Some Wasteland 2 thoughts

This isn't a video game blog, but, in between writing, I've been playing Wasteland 2, which I backed on Kickstarter. I'm a big post-apoc fan.

I played for an hour or so with four pre-gens, to get some idea of how it played and what skills I'd need. After half of them died (and I had no surgeon to stabilize them, and I saw how well and poorly some weapons worked) I made up my own guys.

Overall, it's good stuff.

Pros:

- "one more" syndrome is strong here. I'll stop when I get to town. I'll stop after this fight. I'll stop after checking out this box.

- Humorous. Nothing quite like finding a relic in the form of a 30 meg hard drive that says "The last hard drive you'll ever need. You'll never fill 30 megs." Heh. I remember when I had a 30 meg hard drive.

- The weapon customization/add-on and strip-for-parts system is a lot of fun.

- Weapon choices stay valid. My pistol dude is still worth having.

- Leveling drives play - it's neither too slow nor too fast.

- Effects of equipment are clearly spelled out.

Cons:

- No formations. Seriously, I can't tell you how annoying "run around in a big mob" is, especially when I have to re-position everyone before a fight. That they sometimes snap to grid when a fight starts in an odd way means two guys I had next to each other are now front-to-back and block each others' line of fire, stuff like that.

- The mob formation means I've had characters step on land mines or walk into traps because they tried to crowd around the edge of something instead of just following the leader. They've even stepped on mines we'd spotted, proving that even Intelligence 10 out of 10 doesn't mean the characters aren't idiots.

- No pre-set combat options means I can position everyone for an ambush, spring it with a sniper shot, and then have the enemy swarm us while everyone sits. I should be able to select "Ambush" (basically, Wait) as an option even out of combat, or get a round for my guys if I start the fight by surprise.

- Tiny white numbers. Honestly, for some equipment, I have no idea how much I have.

- The camera. I'm either in so close I can't see anything, or out so far I can't see important stuff up close. I've actually missed key things and had to go back because my camera angle didn't make it seem like there was a tunnel there, or a door there, or whatever. I end up pixel-bitching too much.

In all, I'm having fun. I've had to enforce a daily work time and word count restriction - no Wasteland 2 until I've done my work and my studies and my class prep. Fun stuff, and I'm very glad I backed this one. I never played Wasteland, but I played the designer's other games, Fallout and Fallout 2, and this feels much the same as that one in terms of feel and fun.