The Great Action-RPG Torrent of Early 2004 is well and truly underway, and as longtime 1UP readers may have noticed, it hasn't gotten off to the most auspicious of starts. Interplay's Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, the first of three RPGs coming out all at once that use the same basic engine, was a disappointment in nearly every way -- bland graphics, boring gameplay, the whole seen-it-all-before-and-seen-it-done-better vibe in full effect. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, by all expectations, should have faced a similar fate: not only did Snowblind Studios jump ship to SOE instead of making the sequel to the original BGDA, but Black Isle Studios, the developer that took up the job in Snowblind's place, was disbanded by Interplay almost immediately after the last line of code was written on this game. That's gotta hurt.