Wasteland 2 Director's Cut Digital Classic Edition

I’m sorry to report that the faith and money of the RPG fans who funded this has resulted in a glorified bargain bin RPG. Visuals? Ugly, 2005-esc. Clearly had little effort put into them. There are ways to make a game look good without triple-A graphics you know. Gameplay? There’s no real tactics beyond go behind cover and occasionally use Ambush (Oversight) to shoot at things that move.Enemies have the same braindead bullrushing or cover plinking tactics, be it elite soldiers or giant flies. RPG mechanics? The dialogue system is wretched. It uses some of the most soulless and charmless dialogue I’ve seen in ages. Choices and consequences are meh, sometimes you’ll get a meaningful result but most of the time you don’t notice. Story? Shockingly derivative, with tons of locations and assets and antagonists lifted from the previous game. This does not feel like a sequel that needed to be made. Occasionally you meet an interesting character or two, but the majority of locations are just quest hubs that you go to, do all the sidequests (which often don’t give you motivation to do them beyond “It exists”), and then never return to again. You don't care about anything. And on top of those the game fails at very basic things like descriptions saying stats do things they don’t do, or overhanging background scenery blocking the cursor from clicking on things. These devs are supposed to be industry/RPG veterans, yet this game reeks of amateur mistakes and design decisions. If you see this game for like fifteen dollars it might be worth picking it, it’s not AWFUL or hopelessly broken just bland uninspired and uninvolving. But really, there are so many better games out there. The oldschool RPGs the KS namedropped are SO much better than this, and for newer titles theres the Witchers, Expeditions Conquistador, Divinity, Spiderweb games, it goes on. And people, please… overrating crap like this will not save or restore the RPG genre. It just won’t. Praise actually good games.

I find it shocking how many negative reviews the game has, like if it was a forgettable, mediocre experience. The truth is far from it, however the game it's problems and issues. Truth is that the game starts out slow and kind of uninspired. The first 5-7 hours can give an initial wrong impression. Also ppl expected from the title to be the "real" Fallout 3. However it is not like the old Fallouts at all. If I can compare this game to another, I would compare it to the 1st Baldur's Gate. Another negative aspect that this game is old-school in every sense of the word. It is not like Original Sin games that are modern and innovative with old-school mentality and principles. This game actually plays like an rpg from the 90s with all good and bad. I can understand if someone wants freshness and innovation. And the last nail of the coffin is that the game has bugs, side quests can get broken even in the Director's Cut. Still I think this game is a gem. A rough one, but a gem nevertheless. The world building is fenomenal. There are factions, locations, npcs all fleshed out and interesting. There are a lot of side quests, most of them are well written, the game offers some choiches during its playtime which affect the plot somewhat, and in general the game has a lot of content. I found the story good with a lot of quality writing. It definitely kept my attention during the game. And lastly the gameplay. It is very combatheavy, but the combat itself is solid. Easy to learn, difficult to master. It is not complex but definitely well thought out, and well balanced. Props to the devs that they balance the game with 7 characters in mind. First I thought it will be too chaotic but they designed it really well. So overall I really enjoyed my time with Wasteland 2. I had my fair share of frustration because of the dated features and bugs but hell I loved this game. It is flawed, but I enjoyed it more than DOS1 and Pillars and I'm definitely interested in Wasteland 3

I've backed this game a long time ago on a kickstarter, which hopes that it will be a solid RPG in a post-apocayptic world. Unfortunately, what was released dissapointed me so much:( I'm used to finish almost every game that I start to play, but I couldn't play more than 12 hours of this wasted opportunity, open-chest-simulator. Why? - combat is so broken - so booring, so repetive, so BS! For example you and your enemies can run 30 meters or shoot 1-2 times - therefore in the first round every meele enemy stops just in front of your team. Forget about clever tactics and even solid cover mechanics-most places where combat takes place dont provide you with any. AI is stupid as hell, it relies on getting to you in meele in it's first round and because all enemies in the area (sometimes from half map away!) are triggered. It could be ok if you werent forced so many times to fight, but unfortunately it's very common. - no solid RPG elements - it's just about skills grinding with most attributes totally obsolete. As you progress your skills nothing changes, you can just open better locks, have better chance of hit, etc. And because locks and traps are more hard as you progress you just try to have higher skill level to be able to open them. From your first hour nothing will change as you progress, nothing. - map design - who placed all those chests and safes everywhere? Who dug all that stuff under the groud? Why every chest has a trap on it? Why there are so large, empty spaces which you have to travel over and over again? - dialogs - what do you think of X? do you like X? Put every name and faction in place of X and multiply it by elmost every conversation you encounter. Nobody has any character, nobody has anything really interesting to say worth remembering. - it ugly as hell. I'm used to really old and ugly games but this one looks like going back to times when 3d was introduced. - exploding zombies - please, not again... There are better games. Seek elsewhere

Some two years and 4 patches after release, most of the original W2 problems still exist: - character creation is a mess, most of the skills are useless or redundant - leveling up is stupid: you always walk around with unspent skill points - you spend 1/3 of your time sorting through inventory and dumb weapon upgrade system where you cannot simply detach a desired part from a weapon - instead you have a LOW chance of getting a RANDOM part regardless of your weaponsmith skill - you spend another 1/3 of your time opening objects as nearly EVERY object has a booby trap, a lock and an alarm and your "security specialist" will critically fail 2 out of 3 times even with 68+ percent chance of success, and the loot is mostly junk, and you wonder who would secure "that box" in this manner to protect ... junk - item/skill system is unbalanced: the best setup is 2 snipers, 3 riflemen and an energy weapons specialist; pistols, melee weapons, shotguns, heavy weapons (and related skills/tactics) are useless: why "tactically" approach when you can kill at range? - later in the game you can't wear good armor - it makes you MORE VULNERABLE as energy weapons which do double damage to armored targets, and early in the game strong armors don't exist - combat requires NO tactics: AI always charges at you to get within range while your snipers with longer range kill them; there is NO prone position; you cannot move while crouched - you must stand up wasting APs; head shots are useless until VERY late in the game when your skills are maxed; that's because head shot penalty is minus 40 percent chance to hit - some quests are still broken - many interface/inventory icons don't match what you see in-game - the story is plain and the ending is idiotic: try for an alternative ending - instead of approaching the main villain shoot him in the head with a 100 percent chance to hit and without being spotted but instead of dying he starts a never-ending and annoying speech...

Things are... complicated between Wasteland 2 and me. I simultaneously couldn't stop playing it, and yet wanted to stop constantly. Some aspects of it are brilliant, and instantly brought back those long lost and yet oh-so-familiar tones I've missed since the original Fallout, while other aspects of it are just straight up trash. The good is so good that I want to ignore or overlook the bad. And the bad is just bad enough to question whether or not it's worth admiring the good. Overall I liked it, though I do wish they hadn't been so reverential to the first Wasteland. Being unfamiliar with the original game, so many of the characters, questlines, and plot hooks felt very undercooked, because the game expected me to just already be invested, and ultimately my squad didn't feel like much more than cardboard cutouts going for a ride. The game "tells" a lot, rather than showing, which is unfortunate because it is a very satisfying experience in the moments it decides to show rather than tell. Ultimately for me, it is the best successor to the original Fallout games that I've played, however I think the impression it leaves most is how much I would like to fire up the original again.