Posted on: September 21, 2014

Machinators

Games: Reviews: 77

Does more right than wrong

I'm not particularly a fan of the post-apocalyptic setting but this game (as well as Fallout) have me interested because of how engaging both these series are. As for this game though, it borderlines on mediocracy and sometimes over into greatness, but much like the raids from the Wrecking Crew; you never know when it's going to come. The graphics are so-so, nothing special, but not bad either. The environments look nice whilst the character models aren't, the sound effects are average whilst the music is atmospheric and immersive. You can see what I'm getting at here, for everything this game does right there is something wrong to bring it down. However, the good side of this game is stronger than the weaker side. Creating a fully custom party of 4 and then expanding it up to 7 is great, just great and the dialogue system is awesome. They moved on from the initial keyword system to conversation words and it works nicely. Any of your characters can participate given they meet the corresponding skill. The turn-based combat is extremely fun and highly tactical, too, where positioning, weapon type and any potential skill(s) are key to victory. RNG exists and can screw you over but you can mitigate this with things like distance and "optimal range" for your chosen weapon. There're variety of builds you can make and messing around with them is incredibly fun. The story and characters are surprisingly good with a simple setup that later evolves and blends in with the world building. You navigate the map to go to locations, avoiding radiated areas and discovering hidden caches and locations. There's just A LOT to love about this CRPG and it's really up there with other similar ones and Fallout as far as I'm concerned. This game is fun, humorous, content-filled and intricate. If you can overlook mediocracy and jank you're in for a good time.

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Posted on: May 2, 2023

Salmanasar

Games: 680 Reviews: 5

this game brought me back to RPGs.

Around 2010, I was pretty disgusted by what "modern" RPGs had to offer. Every one of them looked the same, desperately trying to mimics the TES: Oblivion/Fallout 3 style. Then, Kickstarter happened and brought us this little gem. Is it the best RPG ever made? Hell no. There's no "preparation phase" during encounters, it lacked the "precise shoot" option, weapons and skills were unbalanced and the second half of the game felt rushed. Still, it's one of my favourite titles, despite all of its flaws. It showed there's still an audience for the more classic, isometric RPGs with more limited scope, but higher priority put on climate, worldbuilding and story. Without the success of the Wasteland 2, we wouldn't have the Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin and other, more indie titles. You probably won't have as much fun with it as I did - graphic is even more dated than in 2013, there's way bigger selection of the "classic-like" titles set in fallout-like settings and, unfortunately, early versions of the unity engine were very slow and unstable, even on powerful PCs. But still, it's a pretty fun game if you only give it a chance.

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Posted on: October 6, 2014

arkimedesjw

Games: 138 Reviews: 2

Made for fans of old-school nostalgia

The reviews here seem pretty polarizing, but coming from a long-time PC RPGer who played both Fallout 1 and 2 on release in the 90s, this game hits the nostalgia button HARD. I'm about halfway through the game and thoroughly enjoying it. PROS - Open world, explore-in-whatever-order gameplay that feels like Fallout 1 and 2. - Writing is very detailed, lots of atmosphere, game is filled with dark humor and some great characters (Scotchmo, the shotgun-wielding Lord of the Hobos! "These aren't my pants! These aren't my pants! I sh*t in these pants.") - Isometric turn-based combat is straight from Fallout. Lots of different weapons. The party-based combat feels a bit like Icewind Dale. - Many different ways to tackle quests using different skills, so multiple playthroughs will feel different. - Different factions you can "side" with to complete quest areas. CONS - Bugs. Save often. You never know when you'll need to reload after some kind of game-breaking bug. - Lack of polish. Certain things that you expect to work... don't. (e.g. Clicking somewhere on the map doesn't move your viewpoint to that portion of the map. So anytime you want your party to move across a large play area, you need to pan across the entire thing and find the exit point). - Too much running across play-fields you have already finished. - Your four rangers don't have much personality compared to the other NPCs. - Save scumming. The random number generator resets with every try, so you can Quick Load your game and open every chest, win every encounter that isn't "0% Impossible." - Too many locked, trapped chests and boxes everywhere. Gets repetitive. See save scumming. Overall, if you can ignore the cons, which I was able to do, you'll find a lot to enjoy in this game. I don't know if it's worth $40, but it was worth every cent of the $15 I Kickstarted it with back in 2012.

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Posted on: November 22, 2014

antichrist666

Verified owner

Games: 96 Reviews: 8

review of wasteland 2 (patch4)

I haven't seen any other game on gog.com that has attracted such mixed reviews. Seems with this one you either love it or hate it. I'm not sure exactly what people are picking on as I am one of the people who love it. I backed it right from the start on kickstarter. I played the original wasteland in 1990 when I was in year 10 at high school. The original was awesome and I was totally addicted to it, couldn't put it down. Now, of course, it looks its age and graphically is virtually unplayable. Does the new Wasteland 2 have the same feel to it? I would say that it does. Having never played any of the Fallouts I'm probably the only person who isn't comparing it to Fallout 2. The fact that turn based battles have made a comeback is fantastic. I much prefer this to the real time who's attacking who and what's going on free for all of Neverwinter Nights 2. I'm not sure why the major publishers ditched them in the first place but I'm glad the smaller publishers have brought them back. I'll indulge in a little nostalgia here and say that these turn based skirmishes remind me of the glorious Death Knights of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn, etc that I played as a kid on the C64. I'd say that Brian Fargo really delivered on this one. Too many early access games and kickstarter projects collapse in a heap, just look at the fiasco with Elite: dangerous cancelling the offline mode! But not Wasteland 2. This game is exactly what I expected it to be and what I hoped it would be. I think that all the people bagging this game were expecting Fallout 4. If that's you, stay away because apparently its not. If you are looking for an awesome turn based RPG and don't have any misconceptions about this being Fallout then give it a go.

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Posted on: November 29, 2020

Trekonus

Verified owner

Games: 64 Reviews: 4

Really good, but not good enough.

I'd like to say only good things about this game. This game is like a pretty girl with a bad temper. It makes you wanna love it, and it made me wanna love it. But after some time of playing and thinking I realized we better break up. From the very begining the game is charming you with a great deep immersion feeling. The world looks real. It makes you believe it's real. Makes you wanna know more about it, get closer to it and become part of it. But it gives you the oportunity only to know more about it. No matter how hard I tried, I always had a feeling that I'm just an outside observer. Because this game is by no means an RPG. I mean besides the fact that you need to create a character and pick his look and skills, there's no role to play. Even dialog skills gives you nothing but some bonus rewards or let you avoid one of the countless fights. And here we step to the main problem: Wastland 2 rises a lot of expectations it does not fulfill in the future. From the very first moments I got the feeling that I'm gonna enjoy an advanced classic-fallout gamestyle. Lots of different skills and attributes gives you an impression of highly variable playthrough, but it is not so. To the end of the first quarter of the game I realised that almost all of the non-combat skills a basicly worthless. No hacker with ability to desrupt enemy's advance will ever get the efficiency of a combat-focus char with a good gun and good aim.(and combat is what you will do most of th time). The combat has an x-com style cover-system, yet the reallity is that most of the times it's much more efficient not to waste your action points getting to cover and start shooting right away. Many small details shows you how hard,cruel and dangeros this world is. But after a mid of the game you despise any danger. You just get the right perks, load the right guns and pray for those idiots who stand in your way. So,I wanne give some respect to the developers, and to wish: Try harder! You almost did it!

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