[NewsPoster]

In 2012, InXile Entertainment took to Kickstarter, aiming to raise $900,000 revive the 1988 classic role-playing game Wasteland with a sequel. Since then, and with over $2.9 million in pledges from over 61,000 backers, the team has rolled out Wasteland 2 on Steam, a successor which attempts to modernize the base game while keeping the style and gameplay of the original release.


The original Wasteland, coded in the era of Miami Vice and big hair, pitted the player against a post-apocalyptic landscape, guiding a group of Desert Rangers around a radiation-flooded United States, discovering and protecting settlements against various menaces, all within a fairly utilitarian interface. The game went on to inspire the successful Fallout series of games, a franchise which continues to run with the fourth main installment currently under development.

A long 26-years after the original game, Wasteland 2 opens to reveal things have changed considerably since the late '80s, though things defiantly stay the same. Set a number of years after the first Wasteland, the player is tasked with guiding a new rag-tag group of Desert Rangers through the region, initially investigating the death of a ranger and attempting to finish the mission he died attempting to complete. As tasks are completed a greater threat emerges, which the team has to deal with, or else the Desert Rangers may get eliminated completely.

Starting with a team of four, which the player can customize using an RPG-style points system to create their own people or by selecting pre-made characters, players can move between locations, performing tasks and occasionally communicating back to base with the radio system. The radio provides two main functions: the provision of new tasks at varying times, and the occasional leveling up of party members, followed by setting their new points into assorted useful skills, e.g. weapon types, specialties such as lockpicking, and even the ability to add more discussion branches with people using the "Hard Ass," "Kiss Ass," and "Smart Ass" traits.

The amount of text the game throws at you is astounding, given the potential for variety that arises, and probably for the better. Throughout the game you have a small section at the bottom right providing text-based logs for events, encounters, conversations, and interactions with items. Though conversations with others include decent voice acting throughout, conversations do include various key words highlighted as hints for where to take the discussion next, with the text log being extremely useful for checking back what was previously said.

If the party comes across a potential enemy they can't talk their way around, the entire group enters a turn-based encounter with the enemy combatants, with each team member able to move independently of each other, able to take cover, fire at enemies with varying levels of success for hitting or jamming a gun, and move around, based on a fixed number of action points. This limitation forces the player to think critically about each and every encounter, as opting to move away instead of firing at an enemy at close range could buy the character a little more time and stay alive for just a little longer.

It is in these confrontations where the game shows its steel underbelly, in that these encounters get extremely tough for those new to turn-based squad RPG-style games really quickly, even on the easiest difficulty setting. Multiple retries for some encounters are a necessity, as limited provisions force players to aim for the optimum battle in order to survive the next one, even with a well-chosen initial party and the help of the occasional extra person joining the group. This difficulty extends to other parts of the world, with the various objects likely to hold something of value also containing some form of booby trap a large percentage of the time, along with a general scarcity of objects in general.

For example, a squad made up of the traditional broad roles of a medic, a sniper, someone to deal melee damage as the "tank" and a "Jack of all trades" feels like a good team at first. With the expectation of what usually happens in other games, it should survive a fair few of the initial encounters with some ease. Instead, in just the third area, the party got wiped repeatedly when faced against what could be considered basic enemies, on the easiest difficulty setting. A restart with a careful application of skills to a new team of rogues rather than a generalist group brought more success.

Even navigation at the global scale is hazardous. When the party moves from location to location, it has a limited amount of moves dictated by water, a resource which can be replenished at some of the destinations and an oasis, but ultimately becomes a map-based resource management puzzle. Radiation clouds also hinder progress, damaging the team if they do not have the relevant level radiation suits.

The core of the game has strayed little from its roots, but the modernization effort is certainly welcomed. Following an initial introductory video explaining the state of the world, the game then shows itself with a top-down camera giving an overview of the area, and fairly decent quality visuals. Objects, obstacles, and the landscape itself are presented well, with everything shown to be in a state of disrepair, as expected from a nuclear nightmare, and a fog of war covering unexplored areas. While the graphical user interface and the in-game scenery generally matches the theme well, the radio at the top has little in the way of utility, aside from upgrades, and could probably benefit from being included as a simpler button on the main interface bar instead.

While party members are constantly highlighted for identification purposes, the game does throw up a handy grid-style overlay during combat, showing where the player can move individual party members to and where they can shoot. Though this doesn't match the rest of the interface that well, it is clear enough for players to understand exactly what is going on, and could be forgiven.

As a whole, it is easy to say the Kickstarter campaign is a success, having delivered a game that certainly wears its badge of "successor" with pride. Backers are likely to love the late '80s level of difficulty and an old apocalyptic world redrawn for modern systems, as well as the humor and references to the original game which crop up every so often. There is little for a fan to point to and disagree with in terms of design decisions the developers made, and to their core audience, InXile Entertainment have managed to accomplish a loving homage to the original that modernizes the source material.

Those new to the genre may find Wasteland 2 an overwhelming and extremely difficult game rather than a trip down memory lane. The influence of the more-recent Fallout games should make some modern gamers look at Wasteland 2 with interest, only to be put off by the lack of hand-holding found in games created in the last decade or so. To those gamers, it is strongly suggested that they keep with the game, force their way through the tougher-than-expected encounters, and revel in a little bit of modern history.

Who is Wasteland 2 for?
Fans of post-apocalyptic games who fancy a considerable challenge, as well as a history lesson in the genre.

Who is Wasteland 2 not suited for?
People wanting a highly-linear, laid-back jaunt without the need to think about their actions.