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GOL Cast: Maintaining the Law of Post-Apocalyptic World in Wasteland 2

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Sorry I'm a bit late! This game turned out to be a bit more addictive than I intially thought and only now I managed to escape for a moment to write this article. But let's get to the point and see what awaits us in the post-apocalyptic world of Wasteland 2!

Wasteland 2 is a sequel to the post-apocalyptic role-playing game Wasteland, which spawned the famous Fallout series. It's done by inXile Entertainment, a studio formed by Brian Fargo who worked on the original game. Like the prequel, Wasteland 2 is situated in a world that was torn apart by a nuclear weapons exchange in 1998 leaving only a few people alive. Among the survivors was a U.S. Engineer company, who went to form a group called the Desert Rangers. These rangers worked to protect the innocent people in the wasteland and to rebuild the society.

Wasteland 2 starts 15 years after the events of the first original game. One of the rangers, Ace, is killed mysteriously and your group of newbie rangers is dispatched to figure out what happened to him.

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Ah, post-apocalyptic role-playing games. There's a genre that I really really enjoy and also a genre that we are sort of lacking in the land of Linux. You can probably imagine how excited I was when I found out that we'd be getting one and that it was being developed by the guys really know how these sorts of games should be made. And I'm happy to say that I was not disappointed.

Wasteland 2 is essentially an RPG of the old era wrapped in modern graphics and user interface design, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It offers a lot more flexibility and complexity than many of the modern day action-RPGs. It stays true to the original game by allowing you to approach a problem in a number of ways depending on your skills, luck and knowledge and there are a lot of big decisions to be made that have permanent effects on the world around you. Even quite early in the game you will receive two distress calls and you can only help one of them and this will determine the fate of two major settlements in the wasteland.

You start your adventure in the ruined and hazardous world by creating your own party of Desert Rangers. In the beginning your party can have up to 4 either custom or pre-made characters but you can also have three NPC followers at any given moment if you simply find people who are willing to join your group. Preferably you will have people who are specialized in different things. One of them might be a field medic, another might be skilled with sniper rifles and one might even be an excellent toaster repairman. Seriously, that's a quite valuable skill in this game. At first you'll have quite limited amount of supplies such as ammunition and money, so it's important to manage your resources carefully, or you might get ambushed by a bunch of raiders without any means to defend yourself, apart from your firsts and maybe a blunt melee weapon.

Combat, which is a major part of the game, is very similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Your people have action points they can use to move and to use weapons or skills. Cover is also essential: in an open area you are very vulnerable to enemy fire. And considering how hard this game can get you should use any advantage you can get. You and your enemies also have lots of different weapons they can use and others work better in certain situations, so taking your loadouts and proficiencies into account is very important when planning your strategy.

Though gameplay is probably the most important aspect of the game, it's worth also paying attention the audio-visual experience. Wasteland 2 isn't the prettiest game in town but it certainly isn't the ugliest either. The environments are designed well and I'm happy to see that the wasteland isn't just gray and brown. The Fallout games especially depicted their worlds as colourless ruins, while Wasteland 2's world has more vegetation and more (mostly) intact buildings. To me this feels maybe a bit more realistic and it also makes the environments less dull to look at. It's still gritty as it should be though, the villages and complexes definitely show their age and many walls are covered with rust and cracks. The soundtrack is also nice and really makes you feel like you are wandering through a desolate desert filled with mutants and whatnot.

In my opinion Wasteland 2 is the biggest and the best game we've seen this month and I am completely hooked at the moment. Since Friday I've played 20 hours of this game and I'm not even thinking about stopping yet. I'm sort of worried about the damage this game will cause to my grades at school though. All and all it's an awesome experience and you should absolutely get it as soon as possible.

GOG: http://www.gog.com/game/wasteland_2_digital_classic_edition
Humble Store: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/wasteland2_classic_storefront

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I'm a Linux gamer from Finland. I like reading, long walks on the beach, dying repeatedly in roguelikes and ripping and tearing in FPS games. I also sometimes write code and sometimes that includes hobbyist game development.
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11 comments
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sev Sep 23, 2014
Yeah, I'll play it. I love a good RPG. Never really got the appeal of Fallout but any RPG is appreciated, regardless of genre.
oldrocker99 Sep 23, 2014
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This was the very first game I helped on Kickstarter. I've been playing the beta for a couple of months now, but I started a new game when the release came out. It's good fun, but combat can be a little annoying when you have trouble selecting whom you want; I probably haven't read enough of the docs to make it more smooth:O.

