Overall, it's pretty darn good. The CnC (choice and consequence) are pretty good, the game has timed quest and don't fuck around about them. I lost Bizarre by my own stupidity. It made me rush all timed quest afterwards. The game certainly has another playthought worth of content at least, maybe two if you go for the best ending and another for Raider run.



I enjoy the game atempts to make Skill Checks not a auto win always , it doesn't happen a lot but it's nice. I thought the use of skill checks was pretty much perfect. Almost all Skill feels rewarding , even Sneak that's generaly terrible in CRPGs , can be use to great use get Sneak attack bonus or just scout rooms ahead. Builds variety doesn't come close to something like DOS2 neither Pathfinder, but there's enough to make a second run not feel boring.



The Combat is really good. Probably my favorite of any Modern CRPG. The story is nothing to amazing but it does it job well , it gives a nice conflict but honestly, the entire game i kinda wished i went a Raider Run and take over Arizona with Cordite. Angela is just too reckless even if Patriac is a major asshole sometimes.



I can see why some people hate it, the humor can be hit or miss but i thought was WAY more tolerable than DOS2, even had a good chuckle with characters like Flab (my homie.. i failed you) , Fargo and the communist robots.

This game was great! I could really see the Fallout DNA in it. I loved how every choice you made (and there were LOTS of them) was painted in shades of gray rather than black and white, it made the decisions difficult and I really felt the impact of the choices that I made. Each faction had its own unique personality and I didn't feel like any were half-baked or boring to get to know. I just wished that your squad acted a little more cohesively in combat. It would have been cool to have squad members with abilities that played off of other squad members and maybe a more robust perk system. Those are nitpicks though. All in all this was a fun, engaging CRPG.

Playtime: 86 Hours
Score: 8/10

Definitely my game of the year so far! One of my favorite video game franchises is Fallout, because I just love the setting and the mix of sci fi and post apocalyptic elements. Lately that series has gone to the toilet, and games like Obsidian's The Outer Worlds filled that void for me. And now Inxile's Wasteland 3 is doing the same! Never played a Wasteland game before but I know its what the Fallout series spun out of, and like Obsidian, Inxile is made up of people who worked on the original Fallout games!

What I love most about western role playing games, is the choices you can make and how the world reacts to your choices. This game definitely takes that philosophy to heart, as you can really dish out justice in Colorado in the ways you see fit. You can arrest or kill most key characters you fight, and like Fallout New Vegas, you have various faction reputation meters to keep an eye on. In addition you have overall Ranger fame meter, that will progress to either positive or negative side based on your actions. It's nice where in the beginning no one knows who you are, but later people will recognize you and either be inspired by or afraid of you.

Combat is also a ton of fun, as its basically XCOM's turn based combat system, except just a lot more forgiving and easier to get into I feel. Its fun to maneuver your squad mates in battle and to turn the tide in battle. While its not an original battle system, I think it works for the type of games this is, and for the squad gameplay.

The game is also just very cool to get into as all NPC characters are voiced, so you don't have to read a ton and the graphics are decent. While this only happens a few times in the campaign, there will be times where you get a first person perspective like in the Fallout games, when your about to have a very important conversation. Some of the areas are just really cool to explore, like the Denver area, that's run by a group of cultists who worship a long dead Ronald Reagan which definitely gave me some Enclave vibes! The devs themselves even said that this game is their Fallout 3, which I think is great, because when the main series you love isn't giving you anything good, these other games that come and fill the void are the best! Companions are also very cool, though I wish there some more loyalty missions tied to them, as only one companion in the game, has their own personal questline to complete which was a bit disappointing.

Aside from all that, the only real negatives I can say, is the bugs, which were numerous and did interrupt my enjoyment from time to time. This would include occasional slow down from time to time; one bug towards the end prevented me from making a manual or quick save. I was able to fix it by reloading my older save file, but I didn't lose that much progress, as I save regularly. There was also a bug where at one point when I wanted to boot up the game, towards the end, it wouldn't let me and said there was a "critical error I had to fix". I had to fix this by uninstalling and the reinstalling the game. However, I'm not sure if this is an issue with the game itself, or with gamepass on PC, as I have had issues like that before, with me not even being able to play Fallout 76. But none of these bugs were really game breaking as I was able to do a quick fix and carry on with my playthrough.

