So, I am around 40 hours into Wasteland 2 and so far I am having a blast. Then I open Metacritic to see how the game is doing and I was surprised to see very mixed reviews. Apparently a lot of people who absolutely loved original Fallout seem to hate Wasteland 2 or consider it an average game at best. So I want to open a discussion about this phenomena that quite frankly baffles me, especially due to the nature of criticism the game is receiving. I will post some of these complaints, then I will give my view on them and hopefully get some intelligent responses.
PS. I have not read what the codex thinks about Wasteland 2, and no I am not going to search for it in another mega-thread. I am addressing some of the issues I have seen on Metacritic that were written by people who claim to be huge Fallout 1&2 fans.
Complaint 1: The combat sucks. There are no aimed shots. X-Com did it better. Jagged Alliance did it better. AI is horrible, because enemies shoot at each other and they don't use cover mechanic effectively.
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My viewpoint: Yes, all of these things are true or at least partly true, but I feel that the combat is still overall a huge improvement over the original Fallout. Yes, we lost the aimed shots (although you can still aim in the head), but everything else has been improved. Original Fallout did not use any cover mechanic, you could not crouch, you could not attack enemies from roof tops, you could not ambush them, and you could not control your party, etc. Furthermore AI in Fallout was even worse. Not only did the enemies often shoot at each other, but there was no cover mechanic to begin with. Also the inability to control your party members meant you would also become victim of friendly fire. The way I see it, we lost one thing and gained many improvements. Therefore, I fail to see how one can enjoy Fallout combat and absolutely hate the Wasteland 2 combat. Could combat be better? Yes! Is it bad? No. It is at least not as bad as Fallout's combat.
Complaint 2: The attribute and skill system is broken. Only intelligence is useful attribute, there are no perks, skills have been unnecessarily branched into different flavors that do exactly the same thing (for example speech skill being branched into kiss-ass, smart ass, hard-ass), and certain skills are completely useless (like alarm skill or surgeon).
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My viewpoint: I think Fallout 1&2 had the best attribute and skill system ever created. Competing against such an amazing system is not easy and Wasteland 2 does feel slightly underwhelming in this particular department. That however does not mean that the Fallout system did not have useless skills. Gambling, barter and throwing are just few useless skills that fall to my mind, whereas branching out certain skills in W2 makes a lot of sense from a purely roleplaying perspective. I mean, if someone is good at logical thinking and persuading people with rational arguments (smart ass), that by itself does not mean he will also be good at intimidating (hard ass), or smooth talking (kiss ass). Furthermore, surgeon is perhaps a useless skill if you think its only useful for recovering fallen party members. The thing is that surgeon has many uses in the world where you have to help certain NPCs. Yes, I wish W2 had perks and I wish attributes were connected with the skills like in Fallout games, but I do not think this is a huge problem. Different games will use different systems. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment for example did not have perks either, while they lack many skills that exist in original Fallout and Wasteland 2. Still they are amazing games and I do not think this particular complaint is enough to significantly lower their score. Therefore I fail to see why this should significantly lower the score when it comes to W2. Furthermore, the statement that only intelligence is a useful attribute is far from truth. It is the most useful attribute, but invest only in intelligence and you will have a combat gimped party that lacks the mobility needed for tactical positioning. Ignore your constitution and strength and you will constantly be over encumbered and lacking much needed health points. Getting the first shot with high awareness and getting critical shots with high luck is not mandatory, but its far from useless. The only attribute that seems somewhat useless is charisma, which I really hope they fix.
Complaint 3: The interface is clunky. You constantly have to click through different skills and on different objects.
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My viewpoint: After playing games like Skyrim and Dark Souls, I find the ability to use a mouse in my inventory without the need of modding it, very refreshing. Also, having to click on a skill and then an object feels so much better then just pressing "E" and letting the game automatizing the choice for me. Yes, perhaps something could be done about letting us have party based shortcut keys, and perhaps the demolition skill is getting too much use because of too many containers having traps on them, but at best it is a minor problem and really nothing more than nitpicking. Also, I find an inventory with actual slots to be far superior to the way Fallout did it, where you basically had all the items vertically lined up one under another.
Complaint 4: The maps are too big and it takes too long to navigate from one point to another.
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My viewpoint: Perhaps this is just me, but I prefer having huge maps instead of loading screens. Yes, it may take some time to get from one point to another, but again I fail to see how it would be better to have smaller maps interrupted with constant loading screens. Not only are bigger maps more realistic and add to the feeling of open world, but they help reduce the number of loading screens. The only thing I wish InXile implemented would be a button to quickly access world map travel, so that I don't have to go through a whole map just to access world map.
