[Wasteland 2 - Officiel] 20/12/2013 00h21 - Wasteland 2 Beta Preview Roundup #2

[HawK-EyE]

Source : http://wastelandrpg.tumblr.com/post/70529869611/wasteland-2-beta-preview-roundup-2

A lot of new first impressions/preview pieces have come in for the Wasteland 2 beta version, live on Steam now.



Should You Play it keeps up an up-to-date page with impressions of the beta that will be updated as the game is updated.

Choices: Whether you’re deciding who to help first, talking to someone, or choosing whether or not to kill someone, there are many choices and outcomes that you will face in Wasteland 2. Very early on in the game you have the opportunity to help out two different locations, and it is only possible to save one of them per play through the game. When you go to visit the other location after saving the one you chose, it is unrecognizable and there is no one left to save. Depending on the skills that are on your party, there are choices you can make when talking to certain people which will determine what will happen, such as avoiding confrontation with a bunch of raiders, or getting more information out of someone. Even if someone is friendly, it is entirely possible to attack and kill any character that you run into, which can have a large impact on the game since what happens if you kill the only person with a cure to a disease that is affecting you?

Softpedia has a quick look video and short impressions piece.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun writes up a longer piece.

Fights are broadly comparable to Fallout 1/2s, but a cover system of sorts both ups the tactical thinking and the animation factor – this is less like a bunch of blokes standing in a line taking turns to shoot each other, as there’s more ducking and diving on show. Only a bit though: when it comes down to it, this is about hit percentages and weapon specialisms, not hiding and twitching. There’s nothing like XCOM’s slo-mo kills or over the shoulder camera switching here, which’ll good news for purists but perhaps a little sterile for anyone hoping for a turn-based game with 21st century whizzbang sensibilities. There also isn’t a huge amount of death-toys to play with, at least not that I’ve found so far, and the fact that character models aren’t visually changed by what they’re wearing is a bit deflating. As every single sentence in this piece should be qualified with though, it’s very early days for Wasteland 2 yet.

Wasteland 2 also requires some creative thinking on occasion – saving a drowning boy, for example, involves realising that a certain skill might affect a certain object. If you don’t establish that quickly enough, or none of your party members have that skill, they will literally watch the boy drown, and the game and relevant NPCs will then reflect that outcome. Clearly I can’t say how much of that sort of thing will abound in the finished game, but I like the idea that if you’re just not enough of a thinker, not enough of a hardbitten wilderness survivor, you’re going to experience very different turns of events to other players. The world also feels reasonably fat with places and people, things to do/kill and options to make an enemy out of almost anyone even at this early stage, which bodes well for the future.

Sadly it really is extremely difficult to play at the moment: the average framerate on my not-inconsiderable PC is 17, dropping to 10 if anything particularly exciting or shadow-y is happening. On top of that, quests keep going wrong – for instance, a tribe plum forgot that I’d saved the aforementioned boy from drowning, and kept angrily accusing me of leaving him to die. Savegame corruptions and crashes to desktop also blighted my attempts to explore and survive.

Leeds Student Newspaper also has a shortwriteup on the game.

It’s been 25 long years since the first Wasteland was released, and in that time it’s inspired a plethora of post-apocalyptic games. But it’s taken until 2013 for InXile Entertainment to develop a sequel, and as of right now they’re just about done. The question is: can Wasteland 2 live up to the standards of modern-day gaming?

As RPGs go, Wasteland 2 is pretty standard. The brief section that that the beta allows you to play sees you form a band of rangers to investigate a mysterious death out in the desert. This character creation system is satisfyingly open, allowing you to tailor each character as you see fit. You’ll see your team gain experience, find loot, and watch with horror as a giant toad eats them because you forgot to make them any good at fighting.

More write-ups:

• Mossed Neuronn’s Railway Station to the Space*(English)
• GameStar (German)
• Gamesvillage.it (Italian)
• IGN ?????? (Russian)
• FRPNET (Turkish)

Lire la suite ... Modifié le 20 décembre 2013 par HawK-EyE