In the buildup to Fallout 4 (due November 10 this year) we’ve been given iOS joint Fallout Shelter to chew on for a while.
In this smaller cousin to the console game, you play the unseen overseer of a fallout shelter and must build a shelter from scratch and attract, maintain and protect residents therein. It can be addictive or demanding depending on how you look at it. You build the shelter room by room using soda caps as currency and must add living quarters, power generation, water purification and more based on the size and population of your shelter.
The Good
It can be fun. You run the shelter almost like an ant farm, each resident has their own combination of skills that suit a role from working in power generation to having kids – ya, having kids. That’s the way you get more residents – that and they turn up at your door – as do raiders and bandits.
Enter weapons and outfits. These can upgrade special skills that make a resident more effective at certain jobs. You get more weapons and outfits (and caps) through achievements, and sending out explorers into the wasteland.
It’s a cute game that forces you to think about resources and how to manage them best, your residents have funny conversations depending on their personal and communal morale. Hunger, a dead resident or radiation illness means low morale – health and productivity means happiness. It can keep you occupied for hours – and that’s the bad.
The Bad
After a while you might just ask yourself, ‘why am I doing this?’. The shelter needs constant attention and the balance of power, water, residents etc needs constant management – I tried maintaining a status quo but that doesn’t work. You have to keep building and monitoring rooms and residents – I added up to 70 residents and then the population started to explode. But that’s part of the challenge. Still I lost interest cause…well I have life. That and there’s no real point but to have a shelter. So if that’s your thing, this is your game. But if you need more than achievements and maybe a little narrative and story – it’s a negatory.
Games15
Stay tuned, ‘cause Games 15 is coming up this month – the 10th to the 12th to be exact. We’re hoping to talk to folks and meet some of you gaming fans! According to the press, “The ESL ESEA Pro League Invitational will centre around first person shooter game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with…$250,000 (Dhs 918,000) [to be won]….Famous gamers scheduled to attend include Joe Miller, Lauren “Pansy” Scott and Leigh “Deman” Smith.” It promises to be the region’s biggest and best yet.
