that respect,
Fallout Shelter has pedigree,
which automatically puts it on a pedestal
among the gelatinous sea of games that are all but identical,
save for aesthetic and mechanical minutia.
But the problem with pedigree is that it can only fuel a quick burst of flame.
In order for it to fuel that long- lasting cauldron of passionate fire,
it has to prove itself by standing on its own two feet.
And Fallout Shelter fails to even stand upright for me.
Here's the dilemma:
the game is freaking boring as nuts
once you reach 50 or 60 vault dwellers.
And if you've played your cards right,
you'll get there within your first day or so of intermittent play.
At this point, you've unlocked and seen
everything in the game up to this point.
Anything beyond this is literally the same thing that you've done before,
just more of it.
Longevity and complexity is no substitute for depth and quality,
and this is on proud display in Fallout Shelter.
The gist of the game is that you're the overseer of your own Vault-Tec Vault.
As overseer, it's your job to make sure everyone is,
number 1: working hard,
and number 2: content enough not to wish for death.
As long as your vault dwellers are working efficiently,
you earn caps,
which can be used to make more vault dwellers work efficiently.
You largely spend your caps on expanding or adding rooms,
each of which relates to one of the stats on the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system,
lifted from Fallout games past.
Certain rooms affect, or are affected by, each stat,
so placing the correct dweller in the correct room
with maybe the correct jacket
is about as strategic as the game gets.
There are also rooms that allow your vault dwellers to reproduce,
which is the primary way you'll be increasing your population.
Beyond this, it's really all about making sure you've manufactured enough resources:
Power, Food and Water.
The more you expand your vault and vault dweller population,
the more resources you'll need, simple as that.
Now, I'm not averse to this kind of management sim thing, but
I also can't help but see through the cracks almost immediately.
You're doing nothing different with 100, 200, 500 dwellers
than you did at just fifty.
You simply have more to look at
and more performance lag to deal with.
Yes, it's amusing to zoom in and see what each dweller has to say,
at least the first few sessions.
But 99% of the time, I'm playing at the furthest zoom level,
largely because it's the only one that doesn't run like total crap
once you have 80 or 90 people walking around.
And also because you have to engage in that timeless mobile game activity
of popping the zits of resources you've produced.
Because who doesn't love tapping on tiny icons incessantly every other minute?
[various bells and whistles]
And when you find yourself needing more supplies,
you can send folks out into the wasteland to try their luck.
But since it's a Fallout game,
but not a FALLOUT game,
you can't actually take part in this exploration at all.
It also can take several days of real time
in order for them to scurry back on to the vault,
but thankfully this is the longest timer in the game.
Which brings me to the good parts of Fallout Shelter,
the first of which is the time-based progression stuff.
And more often than not, you're only waiting a minute or so
for most of the timers to count down for things like resource production,
so I never felt like I was being too arbitrarily held back in what I had to do,
whether it was a goal of my own design
or one of the three objectives on-hand at any given moment.
I also don't feel pressured to make the most gigantic vault ever
because it doesn't bombard you with messages or objectives about how large your friend's vault is, or
how you need to beg other players for resources on Facebook
in order to contruct that one room or whatever.
That kind of nonsense is the quickest way to turn me off to a game like this and
my goodness, is it refreshing to see a building game completely devoid of it.
The other biggest way of turning me off to this type of game
is by including ridiculous microtransaction garbage,
effectively turning it into a pay-to-win game, or a
"pay to have any ounce of fun beyond a certain point" game.
Again, Fallout Shelter does this in a way that doesn't suck,
because the microtransactions are not only decently priced compared to many others,
but they don't give you anything of real value.
So you can't just purchase a bunch of resources, or a bunch of money,
or a bunch of... whatever the hell, who cares?
You purchase lunch boxes
which only have a chance of giving you what you want.
And maybe something slightly higher-tiered, like a set of armor
or a highly-skilled vault dweller from the games.
And since you can just find your own armor and train people for free,
and lunch boxes are unlocked via normal gameplay anyway,
there's no undue pressure to buy them.
The other thing you can buy at this point are Mr. Handy robots,
which wander around collecting those zit resources so you don't have to pop them yourself,
and also defend against things like raider and deathclaw attacks.
Again, they're cool, but not needed.
Having them around is merely a slight convenience thing.
So, Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play game that doesn't exactly suck,
but it's not exactly fun for very long, either.
I know these games aren't meant to be played in anything but short bursts,
and I probably wouldn't want to anyway on a touchscreen,
but I do still wish for something more substantial
in terms of something to freaking do in the later part of the game.
I was hoping you'd be able to specialize your vault
with some of the weird experiments vaults are known for in the Fallout universe, but nope.
You can at least sort of play with eugenics
via breeding the most skilled people you have, but
honestly, the benefits are nominal,
and you have way better luck making superhumans
by simply training them to be super.
Maybe if you could sell your excess dwellers into slavery or something, that'd be cool,
because it'd be more appropriate and
would give you a quick way to make some caps.
Or, frick, just be able to give people different haircuts.
Just something!
Anything other than the same old routine of popping resource acne
for the sake of building more rooms to gain more resources.
Ehh, it's a free-to-play game, so whatever.
And it doesn't treat you with a total lack of respect like so many others I've tried,
so I can recommend it on that alone.
And if you enjoy the twisted world of Fallout
and its little bursts of dark humor and such,
you'll definitely find something to enjoy here,
even if it's short-lived
and ultimately lacking in purpose.
And if you enjoyed this video,
then perhaps you'd like some of my others.
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