Wasteland 2 has its moments and can be good fun, but I get the feeling the end product is not really the masterpiece we were lead to believe it would be. The Good What's great about Wasteland 2 are it's world, all the nutty characters, and the interesting situations you'll have to decide how to handle. You will feel, for a while at least, like part of your rangers, traveling around the Arizona wastes and trying to help out the good guys and thwart the baddies. All the while trying to manage your meager supply of bullets and healing items. The Bad What the developers got wrong (or didn't get as right as they should have) is unfortunately just about everything else. Take combat, for example, which is about 50% of the gameplay. It's fun for the first few hours, until you realize the AI only has one trick: to run straight at your party and let itself get mowed down. There is no sense playing against a smart opponent. You can try to use some tactics in your fights, or not, in the end it doesn't really matter. The Bugs But the worst part of the game are the bugs. There are bugs galore, especially in the later part of the game. The difference between the first half (which had a test beta) and the 2nd half (which did not) is like night and day. This situation will no doubt improve with patches, but the the bugs aren't the only problem with the 2nd half. There is a clear drop in production value too, with under-populated zones, dialogue that doesn't make sense, and quests that aren't nearly as interesting as the earlier ones (a fetch quest, really?) It makes me wonder if the professional reviewers who scored this game highly played thru to the later part, or were basing their reviews on the much more polished first half alone. Verdict Let's face it though, there aren't many games like this that get made, so if you can overlook some of the glaring flaws, it's probably worth a play thru. Maybe try to get it on sale once the game's in better shape.
