The next episode in the History of Isometric CRPGs will likely be Age of Decadence. Timestamps for this video: Intro - 0:00 History - 1:12 Wasteland 1 review - 14:30 Character creation - 26:08 Combat - 38:11 Atmosphere - 47:30 Story - 54:07 Quests - 58:37 Conclusion - 1:09:20
Oh yeah. I've watched this series 4 times so far. I absolutely LOVE his no bullshit style & most of these games are badass. And the just give $1 if you can plus we don't have to hear about patreon tier bullshit. Chris Davis rocks. I've watched all of his videos now.
I have never played an isometric CRPG and I have still watched every video in this series and been thoroughly entertained. I LOVE the history and background you give at the start of these videos, it’s something other critique channels never do that I think is so cool. Thanks for making quality content during these hard times. Chris Davis rocks.
What a behemoth of a task you've put upon yourself, covering all these games. Great work so far. Looking forward to that Wasteland 3 video sometime in the future!
Wasteland 2 and 3 are now in my top favorite games along with underrail. Fallout 1 and 2 are my top favorite games and I didn't even grow up on them. I started with fallout 3 and New Vegas.
I sunk hours and hours into Wasteland back in the day. Still suffering from PTSD going through the sewers and eventually Base Cochise. Even after I finally beat the game I kept playing it over and over. Such fond memories
Just wanted to let you know I MASSIVELY appreciate your commitment for covering CRPGs. It will be incredibly useful for younger gamers to get a history lesson on CRPGs through your videos. Can't wait for your coverage on Pillars Of Eternity series.
I rewatched this after seeing your Age of Decadence critique, and I noticed you haven’t made mention of Wasteland 3. A lot of your issues about this game is corrected in Wasteland 3 such as a distinguishing iconography. The combat in Wasteland 3 is a joy! The humor is outstanding. I would go so far as to say it’s my favorite of all the contemporary CRPGs, as evidenced I’m on my third playthrough on Supreme Jerk difficulty. I’d love to see a critique of Wasteland 3. It’s really one of the best CRPGs around, and I’ve played most of them.
Agreed. WL3 was top-tier across the board. I've a tattoo of PS:T and I've been cRPGing for a good long while. I do like the interface of WL2 a little more, and the refined complexity of the Director's Cut. But, WL3. I'm starting Supreme Jerk today after finishing Ranger a week or so ago.
The Desert Rangers were already in Fallout 1 where you could find a follower that is one and tells you about them and were a nod to Wasteland, Fallout New Vegas just picked them up again saying they fused with the NCR Rangers, though i guess its easy to miss. Just wanted to point that out.
And Wasteland 3 reinforced the idea that the Rangers would join up with the nearest military faction with power. Due to characters available in Wasteland 3, it's implied that the Rangers joined up with the Diamondback Militia from Wasteland 2, a paramilitary org in the Titan canyon. Vargas is greatly pleased that you make peace with the Red Skorpion Militia too. They would seem to desire consolidating power for peaceful resolutions rather than fight to the death against people they could simply be diplomatic with and definitely don't want to be eradicated. I think there is wisdom in that for the apocalypse. Fallout New Vegas gets the rangers right imo. A bunch of hardasses that think they are Uber special.
@@JimJamTheAdmin I think the ‘consolidating power for a peaceful resolution’ was more so Vargas’ growing soft as of becoming general. Many members at Ranger Hq point out that Vargas ‘isn’t the same’ that he’s a good leader but has lost touch with the wider problems of the wasteland. And while Vargas praises you making peace with RSM, many rangers voice concern about joining forces with them. With the patriarch though it was definitely a last ditch effort to keep surviving after such a catastrophic loss.
I really appreciate how well researched and structured your videos are. You deserve far more views/subscribers than you have! Well done, great content :)
Next to Baldurs Gate 2, Wasteland 2 is my most loved CRPG ever made. It's just straight forward without being dumbed down. Great humour and a setting that's not used a lot in it's genre. I just love it. They did a great job with the third one too in my opinion
amazing episode. those vast empty spaces are amazing atmo-building elements that many AAA and AA devs (and tbh many gamers alike) often treat as a nuisance and filler content, clumping everything around w stuff and content instead. and those level design choices (or capabilities) make perfect sense in wastelands world-building
I thank you for your unrelenting devotion to this series despite its mediocre view count. I cherish every episode of this and I can't wait for you to play the upcoming games like DOS2 and Disco Elysium. DE is a top 3 game for me and I have a feeling you'll take a liking to it as well
Accourding to the wiki, Vargas dying at the end is the canon ending, which explains why you get an achievment/trophy for doing it in the console versions
@@evanpaluch6190 I really liked W3. It had a solid vision and I think they nailed it. There were a few bugs on launch that were hard to deal with but patched out 30 hours (basing this on my memory, don’t quote me haha) after initial release. They new content they just released was awesome as well.
Great video. I just recently beat Wasteland 2. It was so well done. Tried to go back and play the first one and I just couldn’t get into it. Can’t wait for your next video!
