Wasteland 2 - Where Sadistic GM's go to please their masochistic followers

Back in the day (Late 1990's) Brian Fargo and Jason Anderson were involved with the critically acclaimed Fallout series (Computer RPG) Though I can't seem to find anything about their involvement with this series on either of their IMDB pages.  Anderson was also involved with the amazing "Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines" RPG along with two other heavy hitters from the Fallout Series: Leonard Boyarski and Tim Cain.

It is unfortunate then that this game is one of the causalities of technology.  Sometimes a game just needs simplicity.  The effort to create a better game by using a 3d rotating map with well rendered graphics and large levels doesn't actually make a better game. 

Respectively:

1) Using a 3D map that constantly changes perspective keeps the player having to orient himself every time.  Taking advantage of the ability to rotate the map and to incorporate that into the game itself by the placement of supplies means the play spends more time rotating the map and searching than actually playing the game.  Though one might say "This IS part of the game".  I never found trying to find anything in Real Life all that much fun...why would I find it fun in a game? 
 
2) Back in the Fallout 1 and 2 days... it was easy to find lockers.  They were in the right amount and not often included garbage.  The act of unlocking something meant there was something worthy of being locked up.  Now in large levels with details and shadows...lock boxes are everywhere.  Often what is inside a trapped lockbox isn't even worth the trap to put on it.  The advanced textures and detail hides boxes and details in these enormous maps. 

3) Just because you can make enormous maps doesn't mean you should ignore the travel times to get around on them.  In most other games, you open up the world map and you can go straight into travel mode.  Back in the day of Fallout...you could cross an entire zone in like 15 seconds to get to the world travel zone. 

You might state; and rightfully so, this game makes you earn everything.  You almost always seem to have enough...but you have to work for it and search for those boxes of loot and caches.  This is absolutely right.  I wouldn't object but the game takes away from you the one thing that matters in a RPG:

Choice. 

If you didn't cross your fingers around 3:00 pm before Bob fell into the lake and after Alice picked her nose then you have no choice but to slaughter a group of innocent people.  Right in the beginning there is a choice to be had to save one of two settlements.  Save the agricultural center and suffer the constant abuse from the administrator there (who calls you idiots, assholes, jerkwads, cowboys) ... this is the place to get 'Rose' who is a great benefit to a team without a proper academic support person.  Despite any amount of the three kinds of speech talent, you can't ask the administrator to "Rephrase her statement...because there are people dying elsewhere who might be more polite about us saving them instead".  The writer continues to beat the player often.  You might be able to win a few debates but more often at a time when it matters...all 3 Speech talents will get tongue tied and innocent people will have to die.  A good computer RPG will attempt to circumvent the pitfalls of  limited choice systems.  This RPG takes a perverse pleasure in watching you help an old lady across the street so that it can hit you with a car.  Don't expect that your first group will be your full play through.  Despite having 4 characters, there are a TON of skills and you can't cover everything (Though breaking down a fence is a skill but throwing a grenade or dynamite isn't!!!???).  More often than not, you are going to get to a certain point in the game and find that you did not meet the minimum requirements for a certain skill and you get to watch the computer kill baby puppies to abuse you with.  It's not as though you lacked the intuition to make a choice on which skills to upgrade and which to leave for later...you just didn't read the GM's mind.  It's like trying to pick a number from 1 to 10...guessing wrong and getting paddled for it.  A good RPG will give you some estimation...it will help you train your instincts based on subtle clues.  Here's your first big clue: Do a walkthrough! 

The best RPGs are like stories.  This story is like one told by a father to his children at bedtime.  And as they all start to fall asleep in their jammies thinking that all is right with their world, the father gently closes the book and hits them with it.

Seriously...did Jason Anderson spend the last 10 years in his basement with his whips and chains because the only thing he seems to have gotten better at is being a sadistic writer.  A proper RPG you can go through on intuition.  You never need a walkthrough to keep yourself from getting painted into a corner. 

Despite the limitation of the story, the programming really has everything covered.  There was one scene in the rail nomads camp where, upon not seeing me and having a challenge area to not being seen, Kebbaka announces that I made off with the Golden Spike and that I'm to be shot on sight.  I ran down to the Atchesson camp where I presented the leader there with the Golden Spike... he said "He will now sit down and negotiate for peace".  Coming back, the other side decides I'm to be shot and engages me in combat...but we physically cannot attack each other...and the combat can't end...nice.

Negotiating peace ...as I'm starting to walk out of the Red Scorpion camp, I realize I had been duped.  I turn around and slaughter them all.  Coming back...I was intending to tell the farmer that the Red Scorpions had been destroyed and that he can have his farm back.  The dialogue option wasn't present and I only told him that I sold him and his entire town up the river for a negotiated peace...at this point the man tells me I was a coward...runs up to the Red Scorpion camp and gets shot by no one (since everyone is already dead) and immediately dies.  Nice.

Asshole storytelling and shitty programming.  This game HAS IT ALL!!!

Another thing...save the good versus good shit for the novels.  Reading such things is an examination of the human condition.  When I am shooting someone...I want to believe they deserved it...not that I'm a puppet of circumstance.  That isn't to say you can't make the enemy believable.

Unlike in a lot of other games, money here matters...a lot.  You just never seem to have enough of the right stuff so searching every grubby trunk and safe you can get your hands on is essential.  That ratty pair of jeans might be enough to buy a bullet that would save your life.  Random encounters will level you but they will also cost bullets and medpacks...and usually don't give enough to compensate for the loss.  This is absolutely right.  I remember turning up my nose at junk in Fallout New Vegas ... thinking that, despite being a dystopian future, you have plenty of affordable supplies to attain.  Imagine playing that same game where every bit of junk could get you acquire matters...it would be a hell of a lot better.

I don't hate this game.  I am passionate about what I hate in the game because I see the potential.  I actually really enjoyed myself right up to the point where I got to a "Well...lets see these puppies getting tortured together because you have no choice in the matter" segment and started again.  But that's cool...I can try new combinations and whatnot. 

For this reason, this game doesn't get a review...it gets 3.  If you look online, you will find the reviews for this game are either very high or very low.  For making the player his "bitch", Jason Anderson gets a the "John Romero" award 1/10.  Programming and Testing was deplorable.  A few "nested if" statements could have easily fixed a lot of this shit... nothing for six months.  Seriously?  You guys have talent but you are as lazy as fuck!  1/10!!!  Despite the slow travel times and the over rendering of the graphics for what properly have been made with a 1997 game engine, the imaginative quotient of this game, combat system, and the balance...plus the fact that I'm a masochist and am playing it ALOT I give it a 8/10.  But what is the real score!?

Summary?  These guys could have done a whole lot better.  They have the talent...they have potential.  Maybe "Kickstarter" wasn't the right company to be endorsing their endeavor...perhaps "KickintheassStarter" next time!!!  This is a 4/10 game for all except the RPG enthusiasts and the masochists.  10 years in the making!?  is that 1 hour a day with 50 minutes of that in review!?  I'm not saying they shouldn't do another one.  Renoire may have thrown some paint over his shoulder at some canvas from the comfort of his arm chair...it doesn't mean he didn't get off his ass and paint. 
To all you critics out there: stop with the damn accolades.  We all want them to not get discouraged and to make another one...but we all know this wasn't even close to a proper effort so stop embarrassing yourselves.   Do you really want them to phone it in worse than they did this time!!!???