One warning I will impart to new purchasers: The game apparently ships set up for a 4:3 screen, and the mouse pointer activates considerably below the button. Get into Settings/Video (which may frustrate you as it did me) and select 1600x900 (apparently the highest resolution) and all will be fine, with the buttons lining up with the mouse.
Guest Sep 23, 2014
Quoting: oldrocker99[...] and select 1600x900 (apparently the highest resolution) [...]

I've got it running in 1920x1080. Doesn't look like I've selected any betas. Is it possible that the game is detecting your monitor's available resolutions wrong or something?

Just a word of warning to anyone looking to start this soon: get ready to use quicksave constantly, especially if you have any tendencies that even approach OCD. The game's mechanics have no concept of a "Take 20" (D&D) or "Take 10" (Through the Breach), so you can almost always critically fail, resulting in a safe that you can never crack, door that you can never unlock, or a trap destroying all your loot.

I love how combat mechanics work (during combat, it's one of my favorite tactical RPGs, hands down); but the mechanics outside of combat can be pretty frustrating, depending on your demeanor.

Oh, and if you think something might be hinting at you to go do something, it probably is. I don't want to say much, but I just found roughly $1500 worth of loot because I was willing to waste ten minutes of my time on a hunch that could just as easily have been the equivalent of twiddling my fingers for ten minutes.

Liam - any plans to add a spoiler tag to comments? I wanted to mention details for those who don't care about minor spoilers, but I don't want to go any more specific than the above without some method of hiding it.
EKRboi Sep 23, 2014
I Played for about 8 hours straight on sunday. Fallout 3 and NV are among my favorite games of all time, having wasted hundreds of hours on each. I think I may have played Fallout 1 a little years ago but I can't say for certain. The turn based combat was/still is one of the hardest aspects of the game for me. It's a game mechanic that normally turns me right off to a game. I like the atmosphere and the background of this game so I have forced myself to stick with it and I have become much more comfortable with it. It's still kicking my butt though. I feel like my tactics are not quite right or maybe I am just not leveling fast enough, I'm not quite sure yet. I don't pass up a chance at combat or any chances I have seen to gain XP, and I hunt for loot everywhere. So I think it may just be my tactics like I said.

I started over 4 times on sunday trying to figure out a squad that worked for me, I learned REAL quick that a good surgeon/field medic is a MUST. Bullets can become a problem so make sure you have a guy/gal or two who are proficient with blunt objects, as I have found myself needing to beat things and people to death on more than one occasion, plus it helps conserve bullets. I know it's not a great comparison but my first fallout 3 playthough I hardly used any guns/rocket launchers, I hack and slashed my way though it with bats and super sledges ;) Also manually save A LOT, it does not auto save nearly enough.

As for monitor/resolution problems someone else mentioned. This seems to be one of the best programmed Unity engine games that I have ever played in that regard. It picked up my ultra wide res and just worked OOTB and at fullscreen (not windowed). This has NEVER happened with a unity game before. All the other ones I have had to run in a window (borderles) to get to span my monitors and even then I normally have to go tweaking configs manually and there have been a couple that just refuse to play nice.

I give it two thumbs up so far, it's aggravating for sure (at least for me), but the post apocalyptic scene and story I love, so I'm really trying to stick with it for the long haul. I assume I'll get better at it.
coryrj19951 Sep 23, 2014
This game is great :D been waiting for it since I heard that they were finally making 2. I have played the early access from my brothers computer for a while... though I never got much time on it since he was playing it... maybe about 20 minutes tops after release... I need a better computer :(

oh by the way to change the resolution manually, which sometimes is much easier you can go to ~/.config/unity3d/inXile/Wasteland2 and open the file called "prefs" and look for a height/width sections, which is around line 34.
Jocker Sep 24, 2014
Hi everyone
Someone with the install DVD?
If so the install works fine on GNU/Linux without being forced to go through steam?

Thank you! ;)
sakurazuka Sep 24, 2014
It freezez when rotating camera on radeon HD7870...
Feist Sep 24, 2014
I´ve played it for 25 hours now and I´ve absolutely loved it. Very addictive and fun game that really reminds you of the old Fallout-games.

Speaking of the golden oldies, I just noticed that "Baldur´s Gate 2 :EE" showed up in my steam-library in ubuntu. :D
Plintslîcho Sep 24, 2014
Oh yeah, I’m really looking forward giving this game a whirl. I’m currently really enjoying Shadowrun though and will first finish Dragonfall.
TheRealJeff Sep 24, 2014
I am loving this game. I have around 30 hours into it already and I'm only about half way through from what I understand. You could probably go faster but I am really digging into the details of the story. Only a couple minor glitches here and there so far.

Like @EKRboi said above, make sure you quick save a lot because you can run into situations where you quickly get in over your head and end up dead. The game doesn't spoil it by freezing the game with an autosave right before big encounters.
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