If you have a penchant for dark and broody post-apocalyptic adventures, then Wasteland 3 may just be the tonic to satisfy your cravings.
Set in a dystopic 22nd Century, we find that most of the world has been ravaged by some nuclear devastation. Colorado Springs seems to have fared better most regions, however the state is paralysed by a freezing post-nuclear winter. In Wasteland 3 you get to play as a duo from Arizona’s Desert Rangers. A tough as nails law keeping militia that made their appearance in Wasteland 2. For anyone who played the previous Wasteland, you’ll remember that the Rangers had their base destroyed at the end of the game. In Wasteland 3 your duo must travel to Colorado after one of its leaders offers Arizona help in return for assistance with his own problems. As can be expected it’s not long before everything goes wrong. Your team of Rangers are almost wiped out after an ambush and you’re left with just two surviving members.
Offering some 60 – 80 hours of gameplay, Wasteland 3 is a sprawling and incredibly immersive title that throws challenges at you at every conceivable turn. In Wasteland 3 you are often asked to make critical life or death decisions and your choices can (quite often) have dire and thought provoking consequences. As an example, early on in the game I had to decide whether to help a family who were being attacked by marauders or assist a group of law keepers who were transporting some power armour. I opted to help the lawmen and, much later, discovered that the family had been slaughtered as a result of my inaction. Wasteland 3 makes it equally difficult to simply reboot the game and make a different decision as the consequence of your actions are sometimes not felt for a very long time in the game. Usually, by the time you realise what you’ve done, you’ve gone so far into the story that you simply don’t want to hit restart as you’ll also lose any progress you might have made. In another tense scenario I had to decide whether to talk down a hostage taker or attack her and risk her killing her victim. If I sweet talked her, she’d run off and go about her merry hobby of killing innocents and set up an ambush for me down the line. Attack her now and she’ll kill her hostage. What would you do?
The characters in Wasteland 3 are by far some of the most interesting I’ve ever encountered in a strategy game. Wasteland 3 is stuffed to the brim with colourful eclectic NPC’s – all with back stories a mile long. With full voiced dialogue, Wasteland 3 really fleshes out its eclectic characters and gives the game a real feel of wonderful immersion.
I must say that playing Wasteland 3 was the first time I made friends with a male prostitute with erectile problems (or at least I think it was). Don’t worry, you’ll know what I mean once you start playing.
Graphically, Wasteland 3 is a huge improvement on Wasteland 2 in every way. The bleak snow and ice landscape is by far one of the most gorgeous to grace the Xbox One in many years. The fact that Wasteland 3 makes good use of environmental cover and destructible objects means the game is just begging you to wander around and explore its vast panorama.
Oh, if you’re wondering why you get two Rangers to control, that’s because developers, inXile Entertainment (those of The Bard’s Tale Trilogy fame) intend for you to play Wasteland 3 with a friend online in co-op mode. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to try this out during my 10 day play-through but intend to give it a try later this week.
It’s true that the Xbox has more than enough turn based squad combat titles. But Wasteland 3 is easily one of the most engaging, challenging and rewarding since XCOM. The only minor gripe I had with the game was the slightly erratic frame rate and cumbersome in-game map. But these niggles aside, Wasteland 3 is a worthy challenger to the XCOM throne and a game that can easily eat up months of your life. Go buy.
