Wasteland 2 Director's Cut Digital Classic Edition

Having been a fan of Fallout 1 & 2 I was hoping for a modernized version of that genre with more features. What I got was a whole lot less. Wasteland 2 was a huge letdown as I've come to expect from new adaptations on this genre. The combat is boring and leaves little room for strategy. The voice acting is corny and the dialogue is not interesting at all. The writing is filled with cliche. I actually prefer Fallout's 1990's graphics to Wasteland 2's. WL's visuals just look so fake and the way it displays your movement range really kills the immersion. Someone needs to just make a new Fallout style game with mostly 2D backgrounds. They were so much more beautiful and interesting than the cookie cutter looking worlds you get from 3D. Who cares about moving the camera angle around if the background is too ugly and repetitive to take your interest? Also, this game feels way too on rails for an open world RPG.

I anticipated this game greatly. I was waiting for a pre-2006 title (long story short - not for imbecilistic TV masses looking for "passing their free time with their brains turned off"). No, I was waiting for a GOOD pre-2006 title. Well, as many people already stated: Wasteland 2 simply does not deliver. Yes, at its fundamentals it's an old-gen title through and through. No game-breaking mechanics (that would throw a game-over states out of the window), no quest compasses, no SJW stuff (no, having a lesbian couple in game is not SJW). But oh boy, it's a bad old-gen title. If not some names behind it and the title - it would be forgotten immediately. If it was released back in, let's say, 2000, it would be universally summed up as "mediocre" at best, if not "sub-par". This game is so disjointed, shollow and ultimately pointless, it boggles my mid why it seems to be so universally acclaimed. Maybe people who are amazed with it, really didn't play anything before their precious "absolute classic" - Oblivion, and discover joys of a real computer game? Anyway, Wasteland 2 is a pile of different ideas and mechanics that don't really fit together. Heck - attributes and skills are almost completely autonomic! Wait, what did you say? Yes, and attributes are for the most part absolutely pointless dumps. They don't interact with skills and the gameplay itself besides bonus skill points and some areas of effect. There's no point to take other attributes than Intelligence (bonus skill points) and Coordination (AP). Calling this system "CLASSIC" is really a joke. Also, just pump conversation skills, lockpicking, computers and melee weapons. You will find some ranged goys along the way, and 90% of enemies rush you to melee range anyway. It's really sad, that this huge wall of text world, with no real exposition (the game cannot tell the story outside not-interactive monologues - do you remember the Glow?), is full of generic encounter, where big badgers are the same as robots.

I really enjoyed this game and was a bit surprised by the bugs that a lot of people seem to have run into. Maybe I was lucky, but the game ran smoothly for me and I had fun with it. The story was engrossing and I became attached and commited to my team and completing the mission. The NPC's were fun and interesting, especially in L.A. The game had a lot of humor and funny Easter eggs relating to the pre-apocalypse history of the world. I loved the weapons and having to manage my ammo, which is really important. The skill system makes a real difference in the game as well and you need to think about where you spend your points. A solid strategy is essential in this game, especially on higher difficulties. I'm sure I missed a few missions and did things my way, but that just added to the feel of real consequences at the end. If you're able to run this game without any bugs you'll be in for a lot of fun.

If you played and loved the original Wasteland your in for a disappointment with this title. Wasteland was the first RPG game my parents ever purchased for me on a computer and it hooked me instantly. Wasteland 2, sadly, is not the spiritual successor to the original it is billed as. It uses some of the same place settings and steals a few of the original mechanics but that's about it. There are no real moral decisions to be made here, no real consequences. All the best bits of the original game are missing. The unique story line that dragged you in, the imaginative places (like inside an androids brain), and NPC's that felt real have all been left behind. This frankly reminds me of what would have happened if Michael Bay decided to remake a computer game. Half the story, four times the explosions! If you haven't played the original then this isn't such a bad game in it's own right. It has far less freedom then promised and the technology is certainly dated but it could be a fun way to kill some time. It certainly has more RPG-like aspects then many modern games and is a definite throwback to the early games of the genre. There is a large world with tons of stuff to explore (if you like random loot and scenery), plenty of people to talk to and TONS of things to blow into a fine red mist. At the end of the day Brian Fargo (the director of both Wasteland 1 & 2) is a giant in the field and does put out a decent product. I just wish this game had been done by Interplay and not inExile; or at the very least given a completely new name not linking it to Wasteland.

For someone like myself that grew up with games like Arcanum, Baldur's Gate and the other often-brutal CRPGs of yesteryear, this game is near-perfection. The developers had some design choices that some do not care for, and not everyone likes a game that sometimes is as brutal and unfair to the unwary as the actual Wasteland might do. One major fault that most pepople, myself included, have with the game is the unbalanced nature of the weapons system. Heavy MGs are essentially useless, seeing as theyre unmoddable and jam frequently, and early game can chew through ammo. SMGs are good early, get weak later, which is frustrating to someone devoting a character to an SMG build. There's little reason to use Snipers, because modded assault rifles had nearly the same range and power. And shotguns are only useful for getting up close and having a tickle fight. HOWEVER: There is an absolutely brilliant weapon mod on the inXile forums (their mod site lacks organization, its buried at the end of a long post about the original mod, some guy posted a link to the DC version of the mod at the end of the post) that solves that infuriating issue. All weapons now have their uses, and none, including the once ALL powerful Assault rifles, are perfect for every situation. Better yet, MGs are moddable, and fill an amazing support role, particularly if you play on Supreme Jerk difficulty. Everything else about this game that you'd wanna know has been covered in other reviews here. My only reason for docking this game before was the crap weapon system, and so upon finding this obscure mod I decided to reboot and give it another whirl. Most of the bugs and quest breakers have been patched, I havent came across any on my last 3 runs. You'll still come across 2 year old posts about having to talk to people in a certain order or a quest breaks, and that is no longer the case. There are some minor annoyances, such as your team having the same choice of "Titan? Who or What is Titan?" to every single denizen of a town, that just seems a bit lazy. You should only havce the option to ask about a subject once or twice, not of every single human beingh in the godforsaken wasteland. True bugs and such seem to be mostly eradicated. Anyway, if the only thing holding you back from trying this out is the lack of a good weapon system, DL that mod and you've got an amazing, dense, hilarious, extremely open and unforgiving Wasteland to explore