This was my first introduction to a isometric crpg I had never really played one like this before this game is definitely going to be a classic in the years to come there is not one other title in the Xbox One library that can compare to this game a modern-day Fallout 3 Midas a lot of the character and backbone that made Fallout great but it is still a great and worthy modern successor
I remember backing Torment: Tides of Numenera, and getting this while doing so. Then of course I never finished either of them. They just never seemed to grab me like some of the other isometric RPGs in this series did. Still, pretty cool that both of those games exist!
Same with me on Tides, started it twice and even made it 10 hours in the 2nd time. Now I'm gonna start Planescape enhanced on pc for the 1st time. Cuz of Chris's video.
Funny you make a joke about your "Boring voice" in the video where I found it the most engaging. I mean, the quality of your scripts has always been incredible, but your voice, or more like your tone, is actually getting better and better.
glad to see how wasteland 3 fixed or changed most of the problem you talked about I would say the skills become too easy now (20 and easily spread across 4 main rangers), but as an OCD, it does sooth me when I can basically open everything in 1 go (and I didn't care about replayability so this doesn't bother me)
I'm pretty sure Bobby and Rex are a reference to the post apocalyptic film "A boy and his dog" (which is based on a book with the same name). In Wasteland 2, Sean Bergin comments on their grave: "A dog and his boy, together forever".
I liked this game. After a false start at the 2nd difficulty level, I played at the highest one, as a trade for the concession I made to myself when I used a build guide for min-maxing my team through characters creation and possible companions selection later. This last element was a bit tricky, but I managed not to spoil the game for me, as I didn't need to use a guide beyond the characters creation screen by opting for a formation that left me with multiple available choices, in order to complete my team with the roles I had left to fill (basically brawlers and/or energy weapons users and/or hackers). Based on what you say about your playthrough, I think that's the way the game is supposed to be played, at the highest difficulty. Given no personal time constraints, without consulting a guide to build your team, when you can afford to fail multiple times on your own: basically upping the combat difficulty to the max level, when min-maxing is required if you want to also benefit from the other skills available (utility skills in particular, that give access to the best gear you can get in the game). For me, on the other hand, the "worst" part of the game was its length: I'd have liked it more if both the Arizona and the California parts were around 2/3 of the length they were. When played as a completionist, the cobination of the two halves of this game takes too much time to run through, and the gameplay started to drag a bit too much even for someone who's used to play RPGs this way, as I am. Thanks for this series!
@@possessedslig Exactly what I'm looking for. I want a change from the hectic run n gun games and the big money hungry studios who release half games for full cost. I want something with soul and character. I really like the look of Wastland 2 & 3.
You really did this series justice considering how old it is. I have older books (Alternity) on creating table top scenarios for sci fi stories like this and I would love to see a d20 style adventure in this vein one day but maybe with space travel and such. Perhaps a wasteland style table top is just waiting to explode in popularity, the remake of the original basically looks like you moving a figurine across a table top map. I have to look into this deeper, but would love to see you relate the old school system that wasteland used to avoid using SRD and having to go through the licensing costs of making a game with that system. Very cool stuff. I believe a video discussing the issue of speech in fallout being overpowered talks about this and I find it fascinating. There was so much they wanted to bake into the dialogue and cities systems to gamify them that has been scrapped over the years. Still to this day we have this static speech skiil dominating a large chunk of these games because of this early design limitation of the computers running Wasteland. Pretty funny really. But you see in the new Wastelands there are multiple speech skills I have yet to try this out. I think a lot of speech checks in games like this would be better if they had to be unlocked by certain interactions with the game world. But I digress, the success of Wasteland shows there is a hunger out there for a classic table top style experience in a scifi setting and I hope more devs get into the style, hopefully not cloning, but innovating on these unique complexities. Fun fact: a nuclear waste containment facility had an emergency leak once because the manager had changed the cat litter to an organic brand that did not have the proper amount of a certain rock type to contain rads. I love realism in video games.
It's funny that a lot of your issuess (guaranteed success on skill check when level is high enough, modding weapon with fire or energy weapons) were implemented in wasteland 3
I was a backer of Wasteland 2. But I never played the first one. I was more interested as a disappointed fan of old school Fallout games who did not like the direction Bethesda was going with it
Hate to be that guy, but the Rangers in fallout made their origins in Fallout 1 not New Vegas. One of your companions was a ranger in that game and he was one big Easter egg to this series basically
You seem to like these sorts of turn based combat systems, so I wonder if you would enjoy something like Jagged Alliance or the X-COM series. You know, stuff that isn't exactly an RPG, but uses a similar stat derived, turn based combat.
To what you said at the 8:30 ish mark, yup. I was a backer & proud of it, well worth the 25 year wait. If Wasteland 2 had a weakness it was that the 2nd half of the game was less developed/fleshed out then the 1st half. I wish they'd remake the original Wasteland as opposed to it being a remaster. With regards to the Highpool & Ag Center, there's actually a 3rd ("hidden") option.
