Wasteland 2: Director's Cut

 PlayStation 4
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 211 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 143 out of 211
  2. Mixed: 38 out of 211
  3. Negative: 30 out of 211
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  1. aspentitan
    Feb 20, 2021
    7
    Personally i think the best games involve user skill or strategy but also include elements of luck within them to create personalized experiences and make the game replayable, or at minimum memorable and for this reason I think a game like this is must own. That said this game has a few or more defects. The first is a terrible 3 camera system. Despite 3 choices this makes the gamePersonally i think the best games involve user skill or strategy but also include elements of luck within them to create personalized experiences and make the game replayable, or at minimum memorable and for this reason I think a game like this is must own. That said this game has a few or more defects. The first is a terrible 3 camera system. Despite 3 choices this makes the game needlessly tedious. Other similar games like Xcom and Divinity really nailed the camera making this game seem quite outdated and aggravating. Second to that the games inventory and trading system has not been worked out as well as it could be further making you grapple with micromanaging and slowing down the game to painful levels. Now as bad as tha may sound we can't forget to give credit to the backbone of this game and that is a tremendous amount of freedom and randomness to the gameplay. The game no doubt requires an investment in learning it and managing it however at a certain point that frustration ends and morphs into a blessed experience. The interplay of all the perks and random events and items is about as good as games can get and this game excels in those areas. Not all quests and areas are well designed per se but the way each quest and area can play out will always be unique ensuring the game keeps you immersed and skillchecking your ego. Now in this regard I'm only talking about the reward of your first playthrough. Now take everything you learned about the game and try new custom characters for a second playthrough and build off your experience. Perhaps increase the difficulty on a third playthrough. Each game will be a different experience and amazingly seem more unique each time. For me, this is a near perfect game and the only issue I can see is that other games in the genre are technically done better and may decrease my desire to play this game any further. It all depends on the quality of future games. For now it is regretful that this game operates more like a pc style computer (less user friendly) rather than a mac (more user friendly) but that said its impossible to ignore the innate gaming experience one can achieve in this game regardless and for that reason I consider this game must play at minimum.… Expand
  2. Oldschoolgamers
    Oct 4, 2021
    5
    1st review- I'll start off with the good things. I like that this game has a lot of nods from movies & shows like Ghostbusters, The Matrix, Sanford & Son, Star Wars, MacGyver etc. Another thing I liked is the fact that I never had more money than I knew what to do with even towards the end of the game unlike other RPGs that I've played and have money overflowing halfway thru with nothing1st review- I'll start off with the good things. I like that this game has a lot of nods from movies & shows like Ghostbusters, The Matrix, Sanford & Son, Star Wars, MacGyver etc. Another thing I liked is the fact that I never had more money than I knew what to do with even towards the end of the game unlike other RPGs that I've played and have money overflowing halfway thru with nothing to use it on and didn't invest anything in barter here either. I also liked the fact that there was always a perk that I needed and I never ran out of ones that I could use. I also liked that a lot of things that you picked up during the game that you didn't think would have a use turned out to have a use if you kept it on you and gave it to the right person as it added an extra dynamic to the game. Now for the bad, the game crashes a lot. I had to deal with at least a crash every other hour. It got so bad that I was literally having to save after every battle and at times when I would go to the menu or when I would click on save, it would crash anyway. I also invested in explosives for one character and there was a bug during combat when at times i would aim at a certain spot on the field & but it would throw the grenade or rocket at an enemy instead and if I had people near that enemy it would damage or kill them thus making me have to restart the battle. Other times during battle suddenly the screen colors would start to wash away and I couldn't do anything besides end the turn on my currently selected player which would fix the problem but would also make me have to skip a character's turn in order to fix the issue. Several times during the game I would have big huge battles and I would have a party member go down and if I was unable to revive that party member before the end of the battle they would lose out on all the exp. points and if it was a long battle with a lot of enemies to kill, that was frustrating. The character needs to have at least earned partial credit for that battle instead of nothing at all. Along the way you meet temporary NPCs that are just with you at the current area you're in, it would be nice to be able to control these people somewhat as they are always following me and if you're playing on a harder difficulty and/or trying to set up traps they tag along with you and ruin it and die after just a few shots. Another thing is, if you're gonna have a quick load button right next to the save game button then it would be a good idea to have an 'are you sure' prompt follow the quick load button since I'm sure I'm not the only one that mashed quick load in haste trying to save my game thus losing all my progress. Some people that you meet will have voices which is nice but the voices come and go. One minute you will be listening to them and then the next nothing at all. This happens quite frequently. Sometimes I felt myself doing certain tasks and no matter how much I had invested in the particular skill to do it, it always resulted in failure. If you're an achievement trophy hunter like I am then the 'red wire, blue wire' trophy achievement is a perfect example. You have 2 ways that you can get this trophy. One way no matter how much you have invested in the particular skill always results in failure while the other way no problem at all. When you return home to AZ, there's also another bug in which you can't level up your party anymore even though it says you can, I was pretty leveled out at that point so it wasn't a big deal but it was still kind of annoying. One thing I would like to note is that I had played this game a previous time and got to a certain point and lost a very valuable member of my team halfway through and because none of my characters back at base were on the same level as I was and I had explored everything in that area at that point, I just quit. Therefore it would be nice if every party member that I recruited back at base stayed on the current level that I was out in the field. As unrealistic as this would be it would be nice especially since you lose a very valuable member of your team in a very surprising way and if you're playing on a harder difficulty. I loved playing this game on my 2nd run and stayed with it but I feel that there wasn't enough maintenance done at the end that caused the whole experience to suffer and I hoped the 3rd 1 which I will play eventually was done a lot better. Before anybody wonders, this was not a bad CD as I downloaded this game straight from the playstation network.… Expand
  3. aLucidMind
    Jan 7, 2016
    7
    A good game in need of a lot of polish. The story is pretty good and the writing is solid. The combat is competent. For those unfamiliar with this genre but are familiar with XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within, it's similar but definitely not the same. The ability to target specific parts of the body adds a greater strategic element to the game as well as the fact that you can move your individualA good game in need of a lot of polish. The story is pretty good and the writing is solid. The combat is competent. For those unfamiliar with this genre but are familiar with XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within, it's similar but definitely not the same. The ability to target specific parts of the body adds a greater strategic element to the game as well as the fact that you can move your individual party members around the battlefield prior to the battle to maximize your advantage.

