Wasteland 2: Directors Cut Review

Wasteland 2: Directors Cut is a role playing game with strategy and simulation aspects set in the a world after the fallout settles. This game is brought to you by the original producers of Fallout and the love for this setting is very apparent. I’ve enjoyed my time in this wasteland and regret not reviewing this sooner. The game is full of choices but not without consequences and/or rewards which can effect the game’s path enough to encourage multiple play-throughs. The sound and voice acting are top notch and the turn based combat is exactly how I like it allowing me to strategize at my own pace. Very little pitfalls in this game and if you don’t own it yet you should pick it up at your earliest convenience and see what I’m talking about.

Options Are Plentiful – Everything from text size to choosing characters you have an option to adjust. Text size is a nice option on the console that we don’t see all that often. Once you start a game you can choose to go with the default squad creation or customize it to the 4 characters you wish to go on the quest with. When choosing each character you can take a premade one or customize one and the options to customize each character is plentiful that you could easily spend hours just creating your 4 characters just the way you want them to look and their attributes that will effect how they interact with NPC’s (Non Playable Characters)

Serious & Tongue In Cheek Approach – The story line takes on a straight approach however it’s littered with a lot of tongue in cheek humor that is fun and keeps it interesting. This is an adult game so expect some adult things to happen. You might even come down with an adult disease so keep this in mind when making your choices. Every choice will have a short term outcome as well could effect the long term storyline. If the dialog between someone and your group goes well they may give you something useful or maybe they don’t like they way it goes and they try to kill you. You will have choices of responses but unlike most games that use this dynamic it’s not just one character always responding. You control everyone in your group and choose which person will respond and depending on who you choose their approach could change the course of the game for you.

Glorious Turn Based Combat – I’m a huge fan of turn based games as you may know by now if you have read any of my other reviews or features. This game isn’t all turn based but during combat you have time to strategize how you are going to attack and better yet how you are going to flank the baddies. What items in your inventory are you going to use and how are you going to get out alive and with items that will help you on your quest.

Backdrop and Setting – The backdrop is set in the opening sequence that reminded me of a dubbed movie. It is a real life sequence that explains how everything went to shit, the bombs where dropped and a group of military trained engineers took over a prison in Arizona, where I had lived for around 30 years, and sent all the prisoners out into the Arizona desert to try to fend for themselves. This was a mistake but over time the group became known as the Desert Rangers and they try to protect the innocent citizens of the desert south west while recruiting new people as others lose their lives. Your group is a rookie group set out to find out what happened to one of the Desert Rangers that was killed during his quest and what you can do to restore order.

Voice Acting – The voice acting in this is above par and on the verge of brilliant. There is plenty of it throughout the game but not every place you may wish for it to be. You’ll encounter a wide range of different friends and foes and it never felt like anyone sounded like anyone else.

No Multiplayer – I need to first state that it was hard to find a downside to this game however the fact that this is a single player game only and being an RPG game it would have been nice to be able to play with some friends each controlling our own character.

Graphical Limitations – Even though this is the Directors Cut with improved graphics it’s still a bit limited. Games like this I enjoy being able to zoom in a bit further just to look at some details and even like zooming out further. The games does do some cool things considering the limitations it does have. I still think they are above average I just wish it was a bit better.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game and the multitude of choices available keep me coming back for me. Although there are limitations graphically it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of the game. It’s an interesting story that you’ll want to find out how it turns out for you.

Wasteland 2: Directors Cut was developed and published by InXile Entertainment and also published by Deep Silver. The full game was released on September 9th, 2014 on PC and October 13, 2015 on Xbox One and a press review copy was provided for The Hidden Levels. Many studios submit copies for site review but this is in no way factored into our review scores. Games are scored on their individual merits and our rating system is explained here.