I gave my hacker/medic way of the squeezins, and she was dead weight for a lot of fights, but when I got to damonta all I had to do was pop a snake squeezins and hack half the robots
Out of curiosity I've checked how much time I've spent in Wasteland 2... it was 127.6 hours (pre Director's Cut) - that's quite a lot! Thank you for this video and bringing back the memories.
@@benl2140 I would say 1,5 playthrough. I don't remember so well but I think I have started game, learned mechanics and what stats are beneficiary and started again with harder level before finishing first walk-through.
Radioing in for level ups allows you to restrict your level and keep you from overleveling or even going beyond level one, which leads to some interesting challenges
In my first playthrough I kitted my team with great weapons, cheap as chips too. Thought I'd been so smart and made great choices. Then I went into combat and my guns would jam like every time I fired. Then I looked at their stats and they said like 99% chance to jam. I think that was the moment I fell in love with the Wasteland games 😂
I dunno if you realised this at some point, but intelligence is only the most important attribute for the skill monkey character. Essentially, the character you dump most utility skills onto. (Lockpicking, safecracking, toaster repair, etc.) The actual most important attributes are coordination and speed. Coordination for Action Points, Speed for how far you can actually go in terms of movement with said action points. So basically, a medic, close range weapon specialist and brawlers/melee users need both as much as they need air to breathe.
I played Wasteland 2 after Divinity and Pillars and it felt very tame/flat compared to them and I only made it about halfway through before I got bored and gave up, Wasteland 3 does look a lot better so I might give that a chance when I am done with Kingmaker. I look forward to hearing what you think of Divinity 2 and Disco Elysium, some of the best games I ever played.
Rune i am still trying to get through divinity os2 with My friend currently in the middle of driftwood. Combat is becoming so repetetive and tedious. Just feels like too many encounters.
@@michimatsch5862 Thats a shame, I played it on tactician mode and took every fight as a puzzle, forcing me to get the most out of my spells, but if you don't like the combat now it is not going to get much better, I do think there are a good amount of ways of completing quests and lots of puzzles and riddles throughout the game. Having therivery one multiple characters and robbing vendors blind is a great way to buff your party if you feel stuck. But I do understand, some prefer “real-time with pause” combat because “turn-based” just takes a lot of time.
Rune See, I like combat in Stuff like xcom. That isn‘t a crpg but it is turn-based and exciting. I think the Main issue for me and My friend is that combat doesn‘t feel like a puzzle. We are playing on strategist but a lot of encounters aren‘t dangerous or difficult. The same cookie-cutter strategy works in most encounters. 2 fights I really enjoyed actually were the fight against Alexander because of the Voidwoken attack in the middle of the fight which changes the tactical circumstances (though I wish there was a persuasion check to convince Alexander to fight the Voidwoken first) and the fight on the boat in which Malady channels to escape. I wish there were more fights like this with different tactical circumstances. I dunno. Maybe I am expecting too much.
I'm looking back on this after Baldurs gate 3 release where crpgs are starting to get more notice again and I've had a few friends borrow my copies of wasteland 2&3 after playing bg3 so we're starting to see the genre pick up steam again and I've been helping people play through divinity 1&2 as well who knows maybe we'll get a wasteland 4 or something I'm hopeful that I'm on the precipice of a new golden age of crpgs
You sound rather young given your first gaming experiences, I might be younger in age but still got to try the C64, the Atari 2600 and some Pongsoles from relatives. Love your videos and well done research, good CRPGs pop back every now and then (hoping you eventually get to play Disco Elysium) but living the first days of OG CRPGs and early home consoles was something else for sure.
I never save Highpool after my first playthrough . (I've done two full playthroughs and two partial: because they whine about the evnts 15 years ago so much. the dog was rabid or insane and Bobby attacked me so his fate was self-defense. Wasteland 1 was my second RPG so I've always had fond memories of the series.
Bobby doesnt attack, he only confronts you to complain, as a child who just lost a pet would. If you evade for a round he wont attack and you can just leave
Edit: "5 years to make, of which 3 years of development" perhaps? From concept/Eureka! moment through financing and getting to the start of programming isn't always done in a fortnite. Snake Vargas is no Minuteman, he has scripted missions - none of this "radiant" 2nd rate Minuteman malarky. Pah.. Nice to see this getting some love, deserves a place in any isometric collection.
I don't know why cannibalism is such a common trope in post apocalyptic games. It makes sense in somewhere like The Outer Worlds, but in most places the food situation isn't so bad. Also *IT'S BETTER TO HAVE A FARMHAND THAN A DAY'S MEAL* like Jesus do you have any idea how hard it is to grow a human?