    It's also refreshing that you're not playing as heroes, you're merely protagonists. You still can go around and help people in need, but several major choices are more about picking what you feel is the best of the two evils. Unlike modern Fallout games, not all the stories have a happy ending. This is good in that it makes you wonder which choice is better.

    I honestly debated about whether or not I should give it an 7 or an 8 for a while and I simply can't justify an 8. The biggest issue this game has is the stability. This game crashes constantly for no reason multiple times every hour. If I play for an hour, I'm guaranteed a minimum of two crashes within that hour. The fact that this game only auto-saves when you enter an area makes this even worse. It always crashes when exiting/entering an area (before auto-saving), when you're manually saving, or when you're loading mid-game. This issue is even worse if you have a lucky moment where you go through a couple hours without a crash because you will likely lose a good amount of progress as a result.

    Wait until it's $20 or until it's actually stable before purchasing. The sheer number of sudden hard crashes I've had has made the $40 I paid feel like $20 too much. It's a 7/10 for me, no question.    … Expand
  4. Hydrogen_
    Nov 11, 2015
    7
    Wasteland 2 is a nice trip down memory lane, with regards to turn based combat and the party system of RPG's past. It's worth one play through, as long as you don't pay too much for it.

    Beware, however: the game crashes a LOT. Like, at least once or twice per gaming session. It does a good job of auto-saving frequently, so it usually isn't a huge issue, but it is nevertheless very    Wasteland 2 is a nice trip down memory lane, with regards to turn based combat and the party system of RPG's past. It's worth one play through, as long as you don't pay too much for it.

