Wasteland 2: Directors Cut

An easy recommendation for any FO1-2 fans. Game feels a bit janky and low budget and the turn based combat isn't the most exciting but the story and characters are solid enough for at least one playthrough.
It didn't knock me off my socks but I didn't stop playing till I finished and that counts as engrossing in my book.
For some reason the game doesn't include my time in the DC version which is 190 hours. I did idle a lot but yeah you should get 50+ hours out of this game at a regular pace.

Fun game, but lacks polish like most InXile titles....also completely lacks subtlety of any kind but thats ok though it works. Its imho a lot better than WL3 as well, which suffers from Devs usual *sell out to console* tactics with dumbing down of features and expicit content etc. This one pulls no punchs and gives zero fucks about swallowing corporate turds to be watered down for consoles. Its also atleast twice as big as WL3 content wise perhaps even three times the size.

3 > 2 if weird controls bothers you. 2 plays more like an old school CRPG, whereas 3 plays like a CRPG that took lots of inspiration from XCOM. Both are pretty open ended, and you can create some interesting builds with each.

I took me way too much time to finally finish Wasteland 2, but I finally did it, and I'm glad I did so!
The classic Fallout games are some of my favorite games of all times, and when I heard that the game that originated those games was getting a sequel (way back then, when the Kickstarter campaign was announced), I was very, very hyped.
I played the game when it launched, and for some unknown reason, never finished it.
Now, after many years, I finished Wasteland 2, and, here's my review of it.
PS: Steam isn't tracking my playtime hours properly, and I think it has to do with the fact that I also played it before the Director's Cut Edition was released.
So, first things first. What is Wasteland 2?
It's a Turn-Based Tactical CRPG based in a Post Apocalyptic USA, after a Nuclear War brought the end of the world.
Seems familiar, right? That's because the Fallout series is a spiritual successor to the first Wasteland game (which came out in 1988).
Basically, Wasteland 2 is a spiritual successor to Fallout 1 and 2 which are spiritual successors to Wasteland 1.
It's been developed by inXile, which was founded by some ex-Interplay/Black Isle devs.
Story and Setting
The game is split in two major segments (which I'll not spoil). Both are very distinct between each other, so you'll know when you eventually reach the second half of the game.
You play as the newly recruited Team Echo from the Desert Rangers, descendants of the US Military, trying to act as the lawmen of Post-Apocalyptic Arizona.
Your first assignment is fairly straight forward: a old-timer called Ace (and a character from the first game) was murdered while trying to install some Repeater Units on some Radios after the Rangers started hearing some very troubling and menacing radio transmissions, and you're tasked of finishing his mission, leading to a huge quest on discovering who murdered him, why, and how you'll be able to install those repeater units.
During your quest you'll meet dozens of different factions, each trying to survive this nuclear wasteland their way. Your actions as a Desert Ranger will shape their lives, and the future of Arizona.
This game, as a CRPG, has some very tough choices to make. And, be warned: even though you have control over many different outcomes to quests, there won't always be a happy ending.
My only complaint of the story is that one of the Antagonists (Dugan) isn't very well explored, and the game's ending happens too abruptly.
Other than that, the story came out as very engaging, with some very good plot-twists. Speaking to every NPC and searching every inch of the map can be very rewarding too!
Gameplay
Wasteland 2 features a Turn-Based Tactical combat, with a Action Points system to dictate how many actions you can do every turn with your characters. There's also a Combat Initiative system, to determinate which characters will act first on their turn.
You control a squad of up to 7 people, with the first 4 being your main characters. These can be either created from the ground up during Character Creation, selected from a pool of available pre-created ones, or, you can even pick these and customize them to your liking.
The last 3 squad members you can recruit during your journeys. There are a lot of different companions that you can find and recruit.
There's a big incentive on trying to balance your squad, ensuring that you'll be able to overcome the many different challenges that wait you (like having characters that can unlock chests, safes, disable alarms and explosives, and even talk to animals).
Just a head's up: there's no way to properly respec them without using external tools, unfortunately.
Combat isn't everything though. You'll spend a lot of time talking to different NPCs, and your choices during dialogue will shape the story going forward. There's also skills that can be used on dialogues to shape the outcome to your liking.
Sound Design
Combat sounds (like firing guns, enemies sound design and stuff like that) sounded ok to me. Nothing too groundbreaking, but they did their job well.
Not all NPCs are voice acted, but among those that do are, they're really, really well done. There wasn't a voice-acted NPC that felt weird or badly recorded, in my opinion.
The best part on sound design was the Soundtrack. That was superb, very atmospheric and could be dark when needed.
A true masterpiece by Mark Morgan (the creator of the original Fallout soundtracks).
Graphics
There isn't much to say about them, to be honest.
They're somewhat dated, but they're ok.
Some textures weren't very good, some character models and animations could be better.
Also, I had some framedrops at some areas, even though my PC is way above the recommended specs.
Final Thoughts
So, to sum it up, I had a lot of fun playing this game.
It felt like a true successor to the classic Fallouts. A post nuclear experience with some wacky and dark humor, mutants, robots and raiders.
I can't say for sure how many hours it took me to finish it due to Steam's playtime being bugged for this game, but I think it was roughly around 50 hours, maybe?
Did every quest that was present, explored the entire world too.
In my opinion, if you like CRPGs as a whole, or liked Fallout 1 and 2, there's a huge chance that you'll like Wasteland 2 as well.

For all of you who like a good role-playing game in a post world war III nuclear fallout kind of style that is turn-based according to your character stats then this is the game for you. There are many different weapon types and styles to choose from combat occurs according to who has initiative unless you start the combat beforehand. This is a wide open world with many different choices that do have consequences but you are able to save the game and change your choices if you wish so the game has replayability also. Your companions are your four characters that you can create and you can recruit up to three more and also have other let's say people / animals that can tag along with you and some other things that I'm not going to give out at this moment you'll have to figure that out. The game also provides cover so you can hide behind objects and you can be elevated on ridges and stuff like that also . Combat also includes hand grenades/dynamite/rpg rockets etc.
I would also like to point out that there are multiple different ways of figuring out the puzzles and the game and there are objects in the game that are not labeled junk that you may be able to use in other places in the world so you may not want to sell them and then you'll figure out on your own why you kept them for so long.
You don't need to play the first game in order to enjoy this game and let's face it the first game was the very first game that I played on an Apple 2C compatible computer way back and the early 1980s so you probably won't enjoy that with the computers we have today.
I recommend the game but you should watch at least one or two YouTube videos to decide for yourself get this when it's on sale and enjoy it play it all the way through .
Merry Christmas.

Pretty great game if you want to play Fallout but want gameplay that's more like XCOM. Fairly in-depth customisation with the option to create your own party as well as recruit NPCs. Speaking of NPCs, the story and world are well-written and fleshed-out, and you get a good amount of choices and paths to explore. Entertaining quests and characters. Gritty yet fun setting with a smattering of edgy humour (though not too edgy to get on my nerves, YMMV of course). Like, you've got nuns with Gatling guns here.
As for the negatives, I remember the game having a noticeable difficulty spike in Santa Fe (the second "world map" after Arizona). This might frustrate players who aren't prepared for it. And for something released in 2014, it has average graphics at best. Not the most visually captivating game ever, but that's not why I play it :p

It had been a long time since I originally beat this game and picking it up again several years later definitely left me confused! Though this game still had the original charm that pulled me in when I originally played it. Well worth the time!