Wasteland Options

[SubRosa]

I finally got around to buying Wasteland 2 from Gog.com. It was a long download, so I didn't have much time to play tonight. My first impressions are good though. It reminds me a lot of Fallout Tactics and Fallout 1, both in the style of play (turn-based, squad-level, tactical combat), and the sarcastic sense of humor. That is no real surprise though, as the original Wasteland is what inspired the Fallout games.

The game is set in the Arizona desert, in the aftermath of WW3. A group of Army Engineers was out in the desert doing engineering stuff when the war started. They took refuge in a prison, which gave them a fortified base. Fast forward to the present, where the descendants of the engineers are the Desert Rangers, bringing justice to the wasteland.

There was a hilarious dig at the Brotherhood of Steel at the very beginning, when an NPC mentions that the early Rangers (the faction you are part of), tended to stay in their base, and practically worshiped old technology, even if they didn't know what it did.

Creating a team took a while, as you not only pick stats, but the appearance, names, etc.. of up to four characters for your group. Here is my team. Venus is the leader, with social skills and an assault rifle. Mars is the muscle, packing an M2 Browning. Hecate is the sniper, and is also the team medic. Mercury is the thief, with lockpicking and safecracking skills and a shotgun. Finally an NPC named Angela Deth joined up at the start of the game.

The big globe in the background is the world map transition marker. Like the early Fallout games, and pretty much every Bioware game, the game is split into a world map where you move from one area to another. When you reach an area of interest you transition to a tactical map, where you actually get to do stuff.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 13 2015, 05:36 AM

[SubRosa]

I have had a few days to play it, and I have to say Wasteland 2 is really wowing me! It brings back so many fond memories of playing the early X-Com games (Ufo Defense and Terror From The Deep), and of Fallout Tactics. Like those games, it is a squad-level, turn-based combat game with 3d isometric layout. It is a lot like Fallout 1 and 2 as well, in both the Post-Apocalyptic world, and sarcastic sense of humor. I imagine it plays a lot like the new X-Com game from last year too, though I have not gotten it yet, so cannot say for sure.

One of the writers of Wasteland 2 is Chris Avellone, who also wrote the early Fallout games. He was of course inspired by Wasteland 1, from so many years ago. So Wasteland 2 is a natural progression of these games.

Besides the improved graphics from those old games, Wasteland 2 adds in some really nice aids to combat. The game places an aqua overlay showing how far you can move in a turn and still attack. Then beyond that is an yellow overlay showing how far you can move without attacking. Finally there is a red circle showing the range of your weapon. Likewise the use of cover is much better implemented than it was back in those days, with key spots granting bonuses to evade incoming fire. Cover can also be destroyed by gunfire and explosives. Thinking about what you are doing, using cover, waiting in ambush, and putting the right people in the right places win battles. Charging in blindly gets all your people killed.

Outside of the combat, one thing I really like about this game is that there is usually more than one way to do something. My first mission took me to a Raider camp. The obvious thing to do is just shoot it out. Instead I was able to use my Smart Ass skill to talk my team through without a fight. (Naturally after I had looted everything, my team shot the Raiders anyway... ) In a cave on the same map was a mutant horny toad which I was able to use my Animal Whisperer skill to make friendly, once again avoiding combat. In fact, I could have completed the entire first mission without firing a shot, if I hadn't been set on killing those Raiders.

Other examples are that if you cannot pick a locked door, you can just break it down. If you cannot disable a mine, you can stand back and throw a bomb at it to blow it up.

Some downsides are that sometimes the camera can be annoying, and it never shows as much of the area around my team as I would like. It also does not zoom down in as near as I would like either. In the old Neverwinter Nights games the camera could go from a really wide view, or zoom down right to your character's face. I wish this camera could do something like that.

Not that you really want to see your character's face too much. There are not many options for changing your appearance. It is basically picking a pre-made face from a list, a hairstyle, a shirt/jacket, and a pair of pants/skirt. Plus a backpack if you want. It is basically the same as Morrowind, with about the same resolution. After you create a character you can take a snapshot to use as their picture. This shows up in the hud to select the character, as well as in dialogue options to show what character is talking. They use the same picture for both, shrinking it down to fit into the hud. Unfortunately that also makes it so tiny that it loses almost all the distinguishing characteristics, making it hard to tell one character from another. This pic gives a good example. I have tried some mods that add portraits, but most of them have the same problem. I have found that they only really usable ones are head pics, which you can still make out the features of when they get scaled down tiny.

My other big disappointment is that once combat officially starts, you cannot save. I don't know why, as you could save at any time in all the old X-Com and Fallout games. On the plus side, the game keeps 3 separate quicksaves. Every time you quicksave, it goes to a different slot, overwriting the oldest one. That makes things very convenient.

Nits aside, it is a very fun game. The kind that makes you lose four or five hours to at a time without even realizing it. Lots of good tactical roleplaying!

Here is a small example of combat. This is from one of the early missions, rescuing the town of High Pool (they have a dam) from a band of attacking Raiders known as The Wreckers. This was one of the really big fights in that mission, which is made more complicated by the presence of Townies already shooting it out with the Raiders. The Townies make it extra difficult, because just like followers in Bethesda games, they love to run out into your line of fire. Not to mention shoot you in the back...

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 30 2014, 01:47 AM