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Roamed the post-apocalyptic landscape before it was cool!

Wasteland 1 - The Original Classic, a post-apocalyptic open world full of awe and danger, as imagined in a 1988 RPG, is available 60% off on GOG.com. That's only $2.39 for the next 24 hours.

They say that ever since the nuclear holocaust, America is no longer a place for heroes. They say, that it is no longer the land of the free. Son, that's a goddamn lie, that's what it is. In the atomic wasteland of the year 2087, there is still room for bravery, justice, and order. There are men and women standing guard to what is left of civilized society, facing villains, mutants, bandits, and monsters on daily basis. When everyone else just gave up, they roam the ruins of our nation's sinful past, and do the impossible to bring law back to the badlands. They are the Desert Rangers, and this here, is their story.

Back in 1988 Wasteland 1 - The Original Classic (or just Wasteland back then) took the fresh memory of living in constant fear during the Cold War, reached for the aesthetics of the Mad Max movies, added solid cRPG mechanics, and offered gamers an experience that would soon inspire a whole gaming sub-genre. The open-ended free-roam gameplay, paired with incredibly rich and suggestive setting made a lasting impression on everyone who dared to visit the nuclear desert. With challenging difficulty level and great variety of NPCs, quests, and locations, this fantastic title is still a blast to play! The game comes with the official Wasteland Survival Guide, a quick-reference card, and a music album to set the mood for your post-apocalyptic adventure.

Do you remember playing this title, or maybe you'd like to see how the gaming post-apo craze has begun? Pick the slightly updated version of Wasteland 1 - The Original Classic, for only $2.39, on GOG.com. The 60% off discount offer lasts until Tuesday, February 4, at 10:59AM GMT.
I hope this is to get us in the mood for STALKER this week.
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HunterZ: I got this for free as a backer of Wasteland 2. I've actually been aware of it for a decade or two but never tried to play it very seriously until now.

I personally haven't had any real technical issues with the game other than that alt+tab and the windows key don't work while the game is running for some reason. I did have two shops disappear but was able to restore them by using a map editor that someone linked in the forum.

The game is very hard. I've basically put the game down for the last month or so because the sewers are a huge slog. I'm not sure I can recommend it to anyone who is not either a hard core post-apocalyptic (which I am) or very old school RPG fan (I'm only a casual one probably). While it was probably ahead of its time, the story and characters are still thin, which combines with the crude graphics and interface to result in a low immersion factor.

For me, the Wasteland experience has mainly illustrated just how much of a masterpiece the early Fallout games are. I actually re-played a couple hours into Fallout 1 recently and was amazed at just how atmospheric and immersive it still is.
I'm pretty certain that my own experience would mirror this which is why I have to give this promo a miss (I'm also a huge classic Fallout fan). After a certain point the dated graphics/UI threshold becomes too great for me to tolerate if I'm approaching it for the very first time. Usually my cutoff it about 1996-ish, when the birth of "modern graphics" seemed (to me) to take hold, as well as mouse-driven user interfaces in games. There are a few exceptions; if I played the game originally as a kid, like the similarly aged cRPGs Circuit's Edge or Mines of Titan, I'd happily leap at the chance to play 'em again...because all those ancient memories of gameplay, mechanics, and tips are probably still lurking around in the grey matter. But from an immaculate POV unsullied by past nostalgia...those screenshots are pretty rough on the eyes.

The reports of the game's difficulty don't endear me either. As a youth I looked upon that happily as a challenge to best and slog through, but now, it fills me with wariness and dread and I'll probably just quit it early on.
In case anyone is interested, CRPGAddict did a playthrough of Wasteland fairly recently. Here are his posts on it (from newest to oldest, annoyingly): http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/search/label/Wasteland

He actually ranked it pretty highly compared to RPGs that were released before it, and I think it's still #11 or so on his ranking.
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Ml33tninja: Yes I did find it hard at first (TBH I had to go back to the character creation at least 3 times to find the builds I was looking for. However, after reading a induction from Per Jorner(the user is amazing at making user friendly manuals) and actually taking the times to understand the game(plus reading), it was smooth sailing for me. Sure died a few times but it was quite fun. I loved the sewers mainly for the big battles and level boost I received for everyone. I used a fan made soundtrack to further the experience. (made by a man named Edwin Montgomery good stuff) Most importantly I made sure I had no distractions to let my imagination go wild.(you need it for games like this if you want any immersion.
Yeah I probably screwed myself a bit by using the pre-made party and not doing a lot of research on how to min-max both character creation and ongoing skill development.

