Wasteland 3

If you are like me, middle aged dad with some down time between watching the world end and helping your kids with pandemic caused on/off home schooling, a job that is slowly sucking the life out of you, and loved playing old school RPGs like Forgotten Realms games, Fallout 2, Baldurs gate, Planscape Torment, etc. This escape into a world that feels like it could be reality any day now, gives you the fantasy that you have any chance of surviving such an end. Plus it has references and jokes about the world you grew up in before your baby boomer parents set it on a path to the hellish landscape it is today. And you get to fix toasters for cool prizes.

7/10
Its gruesome, its gory, its morally ambiguous, and its fun. If you know you like this genre, you can't go wrong with this game; however I would not try to introduce a new player to this genre with this game.
Overall, I thought this game was enjoyable. The story provides the player with difficult moral choices and clear immediate consequences to their actions. You begin the game as a squad of Arizona Rangers travelling to Colorado to help The Patriarch, its ruler, secure his territory in exchange for vital supplies for the rangers back home. Immediately the game starts off really strong with the combat and the story, even featuring original music for a very cinematic fight, and subtly introduces you to the idea that your choices have immediate and devastating consequences. It quickly becomes apparent however, that a lot of these choices are locked behind persuasion and intimidation skill levels. This means that if you are not leveling your characters a specific way, you are funneled into the more undesirable choices and forced into combat. I understand that this is used to add value to these skills, but tying major plot points into your characters skills without the option to respec your characters punishes sub-optimal builds by forcing the player into a set story path. Another issue with being locked into your character choices is that you are required to use a majority (4 out of 6) non-player created characters in your party. Because of this, you have to gather new companions as you travel. These companions however have their own preset skills which can seriously mess up you party's skill levels if you do not build specifically for these characters. All in all, the story is interesting and does allow for moral considerations, however being railroaded into optimal skill distribution really hampers the players freedom. A quick note on side missions: except for a few noteworthy exceptions, a majority of the side missions are fetch quests. These noteworthy missions however do allow for some interesting changes to the game world, and really add to the overall experience.
To balance out the negatives, I have to say that overall I enjoyed the story and struggled to decide which path to take. This game truly shines in its factions and its locations. From cannibalistic clowns to a faction worshiping god president Reagan, this game takes its fallout style apocalypse and brings its craziness up to 11. There is really nothing else like it.
As for combat, there are aspects which are far from perfect. Combat is where 90% of the bugs happen. For example, multiple times throughout the game the enemies turn would not end and I would have to restart my game which cost me all of my progress in that fight if not more, because you cannot save mid fight. Another combat issue is that the terrain hazards, for example burning oil or the radiation cloud from a nuke, did not show which squares it covered, so it was extremely easy to move your units into unnecessary harm. This issue combined with the terrible pathing led to serious issues within the combat. Another issue with the combat is that every character preforms actions at the same time. If you accidentally start combat (because the sneaking is straight up impossible) the entire enemy force gets to take free shots at your team. This usually results in a unwinnable fight, and I had to reload saves many times because my squad got nearly wiped in the first turn because of a misstep with the god awful pathing.
As for the positives of combat, it did have its moments. There are lots of weapon choices and some interesting perks characters can take to specialize their weapon options, and there is usually a way around combat (or at least to give yourself an advantage) if you have the necessary skills. This allows the player to customize their party to use specific types of weapons (for example level up automatic weapons and take perks for submachine guns) and lets each character have a niche. There are lots of difficult combat scenarios that require strategy, and near impossible fights if you decide to wage war on a faction. Loot is also picked up all at once, so there is no need to scour the battlefield for each body. If you can make it past the bugs, this combat is engaging, challenging, and seriously fun.
The graphics are good, especially for an isometric game. There were a couple minor issues for me, such as status effects (like burning ground) not showing up properly and the camera being a little bit difficult to work with in smaller rooms. Overall, the graphics were good and helped to bring the crazy wasteland atmosphere to life
Overall, I think this is a good game for fans isometric RPGS or turn based combat games. Its not the best, this game does not hold a candle to Divinity Original Sin 2, but it is still good in its own right. It also features 2 player co-op, which is a nice addition to this kind of game. I did not try it, so I cannot comment on how well it works, but I have a sneaking suspicion that is has its fair share of bugs. If you are looking for a coop game like this to introduce someone to turn based combat or isometric RPGS I would highly recomend DOS 2 instead of this game, however if you know this is your thing then I say go for it.

