[h1]Hostile[/h1]
[i]There will be a TL;DR at the end.[/i]
~
These days eating at a restaurant is different: you remember the service more than the food.
My grandparents would sometimes pride themselves of finding hole-in-the-wall, hell-on-earth locales that secretly had some of the best eats of their lives. The zeitgeist has certainly changed since their day. You can almost picture it.
Walk into an establishment, smell the food - it’s great. The hostess is a total jerk and lets you find your own seat after using choice words for an introduction. No menus, place is an unclean mess. You’re left waiting for hours, and in spite of ordering drinks everyone is given water. Appetizers are served cold, but once you dig in - the food is mind-blowingly amazing. The waiter is an absolute jerk and hates you, they aren't shy about it either - you think the only reason drinks were eventually served was because they were poisoned. They don’t care if you tip - as a matter of fact they are making sure you have every reason not to, but for now you’re trying to close your eyes and enjoy the savory meats, the juicy veggies, and the perfectly matched wine.
It’s the worst service you’ve ever experienced - but also the best meal you’ve ever had.
Do you go back for more? Do you recommend it?
What do you do when the venue itself is [u]Hostile[/u]?
~
[b]Wasteland[/b], unlike those that came afterwards, reminds me a lot of [i]Atari[/i]’s groundbreaking game: [i]Adventure[/i] - and generally has about the same sort of reception. Anyone who’s played that game will tell you that it’s incredibly deep, well thought out, and lightyears ahead of its time and tech - but will also tell you that it’s a confused, unintuitive mess that’s better relegated to a history museum than put out to pasture with modern titles themselves.
Nostalgia is a massive factor in what makes [b]Wasteland[/b] such a potent title. Within the context of when it was made and what it stands for, little can compete. If this same title - experience and atmosphere included with the meats and sweets - were made today, the reception would be much more polarizing.
The game is like a wonderful meal paired with the perfect sides, complimentary wine, the most delicious bread, a hearty appetizer, and mind-blowingly sweet dessert…
… all while someone’s always trying to slap it out of your hands, pour your drink onto your head, waste your time, take a leak on your shoes, and set fire to the tablecloth.
There are mountains of incredible writing:
There are gigantic rabbits, deadly rivers, and [spoiler] … Three legged hookers??? [/spoiler] The paragraph descriptors were originally separate, but thankfully auto-play in this port; which gives a very clear sense of the developer’s priorities: writing above all.
You can really do anything your heart desires. Free will within the RP mechanics takes center stage! Extremely creative with lots of interactions. Even more depth and nuanced interactions than a [b]Kojima[/b] game.
All the qualities that you want in a western RPG - we really need more titles like this in spite of the clunky experimentation. It’s very much “[i]D&D[/i] meets videogame” - as well as they could make it in 1988 booklet form.
The experience is full of great art assets and is deceptively seamless to get into. In spite of its age, interacting with the game is easier than most titles (unlike the original [i]System Shock[/i], for example)
But there is another side to this story, which makes or breaks the experience for many.
… there’s that horrible atmosphere and worst-service-in-your-life on the other side of the dining experience.
This is what makes this game basically the least functional and most user-hostile [i]Fallout[/i]-adjacent experience on planet earth.
The quality-of-life is extremely, extremely poor.
Using skills and attributes, while a very amazing thing when it works, is clunky and often serves little-to-no function in the game itself. There are loads of stats that are a complete waste of space and can doom your run before anything else - especially because there is such a greater emphasis on the ceaseless combat. It’s remarkably less fair than any [i]Dark Souls[/i] title; like a DM that drops a party of lvl 1 players in a CR4 combat because - “there’s 4 players!”
It wouldn’t be so bad - but in spite of the best qualities of the game being its RPG elements, the vast majority of the time you’re going to be engaging with its extremely underbaked combat system. Combat is, essentially, a pointless trudge from beginning to end; extremely basic, dated, and boring. While the descriptions are initially interesting, enemies are damage-sponges and you’re generally going to be spamming “attack” and just watching numbers scroll on your screen. Either your characters have the stats to beat the opponents or they don’t and there’s very little that you can do to outmaneuver, outsmart, or outrank them once you get into a fight. The only choice that you actively have is to only ever get into fights your team is ready for - which often leads to early grinding or, if you’re still exploring, accidentally running into an enemy that wipes your team. (Time to write down the location and avoid it next time!)
No hand holding - so you are doomed to wander aimlessly and confused until you’ve learned your way through the confusion and wonky, old design.
You are [u]supposed[/u] to fail. You are supposed to learn things [b]the hard way[/b]. You are not going to be equipped to succeed and your success is not determined by the quality of your choices or the sequence of unfolding events - it is only based on how much of the game you already know and a bit of favor from the RNG fairy.
[b]Wasteland[/b] will brutalize you over and over until the sheer volume of abuse forces your brain into creative mode. The game doesn’t give you the tools to figure out how to succeed and conspires against you at every turn, so you’re either going to have to look online for help or - more true to the game’s spirit - just take your whooping as a right of passage and [i]eventually[/i] figure out how to succeed at the game.
~
Many will correctly say, “It’s from a different era!”
It depends a little bit on your perspective - which is why so many folks love the game. The food is good, REALLY GOOD, but if you’re like me - putting up with poor service just isn’t a quality to be had.
When you hear about folks glazing the game it’s usually cherry picking little moments of genuine fun or pointing back to the nostalgic good-ol days (which I am not immune to) - but to accomplish these boasts, one has to ignore the ocean of taxing dross that a player is expected to trudge through to get into a place where they can properly enjoy this incredible experience.
Strangely, it reminded me of my [i]Divine Divinity[/i] review:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheAbexci/recommended/214170?snr=1_5_9__402
What’s on-offer in [b]Wasteland[/b] is, legitimately, a masterwork.
Way, way ahead of its time and still overflowing with quality content that we desperately need in games today.
Unfortunately this mind-blowing masterpiece is lambent with outdated design and a [u]Hostile[/u] user experience.
As delicious as it is, I don’t think it’s worth the service.
~
[h3]TL;DR[/h3]
[b]3.5/10[/b]
[i]Wasteland 1 - The Original Classic[/i] is a [b]Flawed[/b] game.
If you’re the kind of person that loves a delicious meal so much that you’re willing to put up with the world’s shadiest establishment and wait-staff actively trying to murder you - this is an incredible experience that you’ll wear like a scar. If you’re like me and would rather not wait 2 hours in a cruddy booth surrounded by jerks, give it a miss.
Just because the service is old fashioned doesn’t mean you have to put up with it - you’re no stronger or better a person for suffering the downsides; it’s just a game.