The included music track from Wasteland 2 added some nice atmosphere to the game, but it got old after a couple hours so I turned it off. A fan-made soundtrack would probably be cool.

As for distractions, I'm screwed. With two kids and a full-time job, I have precious little no-distractions time in my life, and I usually reserve it for trying to slowly work through modern RPGs a little at a time on my gaming desktop in the office. Older (and indie) games like Wasteland 1 (and a lot of my GOG collection) mostly get relegated to evenings on the old laptop while watching TV with my wife.
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HunterZ: For me, the Wasteland experience has mainly illustrated just how much of a masterpiece the early Fallout games are. I actually re-played a couple hours into Fallout 1 recently and was amazed at just how atmospheric and immersive it still is.
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MaridAudran: I'm pretty certain that my own experience would mirror this which is why I have to give this promo a miss (I'm also a huge classic Fallout fan).
I've been playing Wasteland since my teens, and still enjoy playing it to this day. Fallout, on the other hand, I only discovered a couple of years ago. Played the first, found it to be just "OK", nothing special, I almost bailed a couple of times but managed to finish it. Started the second, but gave it up as too much of a slog (too many people to talk to!).

I think I really prefer RPGs where although the game still has a story, the game itself is more about killing stuff than talking to everyone. You can talk to and interact with some NPCs in Wasteland, but it is definitely limited to certain key NPCs. I really really dislike speech trees, especially with every "nobody" in town.
Post edited February 04, 2014 by 01kipper
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Ml33tninja: Yes I did find it hard at first (TBH I had to go back to the character creation at least 3 times to find the builds I was looking for. However, after reading a induction from Per Jorner(the user is amazing at making user friendly manuals) and actually taking the times to understand the game(plus reading), it was smooth sailing for me. Sure died a few times but it was quite fun. I loved the sewers mainly for the big battles and level boost I received for everyone. I used a fan made soundtrack to further the experience. (made by a man named Edwin Montgomery good stuff) Most importantly I made sure I had no distractions to let my imagination go wild.(you need it for games like this if you want any immersion.
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HunterZ: Yeah I probably screwed myself a bit by using the pre-made party and not doing a lot of research on how to min-max both character creation and ongoing skill development.

The included music track from Wasteland 2 added some nice atmosphere to the game, but it got old after a couple hours so I turned it off. A fan-made soundtrack would probably be cool.

As for distractions, I'm screwed. With two kids and a full-time job, I have precious little no-distractions time in my life, and I usually reserve it for trying to slowly work through modern RPGs a little at a time on my gaming desktop in the office. Older (and indie) games like Wasteland 1 (and a lot of my GOG collection) mostly get relegated to evenings on the old laptop while watching TV with my wife.
Man I can see why you would have problems getting into Wasteland(tbh into many games). Situations like those aren't really suitable for games such as Wasteland IMO.
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Ml33tninja: Man I can see why you would have problems getting into Wasteland(tbh into many games). Situations like those aren't really suitable for games such as Wasteland IMO.
Yeah. I'm a lifelong video game addict, though, so I have to keep trying!

I did recently manage to finish Fallout: New Vegas (including all of the DLC) after working on it for over a year. That sounds bad, but I did explore every location and complete pretty much every quest.

I've now got a large enough backlog of games that I'll probably never even install some of them.
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Ml33tninja: Yes I did find it hard at first (TBH I had to go back to the character creation at least 3 times to find the builds I was looking for. However, after reading a induction from Per Jorner(the user is amazing at making user friendly manuals) and actually taking the times to understand the game(plus reading), it was smooth sailing for me. Sure died a few times but it was quite fun. I loved the sewers mainly for the big battles and level boost I received for everyone. I used a fan made soundtrack to further the experience. (made by a man named Edwin Montgomery good stuff) Most importantly I made sure I had no distractions to let my imagination go wild.(you need it for games like this if you want any immersion.
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HunterZ: Yeah I probably screwed myself a bit by using the pre-made party and not doing a lot of research on how to min-max both character creation and ongoing skill development.

The included music track from Wasteland 2 added some nice atmosphere to the game, but it got old after a couple hours so I turned it off. A fan-made soundtrack would probably be cool.

As for distractions, I'm screwed. With two kids and a full-time job, I have precious little no-distractions time in my life, and I usually reserve it for trying to slowly work through modern RPGs a little at a time on my gaming desktop in the office. Older (and indie) games like Wasteland 1 (and a lot of my GOG collection) mostly get relegated to evenings on the old laptop while watching TV with my wife.
Not easy being a good father. I hope your family appreciates it.