BROKEN ROADS - REVIEW
Broken Roads has been awaited by fans as a post-apocalyptic CRPG in the vein of classic Fallout. Now that it's here, the game may not be quite as deep as players were hoping, but there's a beauty in its simplicity that makes it a memorable experience regardless.
A POST-APOCALYPTIC OUTBACK
Broken Roads takes place in Western Australia, some four generations after a nuclear war. The devastated world is less Fallout and more The Walking Dead, with survivors banding together in tight-knit communities or turning to banditry to survive. A feeling of tribalism and distrust pervades the setting since resources are scarce due to a fifteen-year drought, and anyone could be a spy or a thief.
At first, the world seems fairly grounded in reality, but some supernatural elements slowly start to creep in. A few hours later, characters with strange powers are introduced - not necessarily magic, but close enough for that to be the best term for it. Learning this power for yourself adds new builds and options in combat. There are also mutated animals roaming the Outback, from bloodthirsty dingoes to ravenous koalas and kangaroos.
The Australian setting is always front and center, and Broken Roads is clearly made by people who love their country and culture deeply and can poke fun at it. There are even tooltips to translate Australian slang for players who don't hail from the Land Down Under.
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The tree of possible outcomes isn't anything revolutionary, and in most cases, boils down to whether you want to complete a quest this way or that way, but it's executed well enough that consequences down the line feel organic. That's really in keeping with Broken Roads as a whole; it doesn't do anything that's really new, but it also doesn't try to overcomplicate things or reinvent the wheel. It's not the second coming of Fallout 2, but rather a fun, contemplative RPG that's more compelling in the quiet moments than in the midst of battle.