But otherwise, I had a really fun time with this game, and I can easily recommend it to those who are fans of the Fallout franchise or RPGs in general. I still am going to buy this game on steam, and I already went and bought Wasteland 2 to play at some point!

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

If you’re willing to look past it’s irritating rough edges, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most thorough RPG experiences to come out in years. Such an incredibly open ended amount of options when it comes to party composition and individual build diversity, a turn based combat model with the depth of a tactics games, a world reactive to your decisions in ways that floored me, really making me want to go back and reassess how I judge other RPGs, and writing so smart, so thoughtful, factions are fleshed out to the point where I spent the last couple hours of the game struggling to decide who I was going to side with. And man, the Reagan cult, this game understands the American myth like few others.

I tend to have mixed taste in turn based RPGs but this one hooked me completely. Really helped fill the void left by Fallout.

I booted this game up with low expectations, needless to say i am incredibly pleasantly surprised , I remember having tried wasteland 2 early in its life and bouncing off of it.

Wasteland 3 Really does just a fantastic job of balancing the serious themes of the story with the more wacky and outsider humor. In this way i would describe this game as "Lutheran Fallout" It rejects the modern action oriented first person RPG design by giving a nuts to butts classic CRPG experience instead, the game takes place in an isometric perspective, with very xcom inspired combat, cover system, hit chances, etc.

What the game is really good at though is giving interesting permutations of the story and meaningfully different paths that the player's choices throughout meaningfully affect. These choices often lead to unique battles not seen if taking a different path. This is so refreshing as there are very few instances of being forced through the same situation with slightly different dialogue.

These battles rip the kitchen sink from the wall and brutalizes the player with it , on hard difficulty i was constantly being tasked to do the same; finding ways to exploit the games spiderweb of combat systems and mechanics to be able to overcome certain fights. Get deep enough into the weeds especially as a completionist there will be a vast toolbox of death dealing instruments to discover and upgrade. Spending the first half of the game scraping through encounters makes melting people in the mid game all the more satisfying

I also really enjoy how the game rewards the player for exploration; lots of neat unique weapons, armor, and gizmos to equip, customize, and discover. The best equipment is off the beaten path and the game has many paths that are very... Unbeaten

This game is not perfect however and the first set of issues arose from playing on series x,

The menu and ui is not made with controller in mind, by the hour mark i was realizing just how much faster the game would play out if i could just click on things, i won't exaggerate when i say that controller menuing added ~hours to the runtime vs the speed and precision of the mouse. Another console specific issue is how absolutely mercissley screwed up the targeting was at times, enjoy wrestling with the game to allow you to shoot the person you want to, oftentimes i'd have to reload a fight because of the game snapping to a target across the map when i had already been hitting another enemy spamming A to attack them, the game would send my targeting to the another mook 8 ap of movement away to attack because it decided in between my button presses to target a random enemy and screw the whole strategy.

Another issue with controller is any attack that arcs in a cone, you cannot move the camera when attempting to aim it, meaning that if its a long range weapon you will not be able to see your target on screen while trying to line it up or while the attack is being delivered, I really wish the camera centered on who was getting attacked because i would often not be able to see the results of my attacks. Denying the satisfaction of seeing the enemies blow up or vaporize while also denying critical information to make informed decisions about tactics.

The issues with the games controls really brings it down score and pacing wise ;75 hours could have been 60 (seriously)

there are also a few other nitpicks

-Hyper situational perks that have no use 95% of time (looking at you; pressure cooker, how many fucking cars did i even fight in this game? 3? Maybe ?)

-RNG based loot can play unintentional favorites leading to situations where certain party members embody a walking apocalypse, while the rest of the squad look like weeny hut jr. employees by comparison .

