Fallout Shelter

It can be a little weird when a franchise tries something new. Sometimes, you get a game like Fallout Tactics - a superb adaptation that pushes the boundaries of a franchise. Other times, you get Hotel Mario, a mistake that everyone wants to forget. Fallout Shelter is definitely a departure for the Fallout franchise, and fortunately it is more of the former than the latter. How good it is, though, depends on what you're looking for in a game and whether you can look past some of Fallout Shelter's shortcomings.

Fallout Shelter is an entry in the legendary Fallout franchise and the first to be released as a free to play title. Instead of working as an RPG or a strategy game, this title is a management sim. The player is cast as a Vault Overseer in a post-apocalyptic world, one charged with keeping a functional society going while the world outside falls apart. From a practical standpoint, this means adding on to the player's Vault, keeping the rooms staffed, and dealing with all the trials that come from running a closed society. There's no win state here, but there is a definite compulsion to keep the Vault running as long as you can.

One of the things that really makes Fallout Shelter stand out is the art style. The game absolutely looks like what you'd expect a Vault Overseer's own personal screen to look like - half VATS and half Vault Co marketing. This helps to keep the player's mind off the fact that he or she is (within the fiction) basically just running a giant ant farm full of people. The game loop also holds up very well - you build rooms, staff them, make your Vault better and go through it again. It's perfect for those who want short play sessions. Even the microtransactions feel palatable in the game, with no feeling that they're being pushed on free to play players.

There are a few downsides to the game, of course. If you're not into the building management sim genre, you're not going to find much here. There's also the fact that random events can totally derail your progress, which both adds frustration and excitement to the game. Beyond that, though, there's not a lot to keep you playing - this is more of a 'waiting for the bus' kind of game than one you'd play while you're killing a significant amount of time.

Fallout Shelter is a very good game in a genre that only appeals to a small sliver of gamers. It keeps Fallout's spectacular aesthetic and certainly feels like it is part of the same universe as the main games, even if you're looking at a fairly standard management sim locked underneath that post-apocalyptic skin. If you love management sims, you'll love this game. If you're a fan of Fallout, you'll want to give it a try. Even if you're not a fan of either, this is one game that's worth a download - at the very least, you'll get a good idea of what all the hype is about.