Wasteland 2 - Honest Review

I had this game for some time (mistaken it for Borderland 2 - a First Person Shooter game if not mistaken). I really do not like to play FPS games so Wasteland 2 was in my PSN Library for about two years (got it for free from PSN). I actually played Shadow Tactics before I play this game (which game similar battle system) but overlooked Wasteland 2 completely until couple of months back when I ran out of games to play (which were not Strategic or Tactic based). So I saw this game lying in my library, decided to google it up on Youtube and boy! Was I surprised to learn it was a Tactic game.I had downloaded it from my library, assuming that it gonna suck but quickly, I was surprised at the way the game was designed. It was not a huge RPG project like what you could expect in most RPG games nowadays but it was a good and simple game, nevertheless. 

The year was 2100 (you will get that date when you play Wasteland 3 which I'm currently playing). The plot was straight-forward and simple - about a newly graduated Ranger in a post-apocalytic World (based in Arizona, USA), after what appears to be a nuclear war for some unknown reasons. He or she (you can choose the gender) was send out on their first mission which was to investigate a case of missing person (a fellow Ranger) and the story continued from there, spiralling from one town after another, meeting new people, recruiting some of them, reshaping stories and moving the plot along. 

Battles are Tactical-based, similar to Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea games and as person who enjoys these sort of games (my nephew does not), I really did like the battle system. However, there was only a certain limited tutorial on what to do and how to act and the game will allow you to explore things on their own. While the weapon and armors in this game seems to play a vital role, it is your skill sets which will determine your victory factor in any battle by either shifting the advantage in your favor before the battle or during the battle itself.

The skills can be broken down to :

General Skills 

Animal Whisperer (ability to tame wild animals and use them in battle).

Barter (Buy and Sell items).

Brute Force

Smart Ass, Hard Ass, Kiss Ass (all works in the same way so you only need one).

Leadership - influence other party members to perform better.

Outdoorsman - Survival skills

Perception - Ability to take note of your surroundings - find hidden things, loots etc.

Weaponsmithing - Dismantle weapons for parts.

Weapon Skills

Assault Rifle

Bladed Weapons

Blunt Weapons

Brawling

Energy Weapons

Handguns

Heavy Weapons

Shotgun

Sniper Rifles

Submachine Guns

Knowledge Skills

Alarm Disarming - Gain entry to locked rooms, houses etc.

Computer Science - Basically hacking

Demolitions - Thrown things like grenades. Also disarming bombs which, when level up higher, will allow you to get bombs and grenades from the dismantled bombs.

Field Medic - Healing a member and evolved to allow you to heal others.

Pick locks

Mechanical Repairs - fix up any form of mechanical things on the map (including robots).

Safecracking 

Surgeon - Similar to Field Medic but has a higher percentage of success and healing capability.

Toaster Repairs - Can get nice goodies by repairing these toasters, even so I have never bothered much about it.

This game relies heavily on your ability to customize your party members to your specification, which then could function as a group rather than an individual unit. It is very much like the traditional Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) where there are classes for characters and each of them could function as a separate character supporting the overall group in their own way. I like that concept in this game.

You don't need to pick all the weapon skills for all the characters either. In my opinion, having two weapon skill (for a primary and secondary weapon) per character should be adequate for this. I usually go for an assault rifle + a handgun for a character or a shotgun + handgun or a sniper rifle + handgun (with handguns being the secondary backup weapon). The reason for this is that you will consume AP (Action Point) every time you reload your ammo during a battle and that could be troublesome. It is best you just switch weapon (unless you are far from the target and your handgun will not reach it). 

I also ignored heavy weapons and sub-machine guns (SMGs). I didn't like them or the way they spray bullets like there was no tomorrow. In this game, you don't get bullets by the busload. You have to buy them or finding them on the World map or get them as loots off dead enemies. And money is a factor to consider here as well (more on that later). That old saying "Make every shot count" must be followed here in this game or you will find yourself with a powerful weapon but no ammo to shoot with. 

Which brings me to another set-skill you should think about - Brawling. Brawling in the game is very useful and can be very powerful skill to have. In RPG genre, we have something called "Tank character" who works just like the name suggests - a tank that goes right into the middle of the battlefield and beat the crap out of anything and everything. The "tank" usually is a character that had a very high HP (health point) and equipped with strong armor which could allow him to take a lot of damage and still remain alive long enough to kill the attacker. 