Complaint 5: Graphics are horrible and wearing different armor does not change how I look.
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My viewpoint: Graphics are huge improvement over original Fallout games. Sure, you can't see the changes when you wear different armor, but I do not think this is a big problem. Jagged Alliance 2 for example had that exact same problem when it came to wearing armor, Planescape Torment as well, but they are still amazing games. Furthermore, I could nitpick about Fallout how you could not change your skin/hair color, add a biography, choose a religion or customize the visual appearance of the character in any significant way. I could nitpick about the lack of ground elevation, repetitive town design, etc... The fact of the matter is that all of these complaints are just nitpicking. Fallout is an amazing game despite its limitations, and the same applies to W2.
Complaint 6: Fallout had humor, while Wasteland is dull.
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My viewpoint: I completely disagree. Wasteland has somewhat different tone due to being much more closely related to modern world from 1980's and 1990's, whereas Fallout is connected with the 1950's. Different tone does not mean the game is dull. The humor is subtle just like in Fallout games, and it might not be obvious but it is there. The codex reference made me laugh out loud btw.
Complaint 7: Topics instead of dialogue trees.
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While it is true that topics often make you ask questions that make very little sense, since you already asked every person the same thing 10 times already, and while it is true that dialogue trees in Fallout make the dialogues feel much more focused; the dialogues are far from horrible as some people describe them. Also, nobody is forcing you to ask every person the same thing you asked 10 other people and somehow it is hard for me to condemn the ability to ask anyone about almost anything. So, I see this as a personal preference. If you like focused dialogues, you will probably like Fallout more, but if you like to have the freedom to ask almost anything every single character and always get a different response, then you will like W2 more.
Complaint 8: Bugs.
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The game has just been released. It will be fixed, just give it some time. Also, I am not aware of any game (literally ANY game) that was released with 0 bugs. Even Fallout which people seem to praise into infinity is to this day plagued with broken quests, save corruptions, crashes, combat freezing up, etc. I am not justifying it, but RPGs are complex beasts and I am being realistic here. I don't think bugs are product of being lazy (at least not in this case) or the developer not caring. I think bugs are the product of the game's complexity and are bound to happen.
The bottom line is this. Most of the things people complain about exist or are even done worse in Fallout. And when people actually make some valid points, they really aren't that big of a deal. Wasteland 2 is different from Fallout in many ways. It has some things that it does better and it has some things it does worse. It is a much bigger game, with all the choices and consequences a true Fallout fan would want. Therefore I really have a difficult time understanding why so many "Fallout 1&2 fans" gave W2 0/10 on Metacritic.
PS. I have not read what the codex thinks about Wasteland 2, and no I am not going to search for it in another mega-thread. I am addressing some of the issues I have seen on Metacritic that were written by people who claim to be huge Fallout 1&2 fans.
Complaint 1: The combat sucks. There are no aimed shots. X-Com did it better. Jagged Alliance did it better. AI is horrible, because enemies shoot at each other and they don't use cover mechanic effectively.
---
My viewpoint: Yes, all of these things are true or at least partly true, but I feel that the combat is still overall a huge improvement over the original Fallout. Yes, we lost the aimed shots (although you can still aim in the head), but everything else has been improved. Original Fallout did not use any cover mechanic, you could not crouch, you could not attack enemies from roof tops, you could not ambush them, and you could not control your party, etc. Furthermore AI in Fallout was even worse. Not only did the enemies often shoot at each other, but there was no cover mechanic to begin with. Also the inability to control your party members meant you would also become victim of friendly fire. The way I see it, we lost one thing and gained many improvements. Therefore, I fail to see how one can enjoy Fallout combat and absolutely hate the Wasteland 2 combat. Could combat be better? Yes! Is it bad? No. It is at least not as bad as Fallout's combat.
Complaint 2: The attribute and skill system is broken. Only intelligence is useful attribute, there are no perks, skills have been unnecessarily branched into different flavors that do exactly the same thing (for example speech skill being branched into kiss-ass, smart ass, hard-ass), and certain skills are completely useless (like alarm skill or surgeon).