This game is awesome, do yourself a favor and play it with KBM. Controller is a straight up inferior experience

WASTELAND 3 is one of the greatest games I have ever played. It worked for me personally on many different levels:

The gameplay: I'm a big fan of XCOM-style strategy games, and this is a good one. I especially enjoy how both ranged and melee are viable options, and you just specialize characters however you want to.
The world: I enjoyed the setting of post-apocalypse Colorado, especially with all the bizarre characters they filled it with. It's basically another Fallout game, but I actually like the setting of it. And, add to that, the ending plays a song that captures all of your most important moments, changing lyrics to reflect your actions? Incredible. In all seriousness, it did feel like there were some actual consequences to my actions.
The humor: I'll admit, it's definitely weird, but the strong character moments combine with just enough (generally dark) comedy to make this game noticeably funny. I wouldn't call it a comedy, but it is the funniest game I've played. I laughed many more times than I thought I would, sometimes just out of bewildered amusement.
The soundtrack: I'm religious, and it was very surprising to me to hear a select few old hymns incorporated into the music of the game, but it worked wonders. They're really good renditions, firstly, but they also just fit. It's a bizarre experience to be watching a cutscene, see someone's head explode all over the screen in a gory mess, and then fight a battle listening to "Are You Washed In the Blood of the Lamb?" That just worked for me.

Negatives?

1. During the long fights--which, some fights can take upwards of 50 minutes--the music track loops. For the aforementioned hymns & ballads, it can get a bit repetitive.
2. You need to quicksave all the time. Some fights are incredibly stacked against you, and you'll pop into them without warning. Or, technical issues may strike (explained below)... Either way, it's easy to play for 2 hours without saving and lose all of that progress due to a lack of autosave and randomly difficult fights that you weren't warned of.
3. Technical issues: in my 50-ish hours, the game probably crashed ~15 times. And, despite playing on Xbox Series S, whenever I put my console to sleep, the game would face a critical error and cease running. I have no idea why this port is so ill-made, but that was primarily a minor annoyance.

Overall: this game is great. There's a ton of profanity and some very violent stuff, if you're worried about that, but the game itself is incredible. I look forward to replaying it in a few years, when the experience isn't quite so fresh.

Wasteland 3

I was obsessed. I think I managed the whole 40 hours in about a week?

Story was a bit juvenile at times and everything had a bad moral implication so nothing felt too important. On the other hand, when the jokes landed, I got a good chuckle out of the game quite frequently! I laughed my ass off when I encountered a giant goat from hell after 30 hours, because I'd picked the goatkiller background for my main character:

Nobody believes you, but you know what you saw. A giant red goat, standing over your mother's body, freaky golden eyes glittering in the night. Goats aren't normal, just listen to 'em! You're going to kill every goat you can, draw out that Monster Goat, and this time, you'll be ready. Bleat, bleat, motherfucker.

I thought this was just silly flavour text, but no! It gives you a rare chance to encounter the goat and get your revenge! Bloody incredible.

Combat and character-building was just amazing. Streamlined, but including everything you'd want for a smart tactical RPG. Level-ups and new equipment came at a very fast pace, and all the little armour mods, weapon mods, and craftable combat tools made me feel like I'd made my own unique party by the end.

I played on 'hard' (ranger) with permadeath which felt like a very balanced difficulty, though the final 2 areas were a bit of a breeze once all of my builds came together! Satisfying!

Unfortunately, it suffered a few annoying bugs. I'd regularly see the game drop to <10FPS seemingly at random, requiring a restart to fix the issue. I'd also have party members randomly get angry with me and permanently leave the party after some fights. This was a huge pain in the butt because I'd have to reload entire encounters just so all of my equipment/skills/items invested weren't lost to the whims of the game's code.

Looooved this game. Will be continuing my foray into crpgs with Pathfinder Kingmaker next! It looks VERY dense, so wish me luck!

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for December 2022, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before January 3th, 2023, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

One of the few true CRPGs still around.

Wasteland 3 reminds me a lot of what the original Fallout was. A large wasteland, where your skills and abilities define your experience. You may be able to sweet talk your way out of a conflict, fight enemies at range, or get in their faces and beat them down. You start with 2 main characters who are ambushed and have to fight their way out. The action and story are well told, as well as having some big set pieces early on.

The one thing that strikes me with Wasteland is how awful the character models look, especially when the camera is up close, which both the character creation and the first major encounter have. This looks bad to the point where I wonder why they didn’t fix the lighting or weaken the graphics to smooth it out. This only came out 2 years ago, and indie games can do better than this.

Pick this up if you’re a fan of tactical Role Playing Games. This feels like what I wanted Atom RPG Trudograd from a couple of months ago to be. You'll move around the grid to fight, but the combat here is strategic. The skill checks are important which means how you develop your character can matter. I’ve heard co-op is rough, but in single-player, this will entertain the right fans.

If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/EazjkOuE3A0