Brawling skill makes this possible as it could allow you to create a Tank character and allow him to fight unarmed OR with series of melee weapons (that's close-range weapons) which sometimes does more damage to the enemy than shooting them from far. Concentrate in improving the character on speed, evasion, HP and concentration skills and you have a character which could lead the charge and allow the enemy to focus on him while other characters (particularly snipers) could remain on the back and take the enemies out from a distance. 

Money is a very hectic topic in the game (and it had become worse in Wasteland 3). Your primary source of income is by attacking enemies and looting them of money, weapons and armor which then you can keep (for your own characters which saves you the trouble of buying them) OR selling them off to traders. Luckily for you, you can randomly encounter enemies as well as traders in the open World as you move from one point to another and traders could be your primary source of income as well as to replenish your supplies of healing items and ammo. I find this aspect of the game to be very well-made as it showcase a similar features you could find in the old RPG games. 

So in term of combat system, this game really nailed the traditional RPG looks, feel and design in a modern concept which replaces traditional weapons (like swords, axes, great-swords, bows and arrows and even magic) with a more modern weapons like guns, rifles, shotguns, explosive and brawling. You could have a good feeling of playing a traditional RPG using modern settings which to me is very refreshing and interesting.

From Plot perspective, the story is a good one as well. You play as a newly graduated "Ranger" from the Arizona Ranger Corps, a group which founded from former US Military Corp before the fall of the Civilization and you are in-charge of finding what had happened to a veteran Ranger who was sent out to investigate something. The plot continues from there and I like it on how smooth the plot flows, allowing you to remember your own (main) mission while still focus on doing side quests (which not many to be honest). This game is not like Skyrim where they shove tonnes of side quests on your head to the point that you forget why you are out in the wilderness in the first place.

The battles are challenging and forces you to take heed of the enemies' positions as well as your own before sending out your characters to encounter them. There are permanent deaths in this game, where you can lose  character permanently, so always safe your game after each encounters. 

And finally the aspect of companion or recruitable characters. In this game, you have a choice whether to accept a predesigned character from the game (who usually come with his or her own team) OR design your own character (a single person) and then find your own recruitable character (which could not be an easy task at the beginning) as you progress through the game. For beginners, I could suggest choosing the character given to you by the game. This is because a single character you create may not have the necessary skills (like Field medic, Lockpicking, Computer Science (Hacking) and so forth) to proceed through the game early on. 

Your companions comes with their own customsable skills and equipment which you can customize for your battles. In my first playthrough, I had my main character with a gun and assault rifle together with a team consists of two snipers, a brawler and a medic (with a gun). Later, I got myself a hob with a shotgun, a grumpy old lady scientist who doubled as a secondary medic and a She-Hulk (green skinned lady) who was my hacker. I also had a non-controllable companion who speak Spanish but he died on me in the middle of the game. You can still recruit new members when you go back to the headquarters but in most times, you will likely to be using these as your main party members as it could be a time-consuming effect to level up and customize a new member especially in the middle of the game.

However, be forewarned though, if you have a team member and you did not level him or her up accordance to your main party members, there could be time when they are forced to fight against stronger enemies when these enemies attack your base, and your weaker characters could end up getting killed permanently. I made that mistake and lost couple of members in my first playthrough as well. 

So overall, you need to get a good grip as what sort of team you want to have at the start of the game and slowly reshape them into the type of team you have envisioned. In doing so, you will find the battles are easier to win and you could have a lot of money and extra ammo required by the time you finish the game.

Also, I have found that a lot of game's music scores and songs (especially the ending song "The Cries of a Dead World by Gavin Dunne (Miracle of Sound) is very beautiful, catchy and appropriately fits the scenario and the mood the game was trying to portray of the Post-Apocalypse World that they live in.

And in that conclusion, this game is a very entertaining game. It had a lot of funny moments, decision and choices which could shape your team as well as well good battles and memorable characters. The game also quite stable, with it crashing on my Playstation 4 console about three times only throughout the game play (which for a game made in Unity was good enough).