Wasteland 2 Preview
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Any backer of the project on Kickstarter has probably been following its progress rather closely, but it's wonderful to see that the soul of the original hasn't been sullied despite being modernised. Not only is Wasteland a beautiful game to look at, with its modern veneer alongside the isometric view that the classic provided. The maps are also absolutely huge, providing plenty of space to explore and to experiment with combat, and hidden almost everywhere is a quest or side mission that you wouldn't expect to come across.
Fans will also be pleased to know that these quests are still like that of the original. Their dark and morbidly funny lines of dialogue work even better than they did before thanks to the injection of some internet memes to ground this gritty adventure in a reality we're all rather familiar with. One instance saw the need to clear a minefield for our band of Desert Rangers to pass through unharmed. Naturally, this meant tempting across a screaming goat from the other side, and yes, they're voiced by the wonderful screaming goats of YouTube fame. Another instance saw us come across an ill bed-ridden woman who's husband had disappeared when looking for medicine. In the playthrough we saw the decision was made to. euthanize. the lady at which point her husband turned up from his expedition. And, there's no karma bar or good-evil split anywhere here, it's just completely down to you and how you want to play.
However, in both these instances there's plenty of ways to approach the situation. Nobody made us kill the woman, or her husband upon his return. We could have just as easily left her, or if our medical/surgical skill was high enough, just healed her on the spot. Indeed, nobody actually made us partake in the quest at all. You can just as happily leave the quest and later on you may have run into the husband on his errands, or perhaps found that upon healing the woman she repaid you later in the game if you crossed paths. Killing merchants or other NPCs means they won't appear anywhere else again, and that could mean you close off quests for yourself altogether. Essentially, InXile are aiming to craft an adventure where no two people will have the same experience, and you can go back and find that things have changed on a different playthrough. In essence, there's just so much content to see here that you certainly won't see it all in one playthrough.