Wasteland 3 is a Role Playing Game featuring turn based combat, where the player controls a party of characters known as the Desert Rangers, who have travelled to Colorado’s snowy wasteland on a mission to secure aid for their home in Arizona.
Gameplay
If you’ve played the previous Wasteland, or other turn based games similar to Xcom, the combat will feel immediately familiar. The battlefield is divided into a square grid, and your characters have action points to spend on moving, attacking, using healing items and grenades, or going on overwatch. Some unused action points can be carried forward to the next turn if you want to move further or get an extra attack.
As you hover the cursor over each square, the UI shows clearly which enemies will be in line of sight, and the hit chance percentage with the currently equipped weapon, before you commit to moving to that position. You can also see which objects will provide half or full cover, to protect your characters from enemy attacks.
There are lots of weapon types, including assault rifle, SMG, pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, flamethrower, blunt and bladed melee weapons. Many weapons have energy variants which do extra damage to robot enemies and turrets. Some might apply status effects such as bleed, stun or poison.
Successful attacks charge up a meter which allows you to perform a special attack. This is almost guaranteed to hit and lets you target a specific body part, which has a chance of a special effect such as destroying the enemy’s armour, confusing a turret causing it to attack your enemies, or hitting a weak point (for example a flamethrower tank) for an instant kill. This can work on bosses too – I was able to one shot a massive Waste Worm Queen which had over 4000 HP.
Your party will include six characters. Two can be created and customised at the start of the game, you can recruit Rangers from your base who don’t have any dialogue or quests, and there are a few traditional NPCs who do have their own personalities and are connected to the various factions which are important to the story.
You can also be joined by followers who aren’t directly under your control, but they’ll assist you during combat. I found a cat wearing a cowboy hat who scratches enemies, a dude with a handgun, and a disco robot who shoots healing darts at my guys.
During some outdoor battles against lots of enemies, you’ll be able to use your squad’s vehicle to even the odds. You can find or buy upgrades for the vehicle’s weapon and armour. I found a cannon that fires a multicoloured stream of lasers while playing a few notes of the American national anthem.
Combat starts tough, in particular I struggled in early fights where some enemies can charge long distances and explode on the same turn, potentially knocking out multiple friendlies. But it gets easier as you level up, find better weapons and armour, and acquire special perks such as attacking twice with a melee weapon triggers a bonus third attack, move several squares with an SMG and get a free attack, and getting a kill with an assault rifle restores some action points.
Non combat skills can unlock extra dialogue options and alternate routes through the level by allowing you to hack computers, pick locks, disarm traps, and repair or disable machines.
Story
The story is well written and the voice acting is mostly good. It takes place after the events of Wasteland 2, but its a new story so you don’t need to have played the previous game to understand what is happening. (although Wasteland 2 is a really good game which I still recommend playing).
There are lots of factions, from civilians and law enforcement, to killer clowns, a cult who worship a former American president as a god, cannibal cowboys, and a sentient AI. Some quests let you choose to support different factions, and as there are almost no obvious “good guys”, it can be tough to decide who to work with as you try to complete the mission. The main quest has multiple endings depending on your choices.
Technical
Even though the game originally released 4 months ago and has received several patches, I’ve still noticed quite a few bugs. The worst bugs were related to two side quests. On both occasions I needed to kill some bandits/animals to protect friendly NPCs, but after the fight the NPCs’ dialogue wouldn’t recognise that I’d done it, so I couldn’t complete the quest. Fortunately I had recent saves that I could reload and try again without losing much progress.
The other bugs are relatively minor. Sometimes when I move a character, their legs animation doesn’t play properly so they just slide across the ground. In my base, the fog of war conceals NPC character models, but their weapons are still visible floating in mid air. And one time the camera zoomed extremely close to the ground and wouldn’t zoom out. I saved and reloaded, and this reset the camera to the normal distance.
It took me 43 hours to complete the main story and every side quest that I found along the way. Combat music is great, including the songs which play during some important battles.
Recommendation
Wasteland 3 is a great game, and its a must buy if you like RPGs and turn based combat. The price is fine for the amount of content, you might want to wait for a couple more patches, although those bugs didn’t really spoil my enjoyment of the game. If you do play now, remember to save often on multiple save files just in case.

My son bought me this for xmas as he knew I enjoyed Wasteland 2.
Wasteland 3 is a fab game. It is a polished step up from Wasteland 2 - although still clunky in parts.
A decent story, some classic dialogue and hilarious factions make for a game that does what games should do. It is entertaining and fun.
Some comically over-acted villains, nicely crafted locations, religious sacrifices on kites, Reagan is Godly and, to the catharsis of many, you get to shoot the snot out of clowns.
It's just FUN.
If you enjoyed Wasteland 2, you'll likely love this.
If you didn't like Wasteland 2, you may still enjoy this.
I loved every minute of this game.

