Gather ye round, children, for it's once again that most magical time of year: The Epic store freebies of the week are good enough to make it worth remembering your password—did you use a special character this time like I asked?—and waiting for the launcher to update. That's right, it's the Fallout Classic Collection, which includes Fallouts 1, 2, and Tactics. Not included in the Fallout Classic Collection—but no less free—is Wild Card Football.
PC Gamer has a strong editorial history on ranking the Fallout games that hews mostly to the tastes of news writer Joshua Wolens's freebie/deal posts, much like the one you're reading right now. Josh is also absolutely correct, so here's PC Gamer's objective, immutable ranking of the Fallout series as compiled from GOG, Twitch, and Prime Gaming news posts:
Well I have played a bit of Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (not to be confused with Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel) over a decade ago and it's perfectly fine. Adequate. It's more classic Fallout, and finally with full party control, but critically lacking the series' open-endedness, reactivity, and sense of whimsy. It's fun enough, but with so much of the Fallout-ness stripped away, you're left with a squad tactics game that lacks the ambition of the OG XCOM and Jagged Alliance games, while also being crusty and clunky compared to modern examples like the new XCOM and Jagged Alliance games.
Tactics does have an ace up its sleeve though: The Sum / Nous Aurons, a total conversion mod that represents a completely different kind of apocalypse, one stemming from ecological catastrophe and leaving an afterscape influenced by capital-A Anarchist politics. I've heard it has all the classic Fallout reactivity and attention to detail I crave too, and Nous Aurons seems like the sort of thing that could boost Tactics up on the list a few spaces. Unfortunately I found myself vexed by the installation process the last time I tried, but we'll get there someday—watch this space.
So that's a pretty healthy chunk of Fallout for the low price of free, you just have to deal with the Epic Launcher, whose fiddliness and user-unfriendliness have given me conniptions and driven me to buy games I already got for free just so I could have them on Steam or GOG instead. But what if we sweeten the pot? I've got four words for you: Wild Card Football, baby.
It's hard to say where Wild Card Football should sit on our official ranking of the Fallout games—I haven't played it, and I accidentally set my age too low on the Epic Store's restricted content popup on my browser. The Epic Store uses vile digital surveillance tools (cookies) to remember that I'm underage (almost thirty), another black mark on Epic's record.
Thanks to the magic of Incognito Mode—I don't want to try remembering my Epic password for the launcher right now—I can see that Wild Card Football is an arcadey take on America's favorite sport, but even more cartoonishly violent than the real thing. It reminds me of Blitz: The League, which I fondly recall watching my big brother play on the Xbox 360. One thing I don't get though: Why is Wild Card Football age-restricted and not the Bloody Mess-making original Fallouts?
Nevertheless, it sounds like Wild Card Football has a good shot at unseating Tactics as the sixth-best Fallout game, though I don't know if Wild Card Football has any cerebral, anarchist total conversion mods that would really seal the deal. Fallout Classic Collection and Wild Card Football will remain Epic freebies until September 5.
