...it even contains the same famous bug with the broken saves after the bandit ambush at the Garbage. However, otherwise it runs fairly smoothly on a modern machine and I have only experienced a couple of crashes over the entire main story gameplay, which is remarkable. Normally I'd give it 4 stars, but now I'd love to counter the apparent review bombing - so 5 it is.
IMO the EE keeps true to the original, while adding some QoL improvements here and there - mostly visuals, though. The grass and vegetation in general looks better, the field of view is significantly enhanced and overall the graphics feels a bit more polished, despite still using the original textures. The only real gameplay difference I noticed was the stadium/arena shootout between Pripyat and the NPP, which was cut off from the original game and restored in EE. P.S. This review bombing by russians is pathetic. If you guys would have put 5% of the energy you spend here into actually fixing your country, we would've already lived in a much better and safer world.
Quite solid successor of Fallout 1&2, describing the Soviet side of the Armageddon. Coming from a post-Soviet culture myself, I quite enjoyed the gags and references, although someone with Western background might miss quite a lot (I guess the same in reverse applies to Fallout series). Pros: + Reasonably large, believable world + Loads of side quests, sometimes intertwined, with interesting twists + Variety of gear and items in general + OK graphics for the genre Cons: - Some skills are a bit underused (yes, Pickpocket, I'm looking at you - the one that's mandatory to use in exactly _one_ quest in the entire game) - Some random encounters felt unbalanced (you get overwhelmed quickly, esp. at the beginning) - Lack of money at the vendors - No voiceovers (I know this is budget-dependent, but still...) Overall pretty nice impression and I'm looking forward to the sequel.
As a big fan of Fallout 1&2, I find Wasteland 2 a good successor. However, it could have been much, much better. The other reviewers already mentioned that the combat could be more challenging, tactical and smart. Little variety of enemies and random encounters doesn't help in that regard. However, my biggest personal disappointment was the quests, or, more specifically, the approach to alternative solutions and attention to the writing if the party doesn't do things in exactly one way that was envisioned by the devs. The quests in Arizona felt a bit more polished in that regard, but later on I started to see too much of it. For example, when I'm just entering a new town, I expect there will be quite a lot of learning to do. I need to understand who's in charge there, what are the interesting places and people and so on. However, when I start talking to NPCs in slightly different order, I get very weird interactions, when the topics I can discuss are the ones my party is not even supposed to know about yet! Imagine this: your party enters a bastion of some faction in a slightly unconventional (but properly designed) way, so that you appear right next to one of the bosses. You start a talk with that NPC and the topics you can discuss are, like, 6 names of the other NPCs related to that faction, while it's literally the first time I even hear about all of them. This approach to conversations completely kills my interest - I lose all the bits and pieces of information since they just don't seem to fit together. It's a shame, since the tech engine could be a basis for a really great RPG. Sadly, sloppy writing killed it for me mid-way.