    Beware, however: the game crashes a LOT. Like, at least once or twice per gaming session. It does a good job of auto-saving frequently, so it usually isn't a huge issue, but it is nevertheless very annoying. Other annoying bugs are that the voice acting will cut out very often and leave you trying to read almost impossibly small chat text.

    The combat is fun, but it does get pretty repetitive by the time you finish the game.

    Overall, a pretty fun throwback, but too many problems to give it higher than a "7".    … Expand
  5. RMDsilva
    Jan 9, 2017
    7
    Definitely an enjoyable game if you're into the genre: story+choices are cool and hard, as fallout should be.
    Character development and combat is OKAY - nothing noteworthy, enjoyable enough.
    The rest holds it together, barely.
  6. Vanpire73
    Nov 29, 2015
    6
    It's too bad this game just doesn't have the polish it sorely needs, because the foundation it's built upon is very good. If you are reading these, you know what type of game this is and it is most likely what you are looking for. I will not go into that part of it. I'd just like you to know what baggage it will be carrying with it. While ultimately a fun tactical roleplaying game, theIt's too bad this game just doesn't have the polish it sorely needs, because the foundation it's built upon is very good. If you are reading these, you know what type of game this is and it is most likely what you are looking for. I will not go into that part of it. I'd just like you to know what baggage it will be carrying with it. While ultimately a fun tactical roleplaying game, the learning curve and general clunkiness make it unnecessarily difficult. It took memany hours ro figure out basic gameplay stuff that would've been handy to know from the beginning. Trying to use the skill wheel on the appropriate item/person with the appropriate person took a while to get down, for example. The random world battles, while generally fun, never seemed to let me use the whole map. They would always start in the same exact places on the map and would never allow for very much set-up or movement before triggering battle. This game is also fairly buggy and crashed on me many times, always while trying to save. A few of them after lengthy, difficult ones. The good news is, this game has many meaningful options and decisions for quests and character building is very important. Make sure you save often. If the problems and hassles of this game were fixed and it got a nice polishing, I would not hesitate to give this a 9. Unfortunately, despite the love I do have for it I cannot give it more than a 6 in its current condition.… Expand
  7. Heisenberg93
    Aug 31, 2022
    7
    Wasteland 2, the "Fallout 3 we never had"? Maybe yes. However the game is anything but a masterpiece. Let's see why.

    The events of the plot are interesting, keep glued to the screen and looking forward to what the road will lead the Ranger Team Echo to. Plot and lore writing is truly exceptional: backgrounds of factions (especially Rail Nomads, God's Militia, M.A.D. Monks, Mannerites)    Wasteland 2, the "Fallout 3 we never had"? Maybe yes. However the game is anything but a masterpiece. Let's see why.

    The events of the plot are interesting, keep glued to the screen and looking forward to what the road will lead the Ranger Team Echo to. Plot and lore writing is truly exceptional: backgrounds of factions (especially Rail Nomads, God's Militia, M.A.D. Monks, Mannerites) and of characters are deep, original and interesting. The dialogues are of equal quality. In all post-apocalyptic fiction, eventually, factions with rules and laws tend to arise spontaneously from the ashes, but more interestingly the Desert Rangers want to be a formal and institutional organization, rule of law upholders, wanted by the people, almost Fallout NCR-like. Order and morals are in the nature of things (natural law), even in the post-apocalypse where positive law is lacking. Basically, following Rangers' philosophy, there are no excuses, no matter how many alibis the post-apocalypse grants the bad guys.

    Wasteland 2 is what a true role-playing video game feels like. Skill points are committed via numerical score system, instead of an idiot-proof perk-based tree. There are perks in the game but those are secondary and unlocked every 4th level-up and some perks are skills or related perks dependent. The game is complex and intriguing but has a high entry barrier: survive 15 hours and maybe you will see the end. Turn-based combat is Action Points based and makes use of cover to increase Evasion parameter and reduce enemies' hit chance. It's also possible to specifically hit enemies' armor or head causing malus. There are multiple types of weapons, mastered through their related skills, but weapons of the same type may use different ammunition. Weapon types also have different parameters (critical chance, required APs, range). Skills increase accuracy with weapons, but those have default damage that is unaffected by skills. Outside combat, depending on characters' skills, it's possible to lock pick, brute force things and hacking computers/machines. Journey through the game world from one location to another is on map with a pin representing Ranger Team Echo. Random enemy encounters may happen, more frequent or less, based on the Outdoorsman skill. The game requires to spread out skills among Rangers so as to have at least one specialist in multiple fields and leads to taking choices seriously in combat as Rangers can die permanently. There are many side quests and the most complex scenarios can have multiple combinations to reach several different outcomes.

