Wasteland 2 - Lets Play Videos @ RPS

Rock Paper Shotgun has a new article with three videos were they play the Wasteland 2 beta. Here are the video links: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Wasteland 2′s beta is officially go! Well, for backers anyway. I booted it up the second Steam finished prying it from some server’s synthetic grip, and I realized something: I was nervous. My expectations were riding extremely high, and I couldn’t help but fear that inXile’s return to post-apocalyptic role-playing’s roots would let me down. What I’d seen up to that point had my head ready to explode like a gerbil full of uncooked rice (and also a blood sausage), but maybe it wouldn’t all come together. Maybe it was pure promise and no execution. All bark, zero bite.

I was worried over nothing. Wasteland 2′s irradiated peaks and valleys are pretty rad so far. I have some minor quibbles (the interface is awkward, enemy AI can be really dumb, some bugs and glitches), but there’s quite a lot to like here. Watch me play through a few early sections below. Oh, and fair warning: slight spoilers ahead. Nothing too major, though.

More information.

Cannot WAIT to play this…

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory
Cannot WAIT to play this…

I can, but only because I don't want to spoil the experience by playing the beta…but God does it itch.

They have the early access available on Steam now, but it's $60!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24…featured_app=1

Originally Posted by JDR13
They have the early access available on Steam now, but it's $60!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24…featured_app=1

Its £29.99 here in the UK, so it might be an error.

The minimum requirements seem high to me for an isometric game. Moreover, it requires 20GB of hard drive space! Why?

Originally Posted by SpoonFULL
Its £29.99 here in the UK, so it might be an error.

The minimum requirements seem high to me for an isometric game. Moreover, it requires 20GB of hard drive space! Why?

Prolly cuz it's old school. They want to get that "you need TWO floppy drives to play this game" vibe going. Maybe?

I expect the reason why it's so big and has high requirements is that it is an early beta. My download of it is 4 GB, it will use about 9 GB of space when downloaded. Looking forward to playing it once it is downloaded. I totally forgot that my tier gives me beta access!

Videos are showing so much tactics involved, proving once again the superiority of the "ugoigo" turn sequence over any other way to implement tactics. Charge!

Originally Posted by SpoonFULL

The minimum requirements seem high to me for an isometric game. Moreover, it requires 20GB of hard drive space! Why?

It is not isometric. Few people will waste time making an isometric game when the productivity on a 3D engine is so higher.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Videos are showing so much tactics involved, proving once again the superiority of the "ugoigo" turn sequence over any other way to implement tactics. Charge!

And this level of tactics is, supposedly, just impossible to achieve in RTwP?

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
It is not isometric. Few people will waste time making an isometric game when the productivity on a 3D engine is so higher.

The engine has nothing to do with the perspective, it's an isometric game, but yes it's not a 2D game.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
And this level of tactics is, supposedly, just impossible to achieve in RTwP?

It requires to watch the vids and assess the level of tactics exhibited pour answer to that question.

Originally Posted by vurt
The engine has nothing to do with the perspective, it's an isometric game, but yes it's not a 2D game.

The angle of view is the one used when it is isometric. Still does not make it an isometric game.

Originally Posted by vurt
The engine has nothing to do with the perspective, it's an isometric game, but yes it's not a 2D game.

It isn't an isometric game, it's 3D. In isometric you don't get any sense of distance (look at Eschalon for example, that's isometric). Not that it really matters, the use of the word in games today pretty much means "like Baldurs Gate and Fallout!", and that's perfectly good to me.

Seems pretty isometric to me…

I'm really not looking to get into another semantic argument, but I vastly prefer the old terms of top-down and first-person (later with over-the-shoulder added to first person). They're more accurate when it comes to describing the user interface perspective.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
The angle of view is the one used when it is isometric. Still does not make it an isometric game.

It would be pretty dumb to only use the word isometric to describe 2D isometric games. Only describing Wasteland 2 as "a 3D RPG" is far less descriptive than saying it's an Isometric 3D RPG (which it is), you directly understand that it shares the same view as FO1-2, Wasteland 1 etc.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
It isn't an isometric game, it's 3D. In isometric you don't get any sense of distance

Complete nonsense. That will only depend on the artist(s) skills of creating the proper depth. I can clearly see depth and distance in BG or even in lower res games such as FO1-2 or Arcanum.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
It requires to watch the vids and assess the level of tactics exhibited pour answer to that question.

You are into zen kōans or something was lost in a translation?

Originally Posted by zahratustra
You are into zen kōans or something was lost in a translation?

Nothing is lost in translation because there is no translation.

All it takes is to watch the vids and see the level of tactics involved in the gameplay. Then the question is answered.

Originally Posted by vurt
It would be pretty dumb to only use the word isometric to describe 2D isometric games. Only describing Wasteland 2 as "a 3D RPG" is far less descriptive than saying it's an Isometric 3D RPG (which it is), you directly understand that it shares the same view as FO1-2, Wasteland 1 etc.


Complete nonsense. That will only depend on the artist(s) skills of creating the proper depth. I can clearly see depth and distance in BG or even in lower res games such as FO1-2 or Arcanum.

So anytime, in a movie, a scene is shot with a similar angle, it makes this movie scene isometric. If enough of the movie is shot with that angle, it makes it an isometric movie.
People have proven so far their willingness to use words to cover other meanings. But using the word isometric does not make this game an isometric game.
And I would find it extremelly hard to believe that, considering the size of industry movie in the US, there is no word in the english language to refer to that cam angle.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
All it takes is to watch the vids and see the level of tactics involved in the gameplay. Then the question is answered.

Yeah, and the answer is: nothing earth-shatteringly awesome that would have been impossible with RTwP.

Disclaimer - I don't mind TBwT, I just don't think that it has some unique advantages over RTwP.

If that is the made observation, it simply means that contrary to claims made on this site for example, the turn based sequence named "ugoigo" does not mean tactics.
It is as simple as that.

As not being earthshaking, well, it still includes the "ugoigo" turn sequence special: the character that is unable to hit at point blank range. Even though to be complete, this thing is more a computer thing than a "ugoIgo" thing.
It still remains that the laudated platform for tactics produces sequences of games when tactics is not involved.

Lets keep the tradition: just like a RPG is a game that is about everything but role playing, a tactical game should be a game that does not include the use of tactics.