Wasteland 3

The first 3 hours were rather enjoyable. I don't even mind that the models look like they are from a decade ago. Then the first crash happened. They always happens during combat. Graphics just abruptly get stuck with a small jerk and the game crashes. And honestly, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, if it hadn't started happening reliably a few hours later. I cannot even finish the Clown Museum mission. I have tried quicksaving and loading to no avail. There are also other game-breaking bugs like discovering a mound to dig up containing a quest item, but it ends up bugging out and cannot be dug up (animation runs, but nothing happens). I have waited quite a while for them to fix the majority of bugs before picking this up because I really enjoyed the Wasteland series, but this is a great joke (clown pun intended). I am a developer myself and I'd be ashamed to release a product like this (at such a price point nontheless). And them releasing more DLC instead of fixing the issues just adds insult to injury. Online you will find opinions that the game is well worth it despite the crashes. And that would be true if the game didn't randomly decide that a particular encounter is where it'll crash 100% of the time.

There are countless and sometimes gamebreaking bugs, so numerous that bugreports get swallowed in the general forum as there is shockingly no bugreport forum at Steam or any such function in-game. Ive encountered a bug that broke my entire main characters progression and had to start over. Regarding loading times, the game should be called: Waste Time 3x. It takes several minutes to load a savegame or to load an area, all of which are very small so even more loading screens. Half my time was wasted while loading and using an SSD. Often, dialogues with NPCs have skill requirements and if you dont meet them you may want to reload since you had some skill points left over and can choose the option. Then you reload and pick the option only to be presented another line thereafter that asks for another skill you have points left but of course you dont know which skills NPCs ask for. Point is, in NPC areas you load dozens of times and each time thats several minutes. After an hour you could very well still be at the same spot and find out how to allocate the points so you can meet as many requirements as possible for that extra XP.

I set my bar lower for inXile games after Numenera (sucked). Gets 5 stars to outbalance 1's, because this is not a 1, by far. In reality 4. Gameplay superfun, combat works, character progress constant and engaging, you really have to strategise your point allocation, depending on situations. Items/weapons diverse, the game's not stingy with giving them out, including the weird stuff (toasters..) Crafting/modding is simple and efficient. Story engaging, dynamic, never really boring. The game creates its own atmosphere, no real need to compare to Fallout or other classics, even though it is built on that. Totally recommend, i'm definitely not dissapointed, on the contrary!

I enjoyed the experience initially but I eventually quit & uninstalled due to unforgivable bugs. The killer for me was that auto-shots can travel through walls. My guys all waiting in a small side room for the bad-guys to file in and get mushed. As bad guys approach they're taking pot-shots from main room through the wall at me, even though absolutely no line-of-sight. When I set up an auto-shot my guys can do the same. I also hit game-breaking quest anomalies when I didn't do things in the expected sequence. Very glad I tried this on MS game-pass, I'd have been annoyed to spend real money on this.

This game is very similar to Wasteland 2, with some minor graphic and combat tweaks. The biggest letdown here is plot holes, cheap drama and loss of verisimilitude. A lot of obvious choices that should be in the game are not there. Here are some examples (but by far not all of them). Refugee crisis. A dramatic situation in HQ. Not enough space for people. Is there an obvious option to house them in a casino that was cleared out of a gang? Nope. Can you invite them into a garage liberated from a mob? Also nope. The game tries to show that these refugees are freezing, but they will not walk 10 meters over there into a perfectly good and empty building with working heating. A hidden black site of the local ruler. Hidden in the city center. That nobody knows anything about. The only entrance is through a public monument in the middle of the public park in front of lots of people. Guess they couldn't find a better place. A quest involving two women calling for help. When you get there, you see that they are in a building surrounded on two sides by mercenaries. You come closer, you get immediately attacked by them. Only after one side is cleared, starts a conversation with women and new details are learnt. They are thieves. They stole a lot of money. And the merc leader wants it back. Could the mercenaries tell the players this story before attacking them? Not in this game. Is there an option to sneak out the two women since one side of the building is now clear? Nope. One child of the ruler is a psychopath, but the ruler wants him back home alive. The psychopath conducts cruel experiments with a dangerous gas that leaves a person unable to speak, think or act. Is there an option to run this experiment on the psychopath himself before handing him over to the ruler, as this would both neutralize the psychopath, but leave him physically alive? Nope. Not implemented. On top of that, a lot of bugs. Sound and music bugs specifically. Played in 2022. Still not fixed.