Developer: inXile Entertainment
Publisher: inXile Entertainment
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Unverified
Rrp: £23.79 (Gog.com, Humble and Steam)
Released: 19th September 2014
Available on: Gog.com, Humble and Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 60+ Hours
A Brief History;
In 1988 Interplay productions created the game ‘Wasteland’, an RPG set in post-apocalyptic USA, which was published by Electronic Arts. Unfortunately due to legal issues between Interplay and Electronic Arts the rights to Wasteland were later denied to Interplay. This would cause Interplay to create the original Fallout series which as we all know today are now the property of Bethesda.
At some point EA relinquished their hold on the Wasteland name and Brian Fargo (the founder of Interplay) and his team at InXile Entertainment was able to create Wasteland 2 with a large amount of funding through Kickstarter.
You may be wondering why I bothered to include all of that. Simply put, I wanted to highlight just how influential Wasteland was and what a strange journey it’s been to get a sequel to it.
Wasteland 2 is an RPG set in post-apocalyptic Arizona. You take control of a team of Desert Ranger hopefuls. Originally starting with a team of four but can expand to include three additional companions.
When you start the game you’re given the choice of starting with a default team or one you customise for yourself. Ordinarily I’d choose a custom team however, because I didn’t know the game’s mechanics I thought it best to work with the default set.
The game utilises an isometric camera angle that you can pivot and zoom in and out with. I found it much more useful to generally keep the camera zoomed out.When zoomed in it’s hard to see too far ahead, which is terrible for navigating, but also makes it very easy to get ambushed by enemies.
Similar to how Fallout has its SPECIAL attributes to represent the base attributes of your character Wasteland uses CLASSIC (Coordination, Luck, Awareness, Strength, Speed, Intelligence and Charisma). Each of these attributes influences things like how many action points you have in combat, base health and ability to dodge attacks etc.
As is typical with RPG’s experience is gained through combat, completing quests and successfully using skills. However, in order to receive a promotion (level up) you have to report back to Ranger command either in person or via the radio.
With each level up you will be awarded a number of survival points (the amount of which is determined by your intelligence attribute) that you can spend on skills. Skills come in four varieties; Combat, Knowledge, General and Special (special skills have been found in the Wasteland). As these skills increase they will start to pass thresholds that will unlock new perks that you can acquire. Sometimes these perks simply add a couple of points into the skill, but plenty of them provide different bonuses such as additional dialogue options, combat abilities or finding loot.
Every fourth level your ranger earns a perk point along with the survival points and then at every tenth level a new attribute point is awarded allowing you to increase one of your CLASSIC attributes.
Combat is turn based with each character using AP (action points) to perform actions. The amount of action points you have is determined by specific CLASSIC stats. If you don’t use up all your action points up to two will carry over to the next turn of that character.
Remember those additional companions I mentioned previously? Well, when in combat, those additional companions have a ‘rogue’ percentage which is how likely they are to do their own thing in combat. Sure, they’ll attack the enemy but perhaps not the one you want them to. The chance of this occurring can be reduced by having a character with the ‘leadership’ skill ranked up, which also confers bonuses to friendly characters within a certain radius of them.
Your Desert Rangers are going to be travelling a lot in this game which occurs through a world map. While travelling across the world map you will occasionally find random encounters, such as a combat against raiders or a friendly travelling merchant. The act of moving on the world map costs water, if you run out of that and it’s game over. Thankfully you can refill your water supplies at the various oases you can find.
In conversation you can choose and switch which member of your party is speaking. At the bottom of the screen are subjects you can speak about, however, above that is a text bar you can type in. While you can type anything you wish in that but it will only really recognise certain keywords which funnily enough are below it. That being said, sometimes there are secret words you can write to get a specific outcome or reaction. Sometimes, while speaking to someone you can perform a ‘smart/kiss/hard ass’ check, when that happens the game automatically selects the party member with the highest stat in that skill.
Almost all weapons can have modifications applied to them to make them more potent. These modifications aren’t anything unrealistic, you won’t find a modification that makes your weapon cause fire damage etc. What you will find though are scopes, magazines, and other such realistic modifications. Attaching these modifications requires ranks in the Weaponsmithing skill to apply and the modification determines what rank is needed. You can also field strip excess weapons which will give you junk parts you can sell. There’s also a chance you might find a weapon modification as well.
When opening a container or looting an enemy you can select the ‘distribute all’ button which will automatically give the right item to each character. For example, a medics kit would go to the party member with the highest ‘Field Medic’ or ‘Surgeon’ skill.
Something to bear in mind is that while this game does share a lot of its DNA with the original Baldurs Gate series it doesn’t play like Baldurs Gate 3. Instead of having voiced narration this game has an update log on the bottom right of the screen. If you aren’t willing to spend time reading then this game might not be for you.
I tried to run this game on the Steam Deck. The game isn’t verified but I thought it worth a shot since there is controller support. Unfortunately while I could get the game running I found no way to control it.
I absolutely loved my time with this game, that’s why I tried to install it onto the Steam Deck. I do have a small complaint about a sudden difficulty spike midway through the game but with some careful tactics you can struggle your way through. This is a definite must play for those who enjoy CRPG’s or the Fallout franchise.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Fallout
Wasteland 3
Baldur’s Gate 3
