Table of Contents
amazon Wasteland 3 reviews
The very first moments of Wasteland 3 bring out a real “culture shock”!
No desert sand, no green grass on the side of concrete road, no dilapidated city.
The game comes in the middle of a cold winter in Colorado and its scenery suddenly reminds me of … Metro Exodus more than Fallout.
The difference is, the development of human civilization in Colorado is completely opposed to the humanity within it.
In an attempt to find aid for Arizona, the November battalion of the Desert Ranger force successfully communicated with the commander in Colorado – Saul Buchanan.
If the fact that the same last name with the 15th President of the United States has not made you realize, then he seems quite authoritarian, and his way of reign also leaves many conflicting opinions: that he is the main savior of Colorado, who is bringing this land back to the grave, who is to bring down all evil forces, is a blatant liar, is a man of grace who has fostered new hope for a future?
He also called himself “Patriarch”. The great hammer he always held by was about the same size as his ego.
However, he is the only one who has the power and accept to support the November battalion, meaning you will have to shake hands with him if you want to return safely, and ensure the survival of Arizona.
The fact that the main story of Wasteland 3 revolves around torn by the “family drama”, telling quite a lot about Colorado’s fate and rolling about a few dozen – hundred innocent people left.
In a land where cannibals outnumber the peasants, anyone who is defenseless is forced to choose a side to keep his life.
The idea of belonging to “patriarchs” like Saul has passed down through generations, so your neutral gaze will be immediately challenged by countless morally good people but have reasons to support those dictator.
Saul is not the only guava you will encounter in Wasteland 3.
The powerful, the ruling forces are rotten, the fanatic cult of a mechanical statue bearing the form of … Ronald Reagan to the point of ridiculousness, and the deception revealed in the sheath of the empathy machine.
Every negotiation in Wasteland 3 is a “double-edged sword” with no handle, if good people do not die, bad people will leave with a warning, if you are neutral, your interests are threatened.
Colorado is a hell on earth, it operates according to the institutions of the Stone Age.
If you are wandering around in the woods, you will probably find slaves hiding in hiding more easily than wild animals.
The jubilant moments, trying to make Wasteland 3 sound more exciting as the cosplayer leader, Vlad the Impaler, do not bring a sense of hope, of “in the dark, there is light” or such a luxury.
They were simply the “pain relievers” for the punchline-free gossip of a drinker who always saw heads with rolling eyes, lying on the ground inside his memories.
And that is why the Desert Rangers are back in Colorado.
Wasteland 3 contains lines, factions, and written NPCs, not so excellent, but well-rounded and memorable.
But what most holds me back is the prospect of exaggerated violence inadvertently creating extremely natural humanitarian reactions.
Whether inXile Entertainment intended to create a distinct identity for the series, Wasteland 3’s Colorado deserves the gold medal, for what it represents inside. its limited size and skepticism.
Wasteland 3 greatly simplifies character progression compared to its predecessor, including a perk system.
Most notably, some specialization skills are pooled and separated based on weapon type and attributes, for example, Small Arms affects the accuracy of pistols and shotguns. The entire small perk of these two weapons, or the long-range grenade-throw / deployable equipment, is assigned to Strength.
This change makes the character progression system not only easier to understand and allows for a more proficient character to be built in more ways, but also avoids the redundancy of Wasteland 2’s Mk1, Mk2 perk.
It is not as deep and varied as Pathfinder: Kingmaker and still has many holes left, but it does well in a game with a length of about 25-30 hours.
The biggest highlight of Wasteland 3’s gameplay is of course turn-based combat.
It demonstrates the spirit of “quality over quantity” in the core of the game as every weapon has its ground: shotguns are quite weak early game but have very powerful special attacks and have can break cover, SMG cannot take advantage of accurate firing mechanism but has high DPS and very cheap ammunition, LMG can hit two targets close to each other but consumes the most AP, melee weapons depending on The type can cause bleeding through turns, causing the “stun” effect to reduce the AP.
Some types of guns don’t look different from ordinary guns but have special properties, like shooting ice or fire bullets, firing energy bullets (ignoring armor stats completely), or even … shrinking the hit target.
They also have an extra perk that is quite “bizarre” but rarely useless, like reloading does not cost AP if it hits the target twice in a row, or deals extra damage if the target is on fire.
This variety also applies to the design of the armor, combining the right equipment, character perk, and fitting the appropriate mod and you are no different … a mobile tank, or immune to energy bullets!
Not only stopping at countless ways to turn your target into red slime with a gun, but Wasteland 3 also gives you many more options.
Wasteland 3 has also received quite a bit of criticism about the design of the “encounter” in Wasteland 2.
Depending on the area’s layout, enemy type, and character stats, players can stealthily destroy a pile of guns in an enemy base before a fight, or place party members in a convenient position before being hit detected by the enemy.
The types of enemies that players face also depend on factions, such as Vic Buchanan’s soldiers using flamethrowers a lot, the Scar Collectors who prefer energy guns and Sawblades, Dorsey has quite a lot of machines and animals, the Bizzare clown gang or suicide bombs.
Players can completely make plans to deal easily because they are always active.
Depending on the area that you can take advantage of the suspension trap, or even if you shoot each other at the entrance of the area, a few … dyeing the ground red from a Kodiak vehicle will give you the edge that could not be better.
Where to start with the sheer number of defects Wasteland 3 has?
