As a child of the 80s, teen of the 90s, I grew up with the best turn based RPG of all, the original Fallout franchise. This game (and its predecessors) fit nicely into the hole left behind. Aside from a high volume of exposition and some 2 dimensional characters (Wu, in particular), the dialogue is fair and well written; the combat is frequent enough to keep the game fluid, but not always necessary (there are ocassions where you have the option to talk yourself out). There are several improvements over earlier entries to the franchise too: the leveling screens have been trimmed down and organized in a more friendly way to name one, and the player is given less hand-holding in terms of finding the best gear. My only nit, and the reason why I marked this game down from a full 5, is the lack of humor and dynamic elements. Fallout out had crazy random events, all of which offered a wink or a nod to a sci-fi film or novel; characters interaction had options that offered real affect on the game play and story progression--not the case here. Still a good game regardless, certainly one for the collection.
