This fantasy Indiana Jones-like universe offers some replay value, even though the stories are not very compelling. As a simplified turn-based combat, loot-the-room, exploring, buy-better-weapons RPG it's a good pastime. It's not an open world, it works more like a dungeon. The only difference is that you need the jeep to travel from one "dungeon" location to another, so you need to keep an eye on the fuel. It also has a simplified ammo system (there's just "ammo", you don't have to manage by round caliber) and simplified inventory. Simplified inventory also means that characters can equip only one extra item apart from main weapon and armor. It works fine, avoids micro-management and encourages player choices.
A surrealistic, atmospheric, dark, terrifying retro-FPS that pays homage to Quake (including its Quake graphics), Blood and Redneck Rampage. It also has Doom and Half-Life elements. Level design at its very best and a chilling, metal soundtrack sets the mood. There's one music track for each level, so they were not stingy with music: dozens of tracks! Also, each new level has a different concept and mood, some surprises and can be very challenging in harder difficulty levels. This is definitely game of the year-worth material. Get it!
This classic had me going for hours on end. Tip: pause the game (game speed 0) often to plan ahead and build! Connect commodities and passengers to where they are demanded and see the cash flow in.
It's worth playing, I dare say a must-have for the die-hard Fallout and Fallout 2 fans out there. Remember, this is a much late sequel to the 1988 floppy disk game that originally created the Fallout universe and the open-world RPG genre. (Fallout's storyline departed from Wasteland because Interplay did not get permission from Electronic Arts to use the Wasteland brand name in 1997) Gameplay is fine, even though there's some micromanagement involving skills, weapons, ammo and boosts. Quests can be unforgiving when you want to solve stuff without violence either by solving puzzles or using conversation skills withoug getting civilians killed. I got stuck and without a clue in a bunch of them. That got me a bit frustrated, but maybe kinda like real life you can't solve everything. Maybe it's meant to be like that. Maybe. Combat is hard, but trying to solve quests with nice outcomes is even more unforgiving. Dialog is rather shallow, as it is meant to be one-size-fits-all to a likely 100% custom squad. That's why I'm not very keen on custom squads, only custom main characters. I would make an honorable mention to games such as Shadowrun Dragonfall or the aforementioned Fallout 2, where there's a fulfilling role for dialog amidst combat, which is something in which this one falls short. Since I got a bit frustrated over some quests, I decided to stop playing before embarking on the mission that will take you outside the starting Arizona map, so I haven't beat the game. It'll have some replay value maybe in some months from now.
