Wasteland 3: Colorado Collection

In the wasteland, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and someone will inebitably get the short end of the stick. That is how the Wasteland games are designed and that is what makes them great. Unfortunately, RPGs are hard to get right. The writing and quest design in Wasteland 3 are all over the place. " Fullborer: A huge, high-explosive cannon. People will think you're trying to compensate for something. We call those people 'targets'. " It feels to me like part of the writing was done by experienced, perceptive, witty writers and the rest by ... less able writers. Sometimes being polite is very difficult. Finally, almost two full years after release the game still has quite a few major bugs. Don't get me wrong. This is not a bad game. It just fell short in several important aspects which you might not even notice depending on how you decide to play the game.

I'm utterly disappointed with this game. Although it has moments of great humor, music and storytelling, the game (Colorado Edition) feels stretched, buggy and frustrating. I'll never touch any Wasteland game after this one, even though I liked W2. I played through the entire game in ~100 h (incl. break times). I only did so, bc like to complete things. The game often does a poor job of explaining the consequences of choices to you. This leads to you having to replay entire sections when statements have been false, misleading or incompl. Playing through this the way you want is torture. I encountered a ton of bugs and problems in this game. There must've been over 30 bugs alone and at least 150 problems (inconsistencies in the story, UI, game logic, gameplay mechanics, game design). Example: The game makes the entire Windows sound system crash when you try to use BT headphones with "hands free audio". This bug has been known since release, but has not been fixed. I wrote the inXile-Support an e-mail and was told: "[...] development on Wasteland 3 has concluded. Though we appreciate the time and effort taken in bringing our attention to these issues, no further development on the game has been communicated to the support team, nor is expected by us." Meaning = We release buggy games, charge you full price even after 2 years and refuse to fix it. Gamebreaking bugs are happening in the late game. When you finish the Steeltown and Holy Detonation DLC quests, they randomly reopen in the late game, but you can't finish them. The DLC itself are trying to present new gameplay systems and ressources that aren't fun and fail to compliment the main game. They just stretch out the story without adding something worthwhile. The difficulty makes no sense. At certain locations the enemies are so badly balanced that they kill you before you can get a shot off, despite their low level. The music tracks from Joshua James are great. Graphics are ok, but not great.

The story of this game brings what was best in the first two Fallout installments - brilliant story, cultural clichés, well written characters and difficult moral choices. However, if one plays in Colorado Collection, some bugs may occur. When there is a cutscene break, and it freezes (for no reason), after Ctrl+Alt+Del be prepared that quests related to the DLC's will mysteriously disappear from one's quest log. It happened to me in Steeltown. I was able to finish the quest, but I lost the one related to Cheyenne Mountain. Fortunately, since both DLC's start with the radio call, the game simply provided another one of those, so I was able to finish Cheyenne. The same problem does not appear within the original game - if the cut scene freezes, after restart, everything stays ok. Also, I've noticed that my main character has too many HP in relation to his "Strength" attribute. Despite those two mistakes, the game is brilliant! Just be sure to have Polly the parrot as a pet - you'll thank me for the tip :)

I had not background with the Wasteland series, but I enjoyed this game. As a grid and turn based RPG, the combat does not rise to the level of, say, XCom, and calling it open-world is more than a stretch, but nearly everything about the game is fun and weird. Lots of weapons and enemies. Brutal writing. Maybe the best soundtrack in any game I have ever played. Mind-bending weirdness around every corner. If you like this kind of game, get it.

I'm a backer and I love the serious. I do recommend this game; however, this is not as good as Wasteland 2. There are a few improvements from 2 like the graphics, sound, and so on; however, a lot of new problems in 3. WL 2 modding weapons was important; 3, it's ok, and you'll never get your mods back that matter. That's ok as you'll be buried in a mountain of loot since weight doesn't matter. The devs obviously thought they needed to fix carry weight. Ok fine. But why bother to give me any other option than loot all? There's no penalty; grab it all, break down what you can, sell the rest. With that mentality, they shouldn't even offer a loot option; just dump it straight to inventory because it doesn't matter, and it's a waste of time. Regarding inventory... no ability to sort... the built-in auto sort mechanism is terrible, The game just felt lackluster. Finished on Supreme Jerk and only 2 fights in the game really made me go OMG, wasn't even the fight with Liberty. Tactical combat is out the door. Always initiate combat and you'll win. If the AI starts, you're always at an extreme disadvantage. Make sure you have a few good melee specs (brawlers or blades, blunt seems a waste and too much AP cost). Kill at least 3 mobs in the first round, everyone on their side "panics". At that point, the combat is typically won. Wasteland 2 seemed to be a better flushed out game; this felt contrived and forced into "This or That" scenarios too much, which honestly didn't always make sense. Yes, I beat it with the best possible scenario to save everyone and everything with peaceful transition. I did like the ending for WL3 with the nice improved music based on your exploits.