I totally see what you mean on the faults on wasteland 2, and one hand totally agree with your list, and at the same time- like the faults. Its wierd... i don't know, i think i really like the fact it makes you really work and think around its limitations and lay outs, i don't know, its not often that i actually kinda like faults lol. The quirks are definitely weird, but can be fun
Im on my second playthrough and i cant believe i forgot how much of a pain the Whitier ambush was. This playthrough is on my Switch so its not like i can use console commands to cheese this one part
Welp I'm done with this series(so far). I appreciate you doing this. I'm a JRPG guy but like you am wanting to play Divinity Original Sin II. Also like you i like playing stuff from before so playing new games won't age classics. I think I'll play Fallout planescape and possibly baldurs gate 2. Anyway i was camping while watching most of this. That said I didn't notice before but I keep hearing a bird noise. I musta accepted it as..well birds outside my tent bit i watched the last two videos at home and still hear it so i gotta know what it is lol. Anyway thanks again I'm excited to browse the rest of your channel.
I just stsrted playing Wasteland3, it is very well written ans voice acted and I'm liking it thus far.. I'm a bit lost tho since last game like this was one of the jagged alliance games forever ago and the tutorials in Wasteland3 are a bit rubbish.. none the less, I'm gonna keep playing because I love the writing and the voice acting..
Could you do uh... Tyranny a Isometric CPRG by Obsidian? Sorry to bother you, but thank you for looking at this and giving me the time to bother you about it.
When I was a kid (teenager really), I never did finish Wasteland. I got stuck on the Scorpitron in Las Vegas who seemed to annihilate my party. I wasn't as savvy as kids are now days with video games. Games with this kind of difficulty were insurmountable for me at the time. Now days you can just google how to get past hard parts in games. I disagree people shouldn't try the original. I suggest starting the original and playing through those first few zones, I just don't necessarily recommend finishing the game. At least you know what the significance of the Ag Center is and some of the references.
Nice video. I really dig Wasteland 2, and enjoyed it immensely over my handful of playthroughs. The video is pretty spoilery about the game's plot. A warning would certainly be helpful in the title.
![Shadowrun Retrospective - a fun cyberpunk trilogy [A History of Isometric CRPGs (Episode 9)]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/crJ-oUYHlTA/mqdefault.jpg)
The next episode in the History of Isometric CRPGs will likely be Age of Decadence. Timestamps for this video:
Intro - 0:00
History - 1:12
Wasteland 1 review - 14:30
Character creation - 26:08
Combat - 38:11
Atmosphere - 47:30
Story - 54:07
Quests - 58:37
Conclusion - 1:09:20
Looking forward to Age of Decadence - always love ur videos!
Where can I get that Wasteland 1 Remake at the start of your video? Thank you! Love this series
Someone's been watching Peep Show lately lol Super Hans and Big Suze
good job Chris!
No. You will do Wasteland 3 next.
Your work is giving me so much comfort these days. Thanks man
Couldn't have said it better myself :)
It's relaxing
Oh yeah. I've watched this series 4 times so far. I absolutely LOVE his no bullshit style & most of these games are badass. And the just give $1 if you can plus we don't have to hear about patreon tier bullshit. Chris Davis rocks. I've watched all of his videos now.
1$ kinda weak, a true fan would give him atleast 20$ a month, that comes out to just a couple quarters per day. How u expect him to live on 1 dollar?
Cuz that’s what he said in the video.
I have never played an isometric CRPG and I have still watched every video in this series and been thoroughly entertained.
I LOVE the history and background you give at the start of these videos, it’s something other critique channels never do that I think is so cool. Thanks for making quality content during these hard times. Chris Davis rocks.
Dude now he needs to do sly Cooper videos. Those games are bangers
Grim Beard also delves into the background
What a behemoth of a task you've put upon yourself, covering all these games. Great work so far. Looking forward to that Wasteland 3 video sometime in the future!
Ah, manual based DRM - calling your friend's parents' house phone to tell you the 7th word on page 43. :D
Wasteland 2 and 3 are now in my top favorite games along with underrail. Fallout 1 and 2 are my top favorite games and I didn't even grow up on them. I started with fallout 3 and New Vegas.
"... percentages for hitting which I swear regularly lie"
Me (a XCOM veteran): First time hmm.
I can't watch right now, but Wasteland 2 and 3 have been the best two games I've played all year. Stoked to come back later.
"everyone who wants a nuke, probably should not have one" AMEN, BROTHER :D
I kinda disagree, humanity is way past due a mass extinction event as we are and some psychopaths with couple dozen nukes could deliver us..
@@elitereptilian200 ok
@@elitereptilian200 Very "HOOMAN IS THE REAL VIRUS"
@@elitereptilian200 please be less omnicidal fascist
@@elitereptilian200 ...
Thank you for always putting out quality content. Much appreciated during the great boredom.
I sunk hours and hours into Wasteland back in the day. Still suffering from PTSD going through the sewers and eventually Base Cochise. Even after I finally beat the game I kept playing it over and over. Such fond memories
Just wanted to let you know I MASSIVELY appreciate your commitment for covering CRPGs.
It will be incredibly useful for younger gamers to get a history lesson on CRPGs through your videos.
Can't wait for your coverage on Pillars Of Eternity series.
