Matt Kamen 

Wasteland 2 review – complex fun in a post-apocalyptic world

The dialogue compensates for the dry fighting scenes in this sequel to a game released 26 years ago, writes Matt Kamen
  
  

Wasteland 2, games
Wasteland 2: 'a game of sacrifices'. Photograph: PR

Coming an epic 26 years after the first Wasteland, this long-awaited sequel is unapologetically aimed at the hardcore RPG player. Creating your four-member team of Desert Rangers is the first hint of the brilliant complexity of the game – you even have to write your characters’ bios, not just distribute skill points between a host of abilities.

Wasteland 2 is inherently a game of sacrifices, though – not just in the grim choices you’ll have to make as you explore the post-apocalyptic setting but in how it is explored. However you distribute those skill points, you’ll inevitably lack some skill that will prove useful later, confronting gamers with the uncomfortable realisation that you can miss items or events permanently. Combat is fairly dry – a chess-like, turn-based affair with overly realistic problems such as jammed guns – but the strength of the game’s writing, with its superb dialogue and moral ambivalence, makes up for it.

 

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