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Wasteland 2 (PC)

Categories: [blog]
Tags: [review], [video games], [pc]

I love the Fallout series, particularly 1 and 2, so I backed Wasteland 2 very promptly. An all-star team developing a successor to the spiritual prequel of fallout? Too good to be true.

And I guess it is, a little bit. There's nothing really WRONG with wasteland 2, but it felt a little odd to play. In some ways it felt kind of too long (as in, I was ready to be done with it about halfway through), and yet the ending seems very rushed. I don't actually know how long it took me to finish, hours wise.

Skill challenges didn't seem all that important, because you can save scum your way past them anyway.

Your companions get very slow when encumbered (to the point where they can't move anymore), but amusingly don't lose any combat movement. So you can have your characters moving halfway across the screen in the turn-based combat mode, but they run at glacial pace.

One character got a pretty good energy weapon fairly early in the game, and I kept trying to find replacements for it (seeing as all the other weapon classes kept getting improved throughout), but turns out it was just the best energy weapon in the game, possibly one of the best weapons in the game. Oh well.

There is sadly little room for maneuvering in the context of the overarching story. You are given a couple of token chances to side with the bad guys, but it isn't REALLY fleshed out very well. After reading how they are treated, I'm glad I didn't go any further down those tracks than I did. The story in general is alright, there are some pretty interesting missions, and then some pretty generic ones. The big baddy is dropped fairly abruptly near the end, and isn't really all that impressive - I think the ending is the part that seems like it needed more dev time. Could have had a lot more done with it.

The combat system is fine, nothing really amazing or bad when comparing to other 'tactics' style games that I've played. Some of the weapon classes are pretty damn weak, but then you get that.

Overall it was worth playing, but I can't say it will stick with me in the way that Fallout 1 and 2 did. Hopefully the director's cut that's coming out soonish will fix a few of the less-awesome parts and make it a more well-rounded experience, but I don't think I will be playing a second time.

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