I rewatched this after seeing your Age of Decadence critique, and I noticed you haven’t made mention of Wasteland 3. A lot of your issues about this game is corrected in Wasteland 3 such as a distinguishing iconography. The combat in Wasteland 3 is a joy! The humor is outstanding. I would go so far as to say it’s my favorite of all the contemporary CRPGs, as evidenced I’m on my third playthrough on Supreme Jerk difficulty. I’d love to see a critique of Wasteland 3. It’s really one of the best CRPGs around, and I’ve played most of them.
Agreed. WL3 was top-tier across the board. I've a tattoo of PS:T and I've been cRPGing for a good long while. I do like the interface of WL2 a little more, and the refined complexity of the Director's Cut. But, WL3. I'm starting Supreme Jerk today after finishing Ranger a week or so ago.
The Desert Rangers were already in Fallout 1 where you could find a follower that is one and tells you about them and were a nod to Wasteland, Fallout New Vegas just picked them up again saying they fused with the NCR Rangers, though i guess its easy to miss. Just wanted to point that out.
And Wasteland 3 reinforced the idea that the Rangers would join up with the nearest military faction with power. Due to characters available in Wasteland 3, it's implied that the Rangers joined up with the Diamondback Militia from Wasteland 2, a paramilitary org in the Titan canyon. Vargas is greatly pleased that you make peace with the Red Skorpion Militia too. They would seem to desire consolidating power for peaceful resolutions rather than fight to the death against people they could simply be diplomatic with and definitely don't want to be eradicated. I think there is wisdom in that for the apocalypse. Fallout New Vegas gets the rangers right imo. A bunch of hardasses that think they are Uber special.
@@JimJamTheAdmin
I think the ‘consolidating power for a peaceful resolution’ was more so Vargas’ growing soft as of becoming general. Many members at Ranger Hq point out that Vargas ‘isn’t the same’ that he’s a good leader but has lost touch with the wider problems of the wasteland. And while Vargas praises you making peace with RSM, many rangers voice concern about joining forces with them. With the patriarch though it was definitely a last ditch effort to keep surviving after such a catastrophic loss.
I really appreciate how well researched and structured your videos are. You deserve far more views/subscribers than you have!
Well done, great content :)
Thanks for these insightful videos Chris, these are like hidden treasure. Loving this CRPG critique series. Looking forward to your next projects :)
Can't wait to play 3, I played nothing like 2 before and was hooked, great vid too
Next to Baldurs Gate 2, Wasteland 2 is my most loved CRPG ever made. It's just straight forward without being dumbed down. Great humour and a setting that's not used a lot in it's genre. I just love it. They did a great job with the third one too in my opinion
amazing episode. those vast empty spaces are amazing atmo-building elements that many AAA and AA devs (and tbh many gamers alike) often treat as a nuisance and filler content, clumping everything around w stuff and content instead. and those level design choices (or capabilities) make perfect sense in wastelands world-building
So excited for this one!!! Love your critiques!
I love how you can end the game right when you gain access to ranger hq by interacting with the nuke launcher in the museum
I thank you for your unrelenting devotion to this series despite its mediocre view count. I cherish every episode of this and I can't wait for you to play the upcoming games like DOS2 and Disco Elysium. DE is a top 3 game for me and I have a feeling you'll take a liking to it as well
I find there to be a surprising lack of quality Wasteland content on TH-cam, this was absolutely great, well done man!
Accourding to the wiki, Vargas dying at the end is the canon ending, which explains why you get an achievment/trophy for doing it in the console versions
Speaking of Wasteland will you cover Wasteland 3?
Overrated
@@evanpaluch6190 Game of the Decade.
@@evanpaluch6190 I really liked W3. It had a solid vision and I think they nailed it. There were a few bugs on launch that were hard to deal with but patched out 30 hours (basing this on my memory, don’t quote me haha) after initial release. They new content they just released was awesome as well.
Heck yeah man. Just what I needed
Great video. I just recently beat Wasteland 2. It was so well done. Tried to go back and play the first one and I just couldn’t get into it. Can’t wait for your next video!
"CLASSIC" (=SPECIAL)... i never realized that. Mind blown.
This was my first introduction to a isometric crpg I had never really played one like this before this game is definitely going to be a classic in the years to come there is not one other title in the Xbox One library that can compare to this game a modern-day Fallout 3 Midas a lot of the character and backbone that made Fallout great but it is still a great and worthy modern successor
I remember backing Torment: Tides of Numenera, and getting this while doing so. Then of course I never finished either of them. They just never seemed to grab me like some of the other isometric RPGs in this series did. Still, pretty cool that both of those games exist!
Same with me on Tides, started it twice and even made it 10 hours in the 2nd time. Now I'm gonna start Planescape enhanced on pc for the 1st time. Cuz of Chris's video.
just finished it a week ago, it was awesome
@@MrGrokthis I've a tattoo of PS:T. Got it about ten years back. I didn't back TToN but I bought it on release. I very much enjoyed it.
