The following review may contain minor spoilers for Wasteland 3‘s first few hours.

Since about 2009 when I first saw the cover of Wasteland, and incrementally over the years knowing the setting of the series, I’ve wanted to get into the franchise. Those of you who have kept up with the site or oddly read everything I write will know why I haven’t played the 1988 or 2014 game, dyslexia! RPGs are like that, so enticing with interesting settings of the nuclear holocausts, yet ever-increasingly robust with their word count. It is like playing a visual novel written by Dickens. Over the decades, games have become more accessible giving idiots like me a chance to moan about RPGs I do and don’t like.

Now, 32 years on from the bombs dropping, fallout polluting the air, and mercs roaming the wasteland, I tortured the names of two classic PC RPGs to introduce Wasteland 3. It is the latest in the series, though this time you are not roaming through the wastelands on a horse with no name. You continue the story of the rangers trying to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic hellscape of America. Ambushed by one of the many colorful groups, half your squad are slaughtered on the way to seek help, and thus begins your greater quests to please someone to get the thing you need. Isn’t it always?

A stranger and wonderful mess is what you happen to find yourself in, surrounded by nutjobs, killers, thieves, political god-fearing yahoos, and a man trying to keep a hold on his piece of power. Like any RPG, there is something much deeper below all of this. You go around the lands asking what everyone’s problem is, and usually, it is answered with a double-barrel shotgun down someone’s neck. You collect your party members along the way, all with the goal of filling any holes you have in the skill tree. Wasteland 3 isn’t missing any of the usual pageantry you would expect with an RPG, and yet somehow I didn’t find myself disliking it.

In fact, as a result of the colorful characters, angry blood-soaked groups wanting me dead, combat that felt familiar, and every piece of dialogue spoken, I keep wanting to come back. It all had an air of familiarity, almost like the nuclear war never changes. Though I will admit, unlike the spawn of the Wasteland series, there is a sense of taking things a little more stone-faced than some of the wacky comedy fun-hour that fills some of the quests in Fallout. That said, God-president Reagan is mental.

Before I actually get anywhere with that, performance is an unknown mystery. I’ve tried Wasteland 3 on two systems, one falling short of some of the suggested hardware and one blasting right through it, and it didn’t work out how you’d expect. No, the system that was beating all the skill checks of being a real PC had moments of becoming a slideshow all throughout play, while the one below specs only struggled with the opening cut scene. That isn’t to say the one below specs would tank anything thrown at it, it too had moments. Though, stuck to a higher framerate; However, sadly took longer to load up maps. Even on low graphics.

I think that’s enough of a summary to start talking in a bit more detail about my experience rather than an overview. I think the story is fine, well-written but nothing special in the land of RPGs, de rigueur as I often point out. It follows the standard motions of an RPG while also doing it in enough of a fresh way I can’t point to anything similar directly. As I’ve said, I like it enough as the cast of characters keeps enough of the world alive to retain my vested interest in my own story.

With plenty of decisions, I have been provided moments of reflection of what my actions might do, such as killing the robot with the voice of a child. That is a decision I still regret because it just gave me money to barter with, which is a topic I’ll get to in a minute. That said, when there are the usual characteristics of the RPG, there are also the usual problems with RPGs, such as wanting to say something that’s not on the pre-selected cards given to you. I wanted to deal with the child trapped in an adult robot situation differently, though of course, I was pushed into a rather binary kill or don’t option.

This isn’t a detractor of the game, though saving everyone else and putting them in my protection or under arrest in my cells at HQ is what I’ve done with just about everyone else. When I’m narrowed into options I can’t back out of without lasting consequences, neither of which I want, I don’t feel like I’m the one telling the story at that point. It is a bit like that predetermined destiny thing some seem to think is good for RPGs, which I don’t care for. Though again, it just meant walking into a situation knowing I might very well end up the villain, one I wasn’t setting myself up to be in the first place.

The Gippers were colorful. For the uninitiated, they are the Reagan cult with a robot of Reagan that fires red, white, and blue laser cannons to kill “Commie robots.” I wasn’t expecting it when I was being shot at on the ice tundra into Colorado. Though the term “God-president” does seem like a thing that would appear around cultists of a politician in America. Yet, they aren’t the only colorful characters, as the Patriarch is a paranoid politician of Colorado Springs, the Dorseys are blood cultists, Godfishers are best described as kiting enthusiasts, the Hundred Families are political influencers stuck behind walls, and of course there are all the big killer robots.

However, there was one character I held close given his backstory. Mactavish, a monster of a man with a thick “Scottish” accent that sounded suspect, is built like a brick outhouse and swears off rhythm. It is a small detail on a tape that pinned it down, he’s adopted that accent to seemingly look and sound unpleasant and left alone, like a true Scot wanting to be left alone. Turns out, as you’d expect with post-apocalyptic immigration being as tight these days, he’s just a big brute of an American.

Though, let’s get to those gripes and the bartering: I really don’t care too much for it. I know I’m probably not the best to talk on the subject, not having a degree in economics or anything, but the wasteland’s economy is godawful. Try and sell a thing you are told is $500 and you’ll be offered $80. How am I meant to arm my militia of serial-killing lockpickers with tuppence to spare? It is a good thing you kill and loot enough that junk and useless weapons can nab you $1000 in the early missions.

Speaking of my ragtag band of psychopaths waging war on anything with as much as a dirty look on its face, it wasn’t exactly intuitive to collect them all so I could move forward. It was nearly 24-hours in when I finally found out you could select your entire party by tapping spacebar in exploration mode, which to my knowledge didn’t come up earlier. Most of the very basic controls were a snap of the fingers and I knew what to do. That issue however had me swearing to God-president Reagan that someone would get an ear full on this.

Staying on the stupid dolts with guns, I hope you like swearing and using health packs. The number of times I’d selected combat and was ready to fire, then noticed a better strategy, tried to select another party member, but shot them point-blank in the face with a high-powered sniper rifle was stupid. Pick that apart however you like, I had friendly fire off. How, in all that is holy in God-president Reagan’s America, I could still shoot someone in the face with friendly fire off, I do not know. The number of times I told someone to sexually gratify themselves and the horse they rode in on, is ridiculous.

Before I wrap up, the world map of Colorado with the truck is dreadful to control. Throughout the game, as you explore with the party you will use WASD to move the camera around the map, but the world map is dominated by the truck’s follow camera, which isn’t helpful. You can explore most of the map, but you have to slowly nudge along, waiting for it to reach the edge of the screen where you ordered it to get to in the first place. It may have been a rendering issue causing this to be the only option, though it slows the entire travel segment right down to a crawl. 

In conclusion, I don’t know if it the fact that I’ve now got a classic PC style RPG with the modern trimmings I don’t hate, but I think Wasteland 3 is great. Undoubtedly, there are some that will say it is not deep enough, but I can’t help wanting to play more and more. Minor issues with performance being a question mark and the shotgun blasts to the party leader’s face aside, there is still a great game behind it all. Finally, I can not stress this enough, the added voice acting gives so much to accessibility for those that find RPGs tedious and verbose.

A PC copy of Wasteland 3 was provided by Deep Silver for this review.

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Wasteland 3

$59.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Voiced characters provides accessibility.
• A fanasticly dark, fun, and colorful setting for an RPG.
• A story that's well-written enough.
• God-president Reagan.

Cons

• The camera option on the world map slows down travel.
• Minor questionmarks about performance.