While I was pleased with Wasteland 3’s spread of content (especially compared to Wasteland 2’s number of futile long, and super time-consuming battles), the game falls short… 30% more content feels complete.
The game features only three main downtown areas: Colorado Springs, Bizarre, and Denver.
The entire chapter 1 and half of chapter 2 are concentrated in Colorado Springs and its sub-towns (Ranger HQ is also located here).
Bizarre is relatively large, but the main mission sequence is not that large, and Denver is not only little.
The Gipper is considered one of the main factions of the game and resides in Denver, but the sect’s headquarters are only 3 to 4 rooms, the remaining 2/3 of Denver is divided into The Machine Commune’s area and a series of battle spots with the Godfisher faction.
It does not show the influence of The Gipper, nor does it show the fact that Colorado in Wasteland 3 is much smaller than the NPC description or from the pages you can read.
Of course, like some cRPG games in recent years, the last 1/3 of Wasteland 3 is designed extremely… patchwork.
After completing the Aspen storyline, you will only have 2 or 3 side quests in the west and the game will urge you to face Liberty Buchanan to quickly finish the game.
While the final choice is formally based on your reputation among the factions in Colorado, the story leading up to that point is interpreted quite superficially, as well as giving players little chance to experiment with the powerful weapon found in the “endgame” phase.
This made me suddenly remember a similar game: Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden.
Wasteland 3’s character progression system, as noted above, is still pretty flawed.
The streamlining of perk and character attributes is a big plus, but the game gives players a lot of perk gain when leveling up, plus you have 6 team members, making the choices. The stat test dialogue quickly became… meaningless in the second half of the game.
It’s not difficult to increase some dialogue and action skills like Hard Ass / Kiss Ass, Medic, Mechanic, and Explosive with only 3 or 4 members, and some of them also affect combat ability. In the match, you will rarely get stuck in situations where the required dialogue stats are not met.
Of course, not all dialogue allows you to use words to pass even if the stats are met, but in general, because the game does not set the success rate after skill check, the choice of conversation that the player wants in Wasteland 3 a bit too … easy.
Because of the redundancy of skill points, players rarely have to consider building their character.
Wasteland 3 suffers from a similar defect with Gears Tactics.
You can recruit new Ranger characters with their forte without spending any currency.
As a result, the game allows the player to repeatedly drop unnecessary skills such as Armor / Weaponsmith, Barter, and Toaster Repair onto these tank characters, if necessary press Esc to temporarily switch to them, then switch the character is using on the party.
This type of consequence, no punishment greatly minimizes the weight of the risk-reward relationship of Wasteland 3.
Wasteland 3’s combat mechanics are, at its core, interesting, but it also needs to be honed a bit.
Although the game gives you the chance to approach matches at will, it accidentally destroys the Initiative by this “Alpha Strike” mechanism.
The game allows players to fire first in 95% of all crashes, and the best strategy is usually: using a grenade launcher, waiting for multiple targets to move together to cause a lot of damage best, start fighting, drop all the emplacements / Sawblade/Grenades and heavy damage you have, and try to finish the fight in 3 – 4 turns.
So… what do you need the Initiative to do since all 6 members of the team will always start simultaneously?
This problem can be resolved with a wider variety of clashes: the November battalion is suddenly ambushed (perhaps only once in the game), surrounded by enemies from more directions than just in the direct direction, there are no blind spots that force you to send your character forward to investigate.
The absence of a wide range of combat scenes made Wasteland 3’s meta-tactics early on: sniping and grenade launch was always the number one choice.
The reason for the “crowning” of snipers is quite simple.
It has two sub stats: armor and piercing.
If it pierced higher, it completely ignored the armor.
If the armor is higher, it will initiate a “debuff” (max 85%) depending on the stat distance between the target’s armor and penetration from the source.
Attributes like fire, ice, electricity, and energy completely ignored armor.
This super-simple relationship is exacerbated by the sniper rifles themselves with extremely high penetration (and especially the high-level enemies in the second half of the game have a lot of armor).
It doesn’t take into account piercing losses based on distance or type of ammo, and because the game “throws” you with too powerful energy weapons in the second half, which types of heavy armor opponents are almost absent living land.
You can completely defeat … an armored vehicle with two-three sniper shots, a job can be done in a single turn if you have Coordination (measuring the number of character AP) and Luck (increases critical hit and no AP) high.
Some SMG or HMG weapons also use energy bullets, meaning you do not need to spend skill points on the “Weird Science” attribute to use these special weapons.
All of the above shortcomings make Wasteland 3’s combat quickly turn into a “quick kill in the first 2/3 turns” or “get killed in the first 2/3 turns” quite one way.
Enemies can rarely “slap” you with equally painful attacks, but if there is, the ability to restore the party to a state of 0 scratches is also abundant.
If your teammate is defeated, just run to… get up (no AP), healing tools are not only cheap but also a bit too much extra power if used by a character with high Medic!
Even if you have spare time, drive back to Ranger HQ, Bizarre, or wherever a doctor is available for healing at super cheap prices!
This leaves Wasteland 3 lacking the stress factor typically seen after facing a tough foe in other games (eg XCOM: Enemy Unknown).
Finally, Wasteland 3 is in desperate need of further improvements to the UX (user experience) side.
You do not consume any stamina or resources while moving between large areas.
The only obstacle you will encounter is the radioactive areas (which only need money to buy a high-grade bracket).
The obstacle cases such as encountering a random enemy are also “innocuous” due to the permissive index checking mechanism (as mentioned above).