That obscure password that you have to look in the museum for is just given to you if you save AG Center and have Rose.
DaaMontaa! Aaaoooh! I bet Wearworlf Wolly would be hyped about the blue moon this Halloween.
Funny you make a joke about your "Boring voice" in the video where I found it the most engaging.
I mean, the quality of your scripts has always been incredible, but your voice, or more like your tone, is actually getting better and better.
El mejor género de video juegos de la historia y le estas dando una serie de videos ejemplares. Sos un genio, saludos desde argentina
glad to see how wasteland 3 fixed or changed most of the problem you talked about
I would say the skills become too easy now (20 and easily spread across 4 main rangers), but as an OCD, it does sooth me when I can basically open everything in 1 go (and I didn't care about replayability so this doesn't bother me)
That winking guard made anxious every time he was on screen
I'm pretty sure Bobby and Rex are a reference to the post apocalyptic film "A boy and his dog" (which is based on a book with the same name). In Wasteland 2, Sean Bergin comments on their grave: "A dog and his boy, together forever".
I liked this game.
After a false start at the 2nd difficulty level, I played at the highest one, as a trade for the concession I made to myself when I used a build guide for min-maxing my team through characters creation and possible companions selection later. This last element was a bit tricky, but I managed not to spoil the game for me, as I didn't need to use a guide beyond the characters creation screen by opting for a formation that left me with multiple available choices, in order to complete my team with the roles I had left to fill (basically brawlers and/or energy weapons users and/or hackers).
Based on what you say about your playthrough, I think that's the way the game is supposed to be played, at the highest difficulty. Given no personal time constraints, without consulting a guide to build your team, when you can afford to fail multiple times on your own: basically upping the combat difficulty to the max level, when min-maxing is required if you want to also benefit from the other skills available (utility skills in particular, that give access to the best gear you can get in the game).
For me, on the other hand, the "worst" part of the game was its length: I'd have liked it more if both the Arizona and the California parts were around 2/3 of the length they were. When played as a completionist, the cobination of the two halves of this game takes too much time to run through, and the gameplay started to drag a bit too much even for someone who's used to play RPGs this way, as I am.
Thanks for this series!
I've completed this and Wasteland 3 in the last couple of years and despite their flaws I did enjoy both of them very much.
I'm late to the game (literally) and starting with Wasteland 2 this week. Really looking forward to it.
@@herculesv1.247 Have fun mate just keep in mind it's a bit of a slow burn, really picks up about half way through
@@possessedslig Exactly what I'm looking for. I want a change from the hectic run n gun games and the big money hungry studios who release half games for full cost. I want something with soul and character. I really like the look of Wastland 2 & 3.
@@herculesv1.247 I couldn't agree more. You should look at Disco Elysium if you haven't, it's a masterpiece
@@possessedslig Wow, I'll definitely give that a go, thanks for the recommendation. Sounds like a real experience
You really did this series justice considering how old it is. I have older books (Alternity) on creating table top scenarios for sci fi stories like this and I would love to see a d20 style adventure in this vein one day but maybe with space travel and such. Perhaps a wasteland style table top is just waiting to explode in popularity, the remake of the original basically looks like you moving a figurine across a table top map. I have to look into this deeper, but would love to see you relate the old school system that wasteland used to avoid using SRD and having to go through the licensing costs of making a game with that system. Very cool stuff.
I believe a video discussing the issue of speech in fallout being overpowered talks about this and I find it fascinating. There was so much they wanted to bake into the dialogue and cities systems to gamify them that has been scrapped over the years. Still to this day we have this static speech skiil dominating a large chunk of these games because of this early design limitation of the computers running Wasteland.
Pretty funny really. But you see in the new Wastelands there are multiple speech skills I have yet to try this out. I think a lot of speech checks in games like this would be better if they had to be unlocked by certain interactions with the game world. But I digress, the success of Wasteland shows there is a hunger out there for a classic table top style experience in a scifi setting and I hope more devs get into the style, hopefully not cloning, but innovating on these unique complexities.
Fun fact: a nuclear waste containment facility had an emergency leak once because the manager had changed the cat litter to an organic brand that did not have the proper amount of a certain rock type to contain rads. I love realism in video games.
It's funny that a lot of your issuess (guaranteed success on skill check when level is high enough, modding weapon with fire or energy weapons) were implemented in wasteland 3
Another thing I kind of enjoyed were the ebooks the gog version came with, kinda helps you getting into the setting.
I was a backer of Wasteland 2. But I never played the first one. I was more interested as a disappointed fan of old school Fallout games who did not like the direction Bethesda was going with it
Hate to be that guy, but the Rangers in fallout made their origins in Fallout 1 not New Vegas. One of your companions was a ranger in that game and he was one big Easter egg to this series basically
Huh i thought the ranger inspiration is based on Fallout 1 companion Tycho, from the description of him is a ranger from nevada.
