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Art for the video game Fallout Shelter.
Art for the video game Fallout Shelter.

Title: Fallout Shelter

Platform: Android, iOS, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC

Cost: Free

Rating: Suitable for 10+, with cartoon violence and suggestive themes

Score: 7/10

Bethesda Softworks' simulation game Fallout Shelter, which puts players in the role of an overseer managing a group of vault dwellers as they struggle to stay alive in an underground bunker, is also available on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.

In the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Fallout universe, players take on the role of the overseer to build and manage a vault, working to keep its residents happy by providing them food, water and electricity. Survivors rescued from the surface can be put to work in various facilities, and as the vault's population grows, players will build more rooms and expand deeper beneath the wasteland's surface.

Fallout Shelter's characters use the same S.P.E.C.I.A.L. statistics system that the other games in the Fallout series use -- Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence and Luck.

Each character's statistics determine what kind of room the dweller should work in and how many resources that room will develop. For example, dwellers with high Strength scores will do better working in the power facilities that keep the lights on, while characters with high Perception scores do better in the waterworks facilities.

The game has a cartoonish style heavily influenced by Vault Boy, the mascot character of the Vault-Tec corporation in the Fallout universe, and while there's violence in the form of raiders and monsters attacking dwellers, there's no blood or gore. When raiders or dwellers die, they simply fall down and have X's for eyes.

There's more to do than just work inside the vault, though. Dwellers can be equipped with armor, weapons and pets, and then sent out into the Wasteland to scavenge for supplies, survivors and bottle caps -- the currency of the Fallout Shelter universe. Dwellers can also be sent on missions with special rewards once the overseer's office is built.

Being sent away on missions is dangerous, but it's not always safe below ground, either. Dwellers continually have to fight off invasions of mutated creatures such as mole rats, ghouls and Radroaches, and attacks by raiders who have gone insane from living above ground.

The core of the game is resource management. As the population in the vault grows, the need to add more food, water and power rooms increases. But as the population grows and new building options are unlocked, enemies become stronger.

It should be noted that the best way to increase the population is by managing the, uh, extracurricular activities of the dwellers. Pairing up men and women in the common living areas leads to flirtation and corny pickup lines, such as: "Do you have a watch? I think it's snuggle time." With a boost from Charisma scores, the dwellers will head behind a curtained-off area, and when they reappear a moment later, the female dweller will be pregnant.

This is part of the simulation management as well -- babies will inherit their looks and bonuses to their statistics from their parents.

As the game progresses, it becomes possible to start training dwellers to increase their S.P.E.C.I.A.L. statistics, like putting them in a weight room to pump iron until the Strength score increases. And as they gain experience from working or killing enemies, they'll level up.

The weak points of the game are that there's no real story or narrative progression, and there's no endgame other than customizing the vault just as you like it and making sure you have a roster of the best, strongest dwellers.

One of the reasons I like games such as Fallout Shelter is because it lends itself to a very casual style of play. There's no need to sit and play it for hours on end -- it's designed to be played many times throughout the day for short periods of time, or just played every few days.

Fallout Shelter is free-to-play, although there are microtransactions available in the form of boxes containing rare weapons or characters, helper robots and speed-boosts that, when opened, might contain rare characters and weapons. However, the game can be played just fine without microtransactions and the rewards inside can generally be acquired through normal play.

As a casual time-waster game, Fallout Shelter is enjoyable to play from time to time. Its main purpose, though, is probably to keep players interested in the Fallout universe, as the latest game in the series, Fallout 76, will be released this fall. It succeeds at doing that pretty well, too.

ActiveStyle on 07/09/2018

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