You have to hand it to Vault-Tec for seeing the coming nuclear apocalypse and making the safe havens for mankind to survive into the future which are known as vaults. Unfortunately, every Overseer of these testaments to the company's foresight seems to get a big head on their shoulders or runs their vault into the ground in some way which makes me think that, "Hey, I could do way better than this guy." Well now you can have the chance to prove what kind of leader you would be as an Overseer to your very own vault. You will be tasked with the survival of your vault dwellers and you must make the right decisions in order to keep them alive. This means feeding them, giving them power and arming them against anything that may threaten their safety in the crazy Fallout universe.
Things in Fallout Shelter start out just like most strategy/builder games where players begin with a small amount of resources and people and then gradually you build into your glorious empire or rather your glorious hole type bunker thing in the side of a mountain. Players start of with whatever vault number they decide upon and are given a few caps along with some vault dwellers to begin creating your underground sanctuary. You will need things such as food, water and electricity in order to survive and keep your dwellers happy and healthy. The amount you need of each of these resources is kept track of at the top of the screen by progression bars. A full bar is not mandatory in order to survive but it sure doesn't hurt either, the amount you will need is indicated by a line through either one of the bars and will change depending on the number of vault dwellers, amount of rooms needing power and so on.
While not all of the rooms you will be able to build have a dire purpose in order to keep your vault going, they do all serve a purpose and some of them are quite fun. The more dwellers you get in your vault through giving birth or getting them to randomly come to your vault from the wastes will unlock new rooms to build. The Nuka Cola Factory and Radio Station were among my favorites and the station is great for not only improving the mood of all your people but it also brings more survivors to the doors of your vault. There are also rooms later on that will help train your vault dwellers in the various skills such as strength, endurance and charisma. This in turn will greatly increase the production from that person once you put them in an assigned room, it is also beneficial to keep an eye on dwellers skills and assign them to a room they would work best in.
As you start to build up a hefty supply of caps you will be able to upgrade the various rooms in your vault by selecting on the room. This feature is another great way to increase the productivity for that specific room and then later expanding the rooms individual size. You can do this by placing the same room type right next to the one that is already built. If the rooms are already the same upgrade level then they will combine and add new little features as they go. In the Radio Stations case, the more you expanded you would end up with a sound booth, a record selection area and quite the impressive mixing station too.
Things are not always so simple though as Fallout Shelter has some features for keeping you on your toes. Raider, Radroach, Mole rat and the recent addition of Deathclaw attacks can occur randomly throughout your playthrough. I have to say that seeing a heard of Deathclaws charge at your vault doors is something terrifying and you better hope that your vault dwellers are well armed for the experience. Players will need to drag their characters to the main entry way for Raider and Deathclaw attacks or they will spread throughout your vault as an alarm rings across the screen. Radroach and Mole rat attacks however appear randomly just like room fires in various rooms as they crawl through a borough hole to attack those inside the room. Most of the time things will be resolved easily if your dwellers are equipped with weapons so there isn't much to despair about if you keep a cool head. Weapon and clothing collecting is another feature for your dwellers to do by sending them out into the wastes, hopefully armed and with a pocket full of stimpacks.
Where the whole experience begins to slow down however is when your vault reaches critical mass. Like most games of this type players manage to create an amazing castle or fortification for the people they rule over and the same goes for Fallout Shelter. I was thoroughly impressed with my vault once I reached about 125 or so vault dwellers and experienced many pleasing references to the Fallout lore but there was nowhere to go once I got there. The last featured room players are able to construct is the Nuka Cola Factory and while you can continue to build the other rooms and expand further downward with your vault, I just didn't see a reason for it.
There is plenty of more room for a game like Fallout Shelter to expand outward with the Fallout universe. I'd like to imagine that future updates could feature trading with caravans or possibly creating your own to buy and sell things. Even without this though the game is very solid and unlike other games of this type the micro-transactions do not feel necessary in order to create a vault you would be proud of. Things are toughest for players early on but that's how it goes in most Fallout games where you have to dig deep in order to survive.
Good:
- References to Fallout lore
- Easy to pick up and play
- In-app purchases are not required but are reasonable and available
Bad:
- Not much long term appeal
- Adversities that the game throw at you become easy later on
Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10
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