Wasteland 2
Posted: 2014-10-16 03:20pm
Has anyone played it yet, if so how is it?
It's a throwback game, in both the flattering and insulting sense of the word. Very rough around the edges, especially late in the game, but it's competently written with a decent stable of characters and a wide variety of interesting enemies. Players expecting something like X-COM in combat complexity will be disappointed. There is (destructible)cover and overwatch and fire modes, but that's about it.
Stat utility is somewhat badly balanced. Luck is basically a dump stat, and so is charisma unless you want some of the charisma-locked cNPCs (many of which aren't worth bothering with anyway) or to invest in leadership (actually not bad). Most stats do not affect skills in any way. You will generally not be able to create a one-guy-does-all character, and it's very important to understand what you want to do with a character and stick with it. Weapon balance can be kludgy - early heavy weapons are mostly garbage, and energy weapons are trash early game but quite necessary late game. Assault rifles are king mid to late game, but you'll be glad for your sniper early and again in late game. Good stat distribution is important for your core 4 because cNPCs are not optimized.
Fans of the old Wasteland will notice heaps and heaps of references and inside jokes that may fall flat with those that didn't play the first game. In Fallout 1/2 faction there are lots of pop culture jokes of the goofiest sort.
Visuals are passable. Character models don't look that great but not awful. Visual customization has received a lot of criticism, and we may see patches to enable NPC-only clothing options in the future. Environments are mostly cool, but usually brown and grey early game, as you'd expect of a post-nuclear desert.
Verdict: B/B-. If you're a fan of the old Wasteland or the first two Fallouts, I'd say pick it up. If not, wait for a Steam sale.