‘War……War Never Changes’. This was the famous line that would take a franchise into that of legend. The Fallout series has become a staple of everyone’s console library with Fallout 3, New Vegas and the upcoming Fallout 4. It has truly shown that a series can evolve to not just secure a new audience, but also to revive the love that the past audience had with the former titles.

For those who may not know, Fallout wasn’t always and FPS-RPG. It started itself out as an isometric RPG, using a Diablo style camera to immerse you into the towns, cities and hotspots of the game. Plus, it was this style that gave birth to a lot of the Fallout tropes that we now know and love today, including the Super Mutants, Enclave, Power Armour you name it. But with this game back in the day taking the populous of gamers on PC by storm, some say that it would not have become as successful if it wasn’t for another game that took place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Introduce the Isometric view RPG that started it all, Wasteland. Originally released on the Commodore 64, this adventure had you take control of your own team of Desert Rangers as you explore the wastes and help out those that need your assistance. Since this was a title that was released way before that of the original Fallout, gameplay was restricted to the bare basics. You still had the random element as you never knew who or what you were going to come across. But instead of having a fancy UI or in depth controls, you had a simple Final Fantasy style turn based system coupled with in depth information about damage and where you have hit your opponents in a text box next to their picture. Looking back at these titles now it is a simple matter as to whether you prefer the originator or the successor. However, today we have a new struggle on our hands.

With the release of Fallout 4 on the horizon, I went back and played the new generation of Fallout games alongside the newly released Wasteland 2. Now it isn’t a simple matter of original vs successor, now it is between evolution and tradition. Can Wasteland 2’s attention to its roots as well as the upgrades it has made to appeal to a new audience stand up against the evolution of Fallout from Isometric RPG to FPS-RPG? Find out my full thoughts in the following video and be sure to let us know what you think about these two titans of the apocalyptic wasteland in the comments.

by Dominic Coles | November 5th, 2015