Who actually really played Wasteland?

[Lucky]

I never finished Wasteland. I could never get past the Scorpitron in Las Vegas. That thing wasted me every time. Wasteland was an unforgiving game which is part of what it awesome.

How many people actually finished Wasteland? My guess is less than 50% of the people on this board since many never even played it.

Maybe W2 should be about the squad sent to search for the squad from W1. It would be a great way to start the game and get re-introduced to the wastes.

[paultakeda]

I did. But the first playthrough did not end well; the save game mechanic screwed me and I could never "get out of there" in time and the map change auto-save pretty much made it impossible. Had to restart; and then I finished. I think I played it around four or five times that summer of 1988. I believe it was summer; how else could I have had that much time?

[BrokenToaster]

It took me a while to finish it the first time through. I refused to turn to any BBS or magazine article for hints. Finally finishing the game may have been the worst thing I could have down, because it caused me to play through it fiddling with different iterations. It was definitely in the fall as I remember WL being directly responsible for my impressively bad trigonometry grades. Yes. I'm blaming the game. I'm also pretty sure I've spent more time discussing Wasteland in the intervening years than trig so it all worked out in the end.

[DadeLeviathan]

I was only three when the original wasteland came out, but my brother's friend was a huge video game fan (had almost every system available at the time. Apple 2, C64, etc) and when I got into gaming in around 1992, he eventually got me to try his old games between 1992 and 1996, so I was able to play through gems like Pool of Radiance, Wasteland Darklands, The Bard's Tale series, Dragon Wars, Battle Chess, the Ultima series, etc, etc. I never played through all the games in their entirety, but throughout the years I have gotten hold of copies and used DOSBOX to play through nearly every single great old game I could get my hands on.

I first finished a playthrough of wasteland about 6 years ago and have played through it twice since. I'm currently at the beginning of my third playthrough. Honestly, it's in my library of "required" reading for anybody who enjoys RPGs or wants to become a game designer.

[Emmy Lou]

I'll also shamefully admit to having never played it. Hell, I was largely unaware of its existence until the kickstarter (I was 3 when it came out, so sue me). But seeing things like "by Brian Fargo" and "This was the game that Fallout is the spiritual successor of"?

Sold. Sold so hard.

As a huge fan of the "golden era" of CRPGs in the 90's, I know WL2 is going to be a game I'll want even before playing the original (I plan on it now that I know it exists). As far as I've seen, the last decade can't hold a candle to 90's RPGs as far as lovingly wrought detail is concerned. I want a return to those days, when you can tell the creators of the games were people who grew up playing DnD and other tabletop games in the 70/80's and were looking to recreate that magic with the advent of videogaming. The kind of people who you knew spent every waking minute nerding out, daydreaming and worldbuilding in their head strange new places and peoples, working out every little detail of their societies and lands.

That's what I want. Real storytellers telling interesting, strange and funny tales.
With 2012 technology.
And a tremendous indie budget.
And no suits to detract from the vision.

[Rzarkrusz Rowa]

I'm playing it again. I got massacred by Warrior MkIIs in New Vegas today.

[Lucius]

I'm playing it again. I got massacred by Warrior MkIIs in New Vegas today.

Vegas is HARD when you first get there. There are MK III's that are even worse. Besides Scorpitron though, those are pretty much the worst of Vegas.

[xuerebx]

I tried playing it this week, but I found the interface and the gameplay not to my tastes. I am watching an LP of the game however, and the narrator has a pretty awesome voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvYcu5qaO-s

I guess it's too old for me, although I do play and love a lot of older games (Daggerfall, Super Mario, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate 1/2), in fact the list I've just mentioned are some of my favourite games, especially Daggerfall.

[krellen]

older games (Daggerfall, Super Mario, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate 1/2)

The only game in that list I would call "old" is Super Mario Brothers. The rest can't even vote yet.

[xuerebx]

older games (Daggerfall, Super Mario, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate 1/2)

The only game in that list I would call "old" is Super Mario Brothers. The rest can't even vote yet.

I'd add Daggerfall too. 1996, that's 16 years old, plus it's very dated visually (not gameplay-wise though).

[paultakeda]

older games (Daggerfall, Super Mario, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate 1/2)

The only game in that list I would call "old" is Super Mario Brothers. The rest can't even vote yet.

That's what makes me feel old. When I keep seeing classic and golden applied to games that came out after I graduated college.

And enough already! Wasteland was not a golden 90s era RPG. This forum tells you exactly what year it came out, for crying out loud.

[krellen]

older games (Daggerfall, Super Mario, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate 1/2)

The only game in that list I would call "old" is Super Mario Brothers. The rest can't even vote yet.

I'd add Daggerfall too. 1996, that's 16 years old, plus it's very dated visually (not gameplay-wise though).

In the US, you can't vote at 16. I know that's not the case for Canada and the UK, but 16 still isn't that old. It's only 2/3rd the age of the actual relevant game in question here.

[xuerebx]

I'd add Daggerfall too. 1996, that's 16 years old, plus it's very dated visually (not gameplay-wise though).

In the US, you can't vote at 16. I know that's not the case for Canada and the UK, but 16 still isn't that old. It's only 2/3rd the age of the actual relevant game in question here.

Neither in my country. But, anyway, it's usually held that Daggerfall and Arena are old games. Even if you don't think so, Wasteland itself is very old then, and that's why I guess I couldn't get into it.

Regardless, the LP I linked to is very interesting and it should suffice for those who want to know what the game was about.

