I refused to let this turkey beat me. This game attempted to revive the turn-based RPG story-heavy days. Instead, it failed to meet even the most basic of player expectations. The graphics were mediocre and the combat was rudimentary, which in no way explains why it froze every hour or so, whether loading between areas, walking through open areas, or in the middle of combat. The playerI refused to let this turkey beat me. This game attempted to revive the turn-based RPG story-heavy days. Instead, it failed to meet even the most basic of player expectations. The graphics were mediocre and the combat was rudimentary, which in no way explains why it froze every hour or so, whether loading between areas, walking through open areas, or in the middle of combat. The player customization is frustratingly minimal, from the ugly slate of avatar pictures (not post-apocalypse-ugly, but poor-artistic-talent-ugly), the meaningless attributes and their disconnect from in-game effects, and the skill trees that in no way reflect the game play curve. Do I build up my Combat Initiative or Combat Speed or Skill Point pool or...? Look, none of that matters. With a high Initiative you limit fight lengths by shooting first, but a balanced party will win every fight regardless of who goes first, as health and bullets are plentiful. Combat Speed has very little effect on how often you attack, as most enemies are slow and you will very rarely be outnumbered. Skill Trees do not matter for much of the game, and investing anything over 4 intelligence points only provides a false sense of competence. In the early game, there are opportunities to use skills, with 60-80% success rates that seem to fail far more often than that. For a completionist, you will be reloading about every 20 minutes as your characters with 10 intelligence critically fail on a 91% challenge, repeatedly. Meanwhile, there's almost always a way to walk around or blast your way through a task, to include just walking away as the reward is almost never worth your time. And that's the ultimate coffin nail in this poor overall effort, it just isn't that fun... but more on that later. In the late game, with 50 character levels to grind through, you'll have skill points to burn. Strength? Maybe 3-4 points for health. Charisma? Nope, the 3 persuasion skills (yes, 3) have nothing to do with charisma. Sure, have one PC with 5-6 Charisma points for the Leadership skill boost to the party's Hit %, but that's one PC only. So what DO you need? Action Points. Then just pick a weapon, ANY weapon, and you'll kill everything. Brawl alone can reach 100% critical rate, dealing out hundreds of points of damage. What about the quirks? Only useful if you want to further challenge your patience. Then there's the inventory, which will quickly boil down to everybody carrying their bullet types, some meds, maybe some explosives, and one mule carrying the plot items. Everything else is Junk, useless items that in no way can be reconfigured into something helpful. The combat system starts with an auto-targeting feature that often doesn't work, especially if you have a non-party companion travelling with you. It targets them, not for an assist skill, but to be attacked by your party... why is that even POSSIBLE!? And don't expect assist skills to work either. First, you have to bring up a skill wheel, then select the skill, then toggle among NPCs or Objects or PCs, then use the skill. Sounds simple, until you consider human nature. If I'm standing next to an injured PC, I bring up the wheel and toggle to that PC, then select the desired skill... and then the toggle jumps off that PC to some other default PC. I missed a step, I expected the skill assignment button and PC toggle to be independent of each other as they are in fact completely different buttons. But no, you MUST go step by step. Then there's exploring. If you're standing between 2 different objects or NPCs, expect the targeting toggle to jump about however the game deems appropriate, regardless of what thing you're attempting to interact with. The quest system? Just remember what you have to do (hunting or gathering), because the quest log won't help much and flagging a quest does nothing on the map. Then there's the story, the core of any RPG. It unfolds largely through radio monologues and the occasional cut scene of no better quality than your average Sega Genesis. Oh, the live action sequence at the beginning? Yeah, that was it. Hope you enjoyed all 3 minutes. But, what about that cool scorpion tank on the start up screen? Yeah, expect nothing like that in 99.99% of the game play, from the combat to NPC interactions. But the story's good, right? There's more story in 2 hours of Fallout or Borderlands, than in 15 hours of this game. The NPCs have no depth, which only further serves to paint a static, lifeless environment. The mini bosses and inept end boss, with the motivation and charisma of sawdust, exist in every post-apocalyptic game ever made. There's just nothing original or appealing about grinding through this buggy lip-service to better games. I give it a 2 out of 10, because it did achieve some form of functionality... sometimes.… Expand
Wasteland 2: Director's CutYour Score0 out of 10User Score