@@Kaisar011 damn it is 1. Those games blend together, thanks for the heads up
I love your videos, Chris. Thank you for sharing
so, I just realized that the gol of this series is to examine rpgs chronologically... does it mean Wasteland 3 review will come around not soon?
Another great episode!
I love these games because I grew up in the tri state area around Needles CA, Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV/Las Vegas.
Fucking LOVED wasteland 2 directors cut. Such a well executed game. Satisfy's the okd school rpg thirst
Such a great watch! Going to binge the rest of the videos now
You make great videos, hope you return to making more of them!
Only vaguely heard of Wasteland. This game looks really good. I always liked the turn based gun combat in games like XCOM.
58:00 he's not the only one you can sacrifice.
By the end I still had the Topekan chieftain with me and he volunteered to flip the switch
You seem to like these sorts of turn based combat systems, so I wonder if you would enjoy something like Jagged Alliance or the X-COM series. You know, stuff that isn't exactly an RPG, but uses a similar stat derived, turn based combat.
To what you said at the 8:30 ish mark, yup. I was a backer & proud of it, well worth the 25 year wait. If Wasteland 2 had a weakness it was that the 2nd half of the game was less developed/fleshed out then the 1st half. I wish they'd remake the original Wasteland as opposed to it being a remaster.
With regards to the Highpool & Ag Center, there's actually a 3rd ("hidden") option.
Wasteland 2 is my favorite in the series.
Pillars of Eternity 1 + 2, Tyranny, Disco Elysium. Got a big list left.
I can’t wait for a video on that Planescape torment spiritual successor
I gave my hacker/medic way of the squeezins, and she was dead weight for a lot of fights, but when I got to damonta all I had to do was pop a snake squeezins and hack half the robots
Out of curiosity I've checked how much time I've spent in Wasteland 2... it was 127.6 hours (pre Director's Cut) - that's quite a lot! Thank you for this video and bringing back the memories.
Was that for a single playthrough?
@@benl2140 I would say 1,5 playthrough. I don't remember so well but I think I have started game, learned mechanics and what stats are beneficiary and started again with harder level before finishing first walk-through.
holy shit best vids for sleeping
Radioing in for level ups allows you to restrict your level and keep you from overleveling or even going beyond level one, which leads to some interesting challenges
In my first playthrough I kitted my team with great weapons, cheap as chips too. Thought I'd been so smart and made great choices. Then I went into combat and my guns would jam like every time I fired. Then I looked at their stats and they said like 99% chance to jam. I think that was the moment I fell in love with the Wasteland games 😂
Discovered your channel via deep diving for CRPG content. I then noticed you're a Peep Show fan...El Dude Brothers unite!
I dunno if you realised this at some point, but intelligence is only the most important attribute for the skill monkey character. Essentially, the character you dump most utility skills onto. (Lockpicking, safecracking, toaster repair, etc.) The actual most important attributes are coordination and speed. Coordination for Action Points, Speed for how far you can actually go in terms of movement with said action points. So basically, a medic, close range weapon specialist and brawlers/melee users need both as much as they need air to breathe.
Lol The Desert Rangers are basically the Minutemen form fallout 4 done right.
Love your videos , keep it up!
Thank you so much for this video. It definitely helped me decide if I should get this or not.
"Servants of the Mushroom Cloud", the password is "NRC", "Big Boss" being the big shot in Las Vegas.... seems kinda familiar
Do you have a list of games you're going to do for the series? Wondering if UnderRail is on it? It's best Fallout successor there's ever been imo
I played Wasteland 2 after Divinity and Pillars and it felt very tame/flat compared to them and I only made it about halfway through before I got bored and gave up, Wasteland 3 does look a lot better so I might give that a chance when I am done with Kingmaker. I look forward to hearing what you think of Divinity 2 and Disco Elysium, some of the best games I ever played.
Rune i am still trying to get through divinity os2 with My friend currently in the middle of driftwood. Combat is becoming so repetetive and tedious. Just feels like too many encounters.
@@michimatsch5862 Thats a shame, I played it on tactician mode and took every fight as a puzzle, forcing me to get the most out of my spells, but if you don't like the combat now it is not going to get much better, I do think there are a good amount of ways of completing quests and lots of puzzles and riddles throughout the game. Having therivery one multiple characters and robbing vendors blind is a great way to buff your party if you feel stuck. But I do understand, some prefer “real-time with pause” combat because “turn-based” just takes a lot of time.
Rune See, I like combat in Stuff like xcom. That isn‘t a crpg but it is turn-based and exciting.
I think the Main issue for me and My friend is that combat doesn‘t feel like a puzzle. We are playing on strategist but a lot of encounters aren‘t dangerous or difficult. The same cookie-cutter strategy works in most encounters.
2 fights I really enjoyed actually were the fight against Alexander because of the Voidwoken attack in the middle of the fight which changes the tactical circumstances (though I wish there was a persuasion check to convince Alexander to fight the Voidwoken first) and the fight on the boat in which Malady channels to escape. I wish there were more fights like this with different tactical circumstances.
I dunno. Maybe I am expecting too much.
