Wasteland 2 - Review Roundup #1

Well here are a batch of new reviews for the just released Wasteland 2. The good news is most of them are positive, but find a few problems with the game.

PC Gamer - 83/100

It took Brian Fargo 26 years to get to revisit the world of the Desert Rangers. It took a $3 million Kickstarter campaign to fund inXile’s initial development. And it took a welcome resurgence in complex computer role-playing games to make it all possible. Wasteland 2 lives up to its legacy. It’s a game that has come full circle—from inspiration for Interplay’s Fallout, to spiritual successor for that franchise’s roots. This wasteland is deep and dark and dangerous, and a great place to get lost in.

Eurogamer - 8/10

Wasteland 2 is a great sequel. It's very clearly made with love to be true to the original game while still learning from the games that followed. In going for something so unapologetically old-school it does sacrifice the ability to do anything new with the format, as Divinity: Original Sin managed to do in many ways; that game's flexibility does arguably make it the better of this year's two old-school, turn-based computer RPGs.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - No Score

Wasteland 2 is formidable. The word ‘sprawling’ comes to mind but it’s not quite right. There’s a bit of sprawl, if such a thing as sprawl can happen in bits, but the game’s density is a more distinctive feature than its actual size. InXile’s Kickstarted RPG is a large game and rewards repeated playthroughs with previously unseen content, but it’s the sheer quantity of stuff that has astonished and occasionally overwhelmed me.

Digital Spy - 4/5

Wasteland 2 might be daunting to newcomers, then, but its a sequel that successfully captures the strategic depth and black humor of the original. Brian Fargo and his team at InXile have delivered a quintessential role-playing experience with infinite possibilities.

Pixeldynamo - 8.9/10

Those expecting Fallout 4 will be disappointed, although they only really have their own delusional misconceptions to blame. Wasteland 2 is a truly excellent top-down, turn-based tactical RPG, just like it promised to be.

Strategy Informer -7.5/10

There's a level of roughness here that I couldn't help but be a little disappointed by after such a long development time. For every smartly written sequence with vibrant locations and characters, there's an aimless fetch quest or an overlong combat section. Oddly enough, despite the content added in Wasteland 2's extra year of production, I think the game could have benefited from being cut down, edited to emphasise the best bits and get rid of some of the clutter. I like Wasteland 2, I really do, but I can't help but think it's not quite the masterpiece we were promised

Alos as a bonus InXile Entertainment is holding a new AMA today.

We are the leads on Wasteland 2 (currently the #1 PC game), the godfather of the post-apocalyptic fallout series. Brian Fargo, Matt Findley and Chris Keenan here to discuss all things crowdfunding, game-making, and escaping the grasp of publishers.