    Wasteland 2 has major problems though. If I have a maxed skill, e.g. Computer Science 10, why in some, even if rare, cases do I have a 20% or less chance of success? What is the point of maxing a skill if I have to have such a low chance of success? That's bad design, simply against any RPG common sense. I understand preserving challenge but it shouldn't be less than 50% or at least not give a Critical Failure. Turn-based combat is unfair: enemies always move first and too often along the combat sequence. There's no way to move player characters into cover first, considering that enemies are often stronger, half the team ends up on the ground before they can even move. Impact of Combat Initiative looks limited and committing points to it means taking them away from other essential Attributes. It's unfair. Covers offer an insufficient Evasion bonus: regardless line of fire, 50% is still too low and Turtle perk (+10%) is only half a fix to it. Dialog skill checks are flawed: sometimes if I have already passed a check, e.g. Kiss Ass 5, I have to do another, different and more difficult one, e.g. Smart Ass 7, to get what I want. Why? Just give me what I want after the first skill check! I found the challenge rising in the game's second part, LA area, very unbalanced. In general, the game tends to be too punitive and prohibitive which wasn't really necessary.

    The game is graphically pleasing. However it often has frame rate drops, long loading times and error CE-34878-0 often occurs during saving or loading, causing the game to crash and lose progress. I played Wasteland 2 for almost a month and got the error 32 times (yes, I counted them). Do the math and most of these were in LA zone of the game. Now, InXile customer support says CE-34878-0 is PlayStation 4's issue and they imply their lack of responsibility, however reading gaming forums it's clear the error happens so much in the game, and not in others, that the problem is not the console's. It's just poor lazy optimization on the developer's side and after 7 years it's still not fixed. Simply disgusting.

    Wasteland 2 is a classic RPG as deep and cool as sensationally flawed. Excellently written, in gameplay some design choices are still really hard to explain or justify. I recommend it for hardcore fans of the genre but it would be better to have the game on another platform other than PlayStation 4.    … Expand
  8. Zakis1991
    Jul 8, 2022
    5
    Игра очень крутая! Только раза 4 пересоздавал группу. Но, есть одно но, техническая составляющая игры. Переодически игра вылетает и крашится на PS5
  9. Kithrin
    Dec 1, 2019
    5
    i was hoping for an experience like the first two fallouts, which it kinda is, but the primary problem i have, which to me makes the game almost unplayable, is...

    FONT SIZE. i have a relatively large TV, but the font seemed to be of a size i would find sitting at my laptop, not looking at a tv 4 or 5 feet away which is my setup. i couldn't seem to find a way to make it larger, and for    i was hoping for an experience like the first two fallouts, which it kinda is, but the primary problem i have, which to me makes the game almost unplayable, is...

    FONT SIZE. i have a relatively large TV, but the font seemed to be of a size i would find sitting at my laptop, not looking at a tv 4 or 5 feet away which is my setup. i couldn't seem to find a way to make it larger, and for a text heavy game, that is a BAD thing. so i couldn't give it more than a mediocre review.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

61
#61 Best PS4 Game of 2015
88
#88 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2015
7
#7 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
  1. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Dec 16, 2015
    70
    An enjoyably grotty world hampered by unintuitive controls. [Christmas 2015, p.87]
  2. Slant Magazine
    Nov 16, 2015
    80
    The game places trust in the moral, philosophical, and intellectual response of the audience.
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  3. GameCritics
    Nov 4, 2015
    85
    As I put in more time, the game kept opening up and more of my own light bulbs lit with the realization of potential.
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