I'm looking back on this after Baldurs gate 3 release where crpgs are starting to get more notice again and I've had a few friends borrow my copies of wasteland 2&3 after playing bg3 so we're starting to see the genre pick up steam again and I've been helping people play through divinity 1&2 as well who knows maybe we'll get a wasteland 4 or something I'm hopeful that I'm on the precipice of a new golden age of crpgs
Damn, I can see how they fixed some of the critisisms in this video on Wasteland 3.
yooooo im so early
love ur videos
keep up the good work!
You sound rather young given your first gaming experiences, I might be younger in age but still got to try the C64, the Atari 2600 and some Pongsoles from relatives. Love your videos and well done research, good CRPGs pop back every now and then (hoping you eventually get to play Disco Elysium) but living the first days of OG CRPGs and early home consoles was something else for sure.
enjoying the content! Subbed!
I never save Highpool after my first playthrough . (I've done two full playthroughs and two partial: because they whine about the evnts 15 years ago so much. the dog was rabid or insane and Bobby attacked me so his fate was self-defense. Wasteland 1 was my second RPG so I've always had fond memories of the series.
Bobby doesnt attack, he only confronts you to complain, as a child who just lost a pet would. If you evade for a round he wont attack and you can just leave
Edit: "5 years to make, of which 3 years of development" perhaps? From concept/Eureka! moment through financing and getting to the start of programming isn't always done in a fortnite.
Snake Vargas is no Minuteman, he has scripted missions - none of this "radiant" 2nd rate Minuteman malarky. Pah.. Nice to see this getting some love, deserves a place in any isometric collection.
I don't know why cannibalism is such a common trope in post apocalyptic games. It makes sense in somewhere like The Outer Worlds, but in most places the food situation isn't so bad. Also *IT'S BETTER TO HAVE A FARMHAND THAN A DAY'S MEAL* like Jesus do you have any idea how hard it is to grow a human?
Cows were made for eating, not humans
I found Wasteland update on Xbox to be nearly unplayable.
Great video! Thanks a lot
I totally see what you mean on the faults on wasteland 2, and one hand totally agree with your list, and at the same time- like the faults. Its wierd... i don't know, i think i really like the fact it makes you really work and think around its limitations and lay outs, i don't know, its not often that i actually kinda like faults lol. The quirks are definitely weird, but can be fun
I think it must be a thing with definitive isometrics adding voice acting considering disco elysium adding voice acting to every line in the game
Im on my second playthrough and i cant believe i forgot how much of a pain the Whitier ambush was. This playthrough is on my Switch so its not like i can use console commands to cheese this one part
I would pay out the nose for a modernization of the original and wasteland 2 to bring it up to wasteland 3 graphics.
Im so fucking ready. Thx chris
Welp I'm done with this series(so far). I appreciate you doing this. I'm a JRPG guy but like you am wanting to play Divinity Original Sin II. Also like you i like playing stuff from before so playing new games won't age classics. I think I'll play Fallout planescape and possibly baldurs gate 2. Anyway i was camping while watching most of this. That said I didn't notice before but I keep hearing a bird noise. I musta accepted it as..well birds outside my tent bit i watched the last two videos at home and still hear it so i gotta know what it is lol. Anyway thanks again I'm excited to browse the rest of your channel.
Ah, Faran Brygo and Bryan Fargo. What a bloke. 😂
Could you imagine if Project Zomboid 2 has these graphics? I swear the combat phase looks like a 4k hd version of PZ
okay, a history of the Dark Alliance and Norath games?
Was wondering if you planned on covering this one..
I just stsrted playing Wasteland3, it is very well written ans voice acted and I'm liking it thus far.. I'm a bit lost tho since last game like this was one of the jagged alliance games forever ago and the tutorials in Wasteland3 are a bit rubbish.. none the less, I'm gonna keep playing because I love the writing and the voice acting..
Could you do uh... Tyranny a Isometric CPRG by Obsidian? Sorry to bother you, but thank you for looking at this and giving me the time to bother you about it.
Age of Decadence is going to be a weird one seeing as it's sort of the brain child of the grognards over on RPG Codex
When I was a kid (teenager really), I never did finish Wasteland. I got stuck on the Scorpitron in Las Vegas who seemed to annihilate my party. I wasn't as savvy as kids are now days with video games. Games with this kind of difficulty were insurmountable for me at the time. Now days you can just google how to get past hard parts in games. I disagree people shouldn't try the original. I suggest starting the original and playing through those first few zones, I just don't necessarily recommend finishing the game. At least you know what the significance of the Ag Center is and some of the references.
+1 for having a character named Super Hans haha
Soft spoken britsh game analysis ASMR
you have to get around to make the Wasteland 3 video some time ;D
I heard of Wasteland through LGR. Then the sequel stuff happened.
Nice video. I really dig Wasteland 2, and enjoyed it immensely over my handful of playthroughs. The video is pretty spoilery about the game's plot. A warning would certainly be helpful in the title.