Wasteland 2 Review (PC)

Wasteland 2 is a big game with a lot of variety which can deliver moments of fun and some very emotional sequences but suffers from a relatively scattered approach to the design of the various factions and characters that gamers will encounter.

The party-based exploration and combat are both solid, although unspectacular, but many modern gamers will be a little disappointed at the quality of the graphics created by InXile Entertainment, although they will be entirely satisfactory for fans of the classic Fallout titles.

Story

Wasteland 2 is a game of two locations and the player’s experience will shift as the developers change tone when the move from Arizona to California takes place, but the narrative is solid throughout, with a range of interesting characters, good laugh lines and a focus on how hope can be important even if the future seems bleaker with every passing day.

The player is a Desert Ranger, a member of the only force that seems to be committed to preserving the safety of normal folks after an apocalyptic event, and at the start of the game, the world is dominated by gangs, mutants and robots, with a large number of communities in need of help.

Gamers will have to use their radio in order to determine which of the incoming transmissions is worthier of attention, while at the same time trying to find the time and the resources to fix the radio towers that will reveal the big threat looming over the world of the game.

Action time

Wasteland 2 feels decisively old-school when it comes to world building because it relies on a lot of text to describe aspects of the world to the player and to immerse them, and reading is actually required most of the time.

Long-term fans are probably happy to spend time reading text, but I fear that the patience of younger players might be tested and some of them might miss on some very interesting elements of the game world.

The developers at InXile Entertainment understand how dark humor works and create solid characters, even if they are created using just a couple of lines and dialog choices that work most of the time.

The world of Wasteland 2 is interesting from the narrative point of view, and role-playing fans will be happy with the level of immersion created.

Gameplay

Wasteland 2 is, at its core, a party-based role-playing experience with turn-based battles and real time exploration which asks gamers to pick up quests and solve them in order to gain experience and equipment for their characters and to discover more about the game world and the main story.

The character creation system is easy to use and suggests the variety the title has to offer, and then the player is thrown right into the world, able to start exploring why a fellow Desert Ranger was killed and what threat is approaching the area.

The overland map is initially barren, but locations can be discovered as the player roams around or they are shown after characters talk about them.

Gamers need to make sure that they keep a solid supply of water as they move around while also staying out of radiation zones, although at times, those parts of the game world need to be crossed to get to some areas.

The radio the party has access to offers a stream of information about what’s going on around and allows players to decide what they want to do with their time.

Once a location is reached, the game shifts to a classic Infinity Engine perspective, with players in control of their party members and with a test rundown of what’s happening around running on the right of the screen.

The tasks for the player-controlled party are initially simple, but the complexity evolves fast and there are moments when Wasteland 2 makes it harder than usual to know exactly how to reach some of them.

There are plenty of encounters with other groups and factions, some of which can be dealt with by talking or by using only one character’s skills, while others will only respond to violence.

When combat starts, the InXile Entertainment title moves to an Action Point-based structure, with characters able to move around, seek cover, of fire at their enemies.

Initially the battles are exciting, especially against non-human enemies, but as the game progresses, they tend to become a little boring because there’s no huge variety to the attacks or the weapons, although players do have the option of going for headshots or going into overwatch, which is weirdly called ambush.

A more interesting aspect is that you have to deal with the equipment of every party member and make sure that they have enough ammunition and backup weapons, and I sometimes found myself fighting with knifes and punches because I failed to restock.

Conversations with the vast number of NPCs included in Wasteland 2 are interesting and give players a lot of options to get info and to try and use their unique communication skills to influence their thinking or their actions.

Play Video

Gamers need a bit of patience in order to read everything involved in a conversation and keep track of all the characters, but their backstories and the details they offer are often worth the time.

The biggest issue with Wasteland 2 is that it never makes it easy for gamers to perform the action needed in a certain situation.

In order to pick a lock, the gamer needs to choose the actual character that has the skill to do it and then select it from a bar or push the hotkey in order to actually perform the action, and in conversation, even if the party as a whole has all the influencing skills, I need to pick the actual character who can select a certain option.

Wasteland 2 also feels like a game where each nook and cranny needs to be explored thoroughly, and for the modern, time-constrained gamer, this might at times feel like a chore.

Some battles also feel stacked against the player in unfair ways and take the fun out of the combat.

Graphics and audio

Wasteland 2 uses a classic point of view, designed to allow players to follow their four-person party as it treks across the various environments, battling enemies and looking for story clues, and the player is always able to zoom in to get some more details or move the camera around in order to examine the more hidden areas of a level.

The development team has not focused on details for the characters or the environments, which means that it’s best to play the title from a zoomed out perspective, but there’s variety when it comes to the design and the world has some very interesting locations to explore.

Rabbit battle

Wasteland 2 cannot deliver the quality of something like the new XCOM, but it does have a user interface that delivers a lot of information, and during the crucial combat sequences, makes it easy for the player to make plans and then execute them.

The sound design of the title from InXile Entertainment is good, with some solid voice work and an engaging set of tunes for the soundtrack.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion