I really REALLY enjoyed The Fall: Last Days of Gaia Reloaded, with the english fan made patch!
For those that haven't got a chance to play it yet. If you ever played Soldiers of Anarchy, the Fall is made by them and is very similiar. However the game is much more about roleplaying and character development, than straight tactical strategy title, think Soldiers of Anarchy meets Fallout and you get the basic idea. If you've never played Soldiers of Anarchy , I guess think Jagged Alliance 3D, meets Fallout
The setting is very Fallout esque. Set in a post apoclyptic setting no civilization to speak of, and a few remaining communities barely hanging on. After you home town is burned to the ground you wander into a town that's building a reputation as re-establishing law and order in the wild lands. You quickly get recruited to restoring order in the area and soon find yourself leading a team of 5 other soldiers to restore peace, while making peace with what happend to your parents and finding what remains of your familiy in this wild frontier. I'm really enjoying this one once I got into it.
Downsides sides are, they never made (and will never release) an english version, so I had to buy the german release and install the fan made english mod. Problem is you have to deal with german speaking with english subtitles. It took about 3 re-tries till I got into it, around the time I was about a hour in...and finally got hooked by the story and otherwise great title.
The game only other lowlight are a some non criticial bugs, some rare poor translations (nothing like the previous versions which were buggy as hell), the staight forward combat nature might put some off as well, though I thought it added to the focus it was putting on the roleplaying elements and made the game a smooth play.
The game otherwise so far has played rock solid. Considering the dearth of party based RPGs I'm really enjoying this one!
When it came to creating a living world rpg complex and rich, The Fall did not skimp, in fact this is the pinnacle of the genre IMO! Day ad night is modeled and people go about their daily lives, sleep, work, play, and seem to have a diffirnt thing to say depending on what they are doing. They tons ways to interact with the world, loads of equipment and items , and mutliple ways to resolve quests.
You can customize how you look, your skills and stats, and your party and who's in it. Fairly open ended play (sort of like NWN2 with new areas opening up as you go but find yourself hitting the old areas as well for your tasks).
The game also has a branching story arch at least twice as far as I can tell, though I haven't played it through again to determine the impact of these choices. I also found a few after game events, since it lets you play the game after you've completed the games primary quests. Nothing major, but definetly a nice touch. I found in many cases that quests would have multiple paths and options to complete (i.e. combat, persade, mail man run).
With 23 zones to explore and 70 quests to play out, as well as all the other little touches in stories in non quest (like the man at night you catch him cheating on his wife, when you talk to wife while he's out with the woman she'll admit that she knows about, but during the day they seem like a totally loving couple sharing found on the bench lovingly talking to each other...is just one of the many examples I've found) this is really a amazing rpg.
I loved it so much I created a Walkthrough for the game!
Took a lot of time to compile the data, a lot longer than I thought it would...and it still needs work. If people are interested in it please let me know what you would like to see...and feel free to contribute!
Walkthrough includes (i would love to find a offical home for the FAQ hint, hint!
FAQ
Where to get the game
Installing the game (step by step)
Opening movie translation
Walkthrough for all zones
Weapons and Equipment Charts
Attributes
Skills
Talents
Party Skill recommendation
Recruitable NPC Character stats
Additional XP and Player Benefit Events
To Do List
Fix formatting and organzation of walkthrough
Still missing a few weapons and items
Translate Manual to English
Item merging and add0ons cheat sheet
Tips and Strategies
Equipping Your Troops
Terrain Considerations
Misc Strategies
Mods and Cheats
Link
http://home.comcast.net/~taskforcecommand/The Fall FAQ.doc