This game has some real heritage behind it. The series has been a hallmark of the Post-Apocalyptic RPG genre for many years. The games and other media it has inspired are widespread and well-known. There is also an underlying irony here that most gamers know and can best be described with the phrase "turnabout is fair play."
This team has pedigree and it shows in every single regard. Wasteland 3 manages to simultaneously be gritty and witty, brutal and bawdy, gory and goofy.. the writing is the best I can think of for any RPG. No kidding. Deeply branching, reactive and so perfectly timed it will have you laugh out loud a lot. Absurdity abounds, nothing is sacred.
Play the last rag-tag remnants of the fabled Arizona Desert Rangers however you want. Be a shining paragon of virtue or a homicidal maniac. The game allows, even condones, senseless acts of spontaneous violence, up to and including faction genocide. "I once saw him shoot a guy just to see if his gun was loaded.."
An amazing cast of three dimensional characters are expertly voiced by many of the most talented and well-known voice actors in the industry for the past decade or more. You will recognize many, guaranteed. (Ysolda!!!!) They spared no expense on the talent. This might be my favorite aspect of the game. Nearly any RPG fan will feel right at home here.
I love the gameplay, a fun but tough hybrid of X-COM style turn-based combat and tactical party management. Instead of battle maps it feels more like an open world, with encounters rather than missions. For me, it plays somewhere between CRPG and ARPG, with just the right amount of lore to read and mobs to blast with ludicrous pyrotechnics.
You get four characters to create from scratch or pick from presets, plus two additionals, giving you a traveling, fighting party of six. You can have thralls and followers as well, so it can grow into a real circus parade of mutants, farm animals and robots if you want. You can be a sneaky and tactical squad of elite Rangers, or a bunch of rowdy drunks stumbling about and waving their overpowered fists at anyone who will listen.
Wasteland 3 ticks all the boxes for me. I even bought the digital extras, mostly for the original soundtrack, another highlight in the long list of highlights. I can easily foresee a couple hundred hours invested here. I'm eager to see how things will play out with a very different team in a new game. Absolutely worth full price + season pass.

So when it was first released back in august, wasteland 3 was a mess, co-op was unplayable and the base game was complelty unbalanced, while I persionally knew inxile would fix the game eventually, it was frustrating to basically have to wait until january to play this game.
So how is it now ? its great, honestlyj I like this game alot more then the wasteland 2 (also Im glad they ditched the creepy dolls),. normal is a decent challange for most and the new permadeath mode adds an additional level of challange, since inscripting new charecters actually cost money. the difficulty will never be on par with something like xcom but persionally I am fine with that, xcom can be really harsh with the rnd.
the only thing I dont like is that I wish the game had been more polished on release, I don't like this trend where games are released in beta and then patched over the months. I hope comapanies eventuallyt learn this

Pros:
* Fun combat, very similar to XCOM. Not a lot of innovation, but there didn't need to be. XCOM is a winning formula.
* Unique twists on common skills. e.g. instead of "hacking" it's "nerd stuff" and, while it does enable you to do the typical disabling of security computers, it also opens unique conversation options and story paths. Chat with the robots about their AI implementation, or talk chemistry with the drug addicts. Lots of skills have a nice added dash of charm.
* Good pacing with skill usage. Whatever skill tress you build into, you'll frequently find uses for them in the world (though, obviously, some are more useful than others).
* Lots of personality in the world building. The post-apocalyptic setting is familiar by now, but the world of Wasteland has a lot of amusing side plots. Doctors building cloning machines, animatronic god-president Ronald Reagan, "toaster repair" being a viable skill tree... charming little touches that differentiate this post-apocalyptic world from the rest.
Cons:
* Story doesn't really make you care. This is partly due to its CRPG nature, as the narrative has to be able to adapt to the choices you make, but making choices is only engaging if you care about the characters affected. The voiced characters are all pretty one-dimensional and the villains' motivations are generally just "mania" (religious, drug or other). Often when presented with a large, game-changing decision, I found I didn't really care about any of the groups involved and just went with whichever choice I thought would lead to the best rewards.
* Clunky inventory management. There's no way to filter weapons or equipment to only the pieces the current character can use. Weapons and equipment are sorted in a bizarre order, which makes finding the one you want difficult. "Junk" items you sell may actually be required for crafting certain items, so you have to go find the vendor you sold it to and buy it back later (if the vendor is still alive). etc.
* Bugs. Lots of bugs, from little things like occasional strange frame rate drops, missing audio, invisible items, to design bugs that show a lack of care (for example, item prices are displayed when you hover over the item, but if you sell an item by double-clicking without moving your mouse, the item price doesn't update when the next item slides under your mouse. You can easily sell stuff you didn't mean to as a result), to major bugs like conversation dialogs from an hour ago suddenly re-appearing in the middle of a battle, breaking the game.
Overall, I'd say it's a 7 or 8 out of 10. Engaging and enjoyable, but enough downsides that you will surely notice them.