Wasteland 2 Previews
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We've rounded up some Wasteland 2-themed previews, all based on, as you might well have already guessed by now, the Steam Early Access build of the title, which has recently seen some substantial improvements in terms of usability and content.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has released the first two parts of a presumably far longer Let's Play of the title. Here's a snippet:
The next pack of bandits, just around the corner, are cheerfully oblivious to the fact that their pointy-haired mates are currently dripping the last of their gravy into the parched ground, and wave us through, presuming we've paid the toll. Two of them have mohawks. Our hands hover over our gun holsters.
No, no let it lie. A haircut doesn't say everything about a man's character. Perhaps they're nice bandits? Just because they demand money off strangers at gunpoint doesn't mean they're bad people. At any rate, we're here to find out who or what killed Ace, fellow ranger and old chum of the impressively competent Angela. He was out here delivering repeaters, radio gizmos to help the non-evil wasteland denizens communicate from afar, but there's no sign of his missing logbook or the repeater units.
We do, however, find a metal leg in a nearby cave. No one seems willing to wield it as a weapon, which is deeply disappointing, but it does prompt excited chatter about robo-people. Exciting! I wonder if they've got chrome mohawks? (Too much metal in their faces is, I suspect, a given).
Other than for the leg, the cave contains only one other sign of life:
A toaster. A toaster! In a cave. Someone, at some point, has been in this cave, making toast. Man, I envy them. I could really go for some cave-toast right now. Was it whoever owned the metal leg? Or maybe someone just used a metal leg to fish out pieces of bread which got stuck, or perhaps as a butter knife? Perhaps a mysterious Breakfast Cult are even now undertaking a great and dangerous journey to the fabled Cave Of Toast. But has this toaster ever made toast? Has this cave ever known the comforting tang of gently burned bread? More to the point, can we have some toast now?
Well, yes. It sticks to its roots, which was important, but not as important as the way they developed it. Wasteland 2 uses a squad based system, as opposed to controlling the one character which creates and interesting yet logical twist for the game. I find the gameplay interesting, it's not really what I was expecting going into the game, but I was certainly intrigued with how it would work. For the most part, it's great. It's really fun and challenging, with a nice even learning curve for beginners. With this said, the game can be really frustrating to begin with. As was the original, Wasteland 2 is an RPG, which of course means stat building. Each part of your own team gets their own stats for you to improve, which is great, as it allows you to build the team you want. The problem I found with stat building in Wasteland 2 was that it didn't feel rewarding enough in the short term. I was regularly getting myself into ten minute slogs with easily beatable raiders, just because my team stats were so low. All they could do was miss. But of course, the raiders were also quite low leveled, so they themselves continued to miss. This really made the first hour or so tedious, as it seemed the games early stages were based around luck as opposed to skill.
The final impression we have of the early access for Wasteland 2 after several hours of play is that it showcases the start of a very promising game that needs a lot of work. Performance was uneven and the limited amount of content (30% is the number everyone is running with) left the world feeling a bit empty. These can and will probably be fixed by release but we found lack of tutorial is a bit troubling. The game drops you off running with not so much of a how to do leaving players to reference a quick reference card for key binds in an attempt to figure the game out. This is how things tended to be handled in the old days and is considered hard-core but might end up driving away players that prefer the pampered approach. That would be a shame considering Wasteland 2 looks to bring classic pc gaming to a new generation.
