Wasteland 2 Director's Cut Digital Deluxe Edition

First off, it's fun. On fusing newer '90s+ elements with a lot of the classic late '80s stuff without the really yucky bits, it's a smashing success. It's definitely easy to jump in, start playing and get that sense of urgency and relevant exploration they don't tend to pull off as well in modern games. On the flipside, the reason the game is easy to jump into is that it's perhaps overly under-complicated. Take combat. It's turn-based and basically mashes X-Com's cover and opportunity fire with a lot of the weapon balancing and crits vs. bullet spam strategies of Fallout's 2D games. But beyond equipping well and starting off in a good position it's never a tactical chess game from turn to turn and you never get that wow-my-characters-can-do-THAT-now feeling without the perks or targeting of Fallout. Similarly, character building and advancement is a bit overly simplistic. There is a Charisma attribute and there are diplomacy and barter skills. I'm not sure charisma has any impact on the diplomacy or barter. That's all skill-level-based. If you have enough levels, you get the candy, which really makes it hard to not emphasize the Intelligence score. It's the same with most non-weapon skills. Charisma really seems more about boosting leadership radius which helps keep your NPCs from running off and being stupid during fights. As such, it really makes more sense to spread your diplomacy and barter skills around rather than make them all the focus of a "talker." Too many character builds are better off going high Int, IMO since attributes have no bearing on skill success and that bugs me. The game could use something like perks to make characters feel less like skill/derived stat buckets. Is it as awesome as Wasteland or the early Fallouts? I'll stop at "It's worthwhile to people who loved those games." I'm digging it. I'm glad to have participated in the Kickstarter. It scratches enough of the right itches and will be on my PC for at least a year.

I was one of the kickstarter supporters and pledged my money towards both Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera. I just got Wasteland 2 yesterday and I spent a couple of hours playing with it. I have to say I like it a lot and for me the game is worth every penny! The game play, the story and quality of writing reminds me very much of Fallout 1 and Planespace Torment. I'm really happy that I can get the game through GOG.COM! Wasteland 2 is a rare gem in this day and age...

This game is a HUGE disappointment. I bought it on Steam early access . The game was incomplete and horribly broken, but I hoped retail version would be fixed. Nope. Not even close. When the game shipped it was still broken, badly designed dull and even now, nearly two years and several massive patches later, the vast majority of the original problems still exist: - you spend 30 percent of your play time sorting through convoluted inventory and nonsensical weapon upgrade system where you cannot simply detach a scope (or any other useful part) from a weapon being stripped for parts - instead you have a percent chance of getting this or that part - you will spend another 30 percent of play time opening boxes, chests and safes as nearly EVERY box, chest, safe, door and gate has 1) a booby trap, 2) a lock and 3) an alarm (! and you need to use THREE different skills to disarm them !); and, your 'security specialist' will trigger critical failures on these nearly EVERY TIME even with 68 and higher percent chance of success; and the loot you find is random, nearly always useless junk, and you wonder who would secure that box in this manner to protect useless junk - item/skill system is unbalanced: if you have 2 snipers, 3 riflemen and an energy weapons specialist you are set, rendering pistols, melee weapons, shotguns, heavy weapons (and related skills/tactics) useless - in the second half of the game you can't wear any good armor as it makes you MORE VULNERABLE because enemies use energy weapons which do double damage to armored targets, and in the first half of the game good armors are unavailable - some quests are still partly broken and most quests require a LOT OF running back and forth - sound of the dot-matrix printer (showing events feedback) is maddening and cannot be turned off - the story is cliche and the ending is idiotic (where shooting the main bad guy in the head without being spotted triggers (instead of his death) a never-ending speech...

I must say that this game was a little... underwhelming. There isn't anything bad, per say, but there just isn't much good. It's hard to put my finger on why it wasn't good. It just felt like a cheap game and not a title worth its price. Probably the biggest selling point of this game, for me, was the promise of great tactical combat. I was so excited that I sat down and played this game for over 20 hours since I purchased it (what like a day ago?). Slow week, for me. Combat was fun, for the first little bit. Until you realize you will spend hours and hours fighting the same random battles. The same boring enemies over, and over, and over. Everything is so bland (well, it is post-apocalyptic after all). Each area in the game has a small pool (if even that) of random battles that you can run into. Which are BORING. You NEED these battles, because you need to grind, and you need money. They are EASY. However, knowing that this was just a mechanic made to solve a critical problem in the game, they created a skill that reduces random encounters. Talk about a cheap way out. Another sad part about the combat is that you don't need to specialize your characters. Certain weapons are just infinitely better than others and certain skills net you more. The higher difficulty wasn't a challenge. The voices are good, but limited. There is a lot of great story, but any of the side information is just lacking and unnecessary. At first it was great, but then every character started re-hashing the same lines in different ways. The game tends to make you "run errands." You spend a significant amount of time running back and forth between areas on the main map. The menu, while improved from EA, is still a nightmare. Often, you must click a skill multiple times, then click on the object for the game to register. Very glitchy controls. I just don't know how to best describe this game. It's not horrible, but it isn't good. It's not average. Watch a few videos before you purchase.