---
My viewpoint: I think Fallout 1&2 had the best attribute and skill system ever created. Competing against such an amazing system is not easy and Wasteland 2 does feel slightly underwhelming in this particular department. That however does not mean that the Fallout system did not have useless skills. Gambling, barter and throwing are just few useless skills that fall to my mind, whereas branching out certain skills in W2 makes a lot of sense from a purely roleplaying perspective. I mean, if someone is good at logical thinking and persuading people with rational arguments (smart ass), that by itself does not mean he will also be good at intimidating (hard ass), or smooth talking (kiss ass). Furthermore, surgeon is perhaps a useless skill if you think its only useful for recovering fallen party members. The thing is that surgeon has many uses in the world where you have to help certain NPCs. Yes, I wish W2 had perks and I wish attributes were connected with the skills like in Fallout games, but I do not think this is a huge problem. Different games will use different systems. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment for example did not have perks either, while they lack many skills that exist in original Fallout and Wasteland 2. Still they are amazing games and I do not think this particular complaint is enough to significantly lower their score. Therefore I fail to see why this should significantly lower the score when it comes to W2. Furthermore, the statement that only intelligence is a useful attribute is far from truth. It is the most useful attribute, but invest only in intelligence and you will have a combat gimped party that lacks the mobility needed for tactical positioning. Ignore your constitution and strength and you will constantly be over encumbered and lacking much needed health points. Getting the first shot with high awareness and getting critical shots with high luck is not mandatory, but its far from useless. The only attribute that seems somewhat useless is charisma, which I really hope they fix.
Complaint 3: The interface is clunky. You constantly have to click through different skills and on different objects.
---
My viewpoint: After playing games like Skyrim and Dark Souls, I find the ability to use a mouse in my inventory without the need of modding it, very refreshing. Also, having to click on a skill and then an object feels so much better then just pressing "E" and letting the game automatizing the choice for me. Yes, perhaps something could be done about letting us have party based shortcut keys, and perhaps the demolition skill is getting too much use because of too many containers having traps on them, but at best it is a minor problem and really nothing more than nitpicking. Also, I find an inventory with actual slots to be far superior to the way Fallout did it, where you basically had all the items vertically lined up one under another.
Complaint 4: The maps are too big and it takes too long to navigate from one point to another.
---
My viewpoint: Perhaps this is just me, but I prefer having huge maps instead of loading screens. Yes, it may take some time to get from one point to another, but again I fail to see how it would be better to have smaller maps interrupted with constant loading screens. Not only are bigger maps more realistic and add to the feeling of open world, but they help reduce the number of loading screens. The only thing I wish InXile implemented would be a button to quickly access world map travel, so that I don't have to go through a whole map just to access world map.
Complaint 5: Graphics are horrible and wearing different armor does not change how I look.
---
My viewpoint: Graphics are huge improvement over original Fallout games. Sure, you can't see the changes when you wear different armor, but I do not think this is a big problem. Jagged Alliance 2 for example had that exact same problem when it came to wearing armor, Planescape Torment as well, but they are still amazing games. Furthermore, I could nitpick about Fallout how you could not change your skin/hair color, add a biography, choose a religion or customize the visual appearance of the character in any significant way. I could nitpick about the lack of ground elevation, repetitive town design, etc... The fact of the matter is that all of these complaints are just nitpicking. Fallout is an amazing game despite its limitations, and the same applies to W2.
Complaint 6: Fallout had humor, while Wasteland is dull.
---
My viewpoint: I completely disagree. Wasteland has somewhat different tone due to being much more closely related to modern world from 1980's and 1990's, whereas Fallout is connected with the 1950's. Different tone does not mean the game is dull. The humor is subtle just like in Fallout games, and it might not be obvious but it is there. The codex reference made me laugh out loud btw.
Complaint 7: Topics instead of dialogue trees.
---
While it is true that topics often make you ask questions that make very little sense, since you already asked every person the same thing 10 times already, and while it is true that dialogue trees in Fallout make the dialogues feel much more focused; the dialogues are far from horrible as some people describe them. Also, nobody is forcing you to ask every person the same thing you asked 10 other people and somehow it is hard for me to condemn the ability to ask anyone about almost anything. So, I see this as a personal preference. If you like focused dialogues, you will probably like Fallout more, but if you like to have the freedom to ask almost anything every single character and always get a different response, then you will like W2 more.
Complaint 8: Bugs.
---
The game has just been released. It will be fixed, just give it some time. Also, I am not aware of any game (literally ANY game) that was released with 0 bugs. Even Fallout which people seem to praise into infinity is to this day plagued with broken quests, save corruptions, crashes, combat freezing up, etc. I am not justifying it, but RPGs are complex beasts and I am being realistic here. I don't think bugs are product of being lazy (at least not in this case) or the developer not caring. I think bugs are the product of the game's complexity and are bound to happen.
The bottom line is this. Most of the things people complain about exist or are even done worse in Fallout. And when people actually make some valid points, they really aren't that big of a deal. Wasteland 2 is different from Fallout in many ways. It has some things that it does better and it has some things it does worse. It is a much bigger game, with all the choices and consequences a true Fallout fan would want. Therefore I really have a difficult time understanding why so many "Fallout 1&2 fans" gave W2 0/10 on Metacritic.