[Son of Max]

Winter through late spring 1989.

12 years old and it was the greatest game I'd ever played in my life.

Still is. I've played it to it's completion over 100 times and I never get tired of it.

[Tarhiel]

Ok, since i cant do a poll here ill just ask in a normal thread. I get the feeling that the majority here never really played Wasteland (and with played i mean dont start it up once in Dosbox or Emulator and go like 'cant get over crappy gfx and cumbersome menu, what a sucky game!').

I'd really like to know...who played it? Did You finish it? Did you like it? And if you didnt play it, why exactly are you backing it? What is your expectation?

Hello, backer here,

Good question. I have never played Wasteland (not going to) nor any of the Fallout games (not yet). Now, many of you will probably ask now: "what the heck is he doing here, then?" Let me explain.

I was constantly watching progress on this game since start of the Kickstarter campaign and whole Double-Fine uproar. Of course, me being nerd about PC games, I knew who Brian Fargo is and I´ve heard about Wasteland being a seminal RPG, which inspired Fallout series.

First thing, which captured my attention was the first Kickstarter video and Brian ironically resembling publisher pitching, especially that one with a kid - he named several games I´ve played and enjoyed (Baldur´s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, Battlechess) and several I know are important to video-games history (Stonekeep, Freespace, Neuromancer, Kingpin - that´s the game of my youth ) - and these people, who should be differentiating, what to fund and what not to fund, didn´t even heard about them! And I immediately though: "God, these people are dumb!" One would thought they would try to catch up with history at least theoretically, since it´s their job to distinguish something original from something which was here ten times over.

But at least I was cured from my naive thinking about publishers. And then it´s all downhill from here. All those interviews with Brian (especially that first one at Gamebanshee), where he is absolutely frank about nowadays state of gaming, his words sounded to me like a spring of fresh water in the desert, like "this is something I was waiting several years to hear."

I realized this whole Kicking-it-forward thing might be a shift in powers - in a good way. Now don´t get wrong, I know this is not the end of big publishers, but it has a potential to fill in gaps in the market for niche players and interesting concepts, which doesn´t had to be multi-million dollar franchises. But almost for sure they will be played many years after they were programmed. Just like Wasteland. And that´s why I chip in my 15$.

I´m currently unemployed and I´ve been trying to pledge 100$, but I couldn´t scrap enough, so at the last moment, 3 days before end, I at least pledged the minimal amount with reward.

So I´ll be more prone to hear what people who played Wasteland has to say about it, but ultimately I have a trust in Brian´s vision of the game. All I know that it will be a darn good party and turn-based RPG and that´s all I need to know

[Shax]

I started playing Wasteland back in 1988. It was, together with Bard's Tale III, among my first originals for the C64. I still have the "album" Boxes for both games. Later (early 1990s), I acquired the PC version via the "10 Years of Interplay" CD.
Today I play all three versions of the game (Apple IIe, C64, and DOS) via emulation, but I still have my characters from the DOS version - now running very nicely in the DOSBox.

I liked Fallout 1 & 2 very much, but Wasteland has always been my #1 Post-nuclear Holocaust game.

I think that a large part of the charm of Wasteland lies in the fact that it has simple graphics which leaves a lot of space for images in the mind of the player.

I backed the Wasteland 2 project, because I like a lot of what Brian Fargo is planing to do with the program.

[Barentsoya]

Never played it. I backed this project because I played all the Black Isle D&D games and loved them. I'm looking forward to anything from those guys (well, some of them).

[grapesoda]

I still haven't played it, I was only 2 years old when it first got released and my parents didn't get a computer until windows 95 had been out for a little while. I backed the project because I did play Fallout 1 and 2 around the time they originally came out and they're still my favorite RPGs to this day. I just bought a copy of the ultimate RPG archives on ebay so I'll be able to experience it soon though.

[TheBunnyMaster]

I still have my original Wasteland, Bard's Tale 1-3, and Dragon Wars. As a kid, I spent hours wondering about this Brian Fargo and how he and Interplay made such awesome games. Pre-internet 80s, there was no way to really know when games were coming out, who would stock them, or if they would be any good, but I can still remember seeing the Wasteland, Bard's Tale and Dragon Age boxes and immediately coveting them. I played Wasteland and the others on an Apple IIc with a green monitor and it was awesome. The transition from pencil and paper D&D gaming to digital was so cool, and the hybrid combat/exploration of Wasteland was really innovative and a big change from the straight on view of other dungeon crawlers. Not to say that there's ANY problem with that - Grimrock is awesome and my muscle memory from 20+ years ago remembers WASDQE. There is a stark edge to the Wasteland that I do not feel has been captured well since Wasteland came out, and it's something that I look forward to experiencing in Wasteland 2. I also look forward to a game that doesn't play itself and lead you around by the nose, in which if your party dies, they stay dead. While digital has done wonders for role playing games, the loss of a homicidal DM who is out to kill you has really watered down RPGs in my opinion. I remember Wasteland (and the others) being VERY difficult - go ahead an march off into the desert and you will die...and you will not reload unless you made a backup of your character disk or have enough gold to resurrect people. I realize times have changed but I hope something of this survives (and thrives) in Wasteland 2.

[paultakeda]

the loss of a homicidal DM who is out to kill you has really watered down RPGs in my opinion. I remember Wasteland (and the others) being VERY difficult - go ahead an march off into the desert and you will die...and you will not reload unless you made a backup of your character disk or have enough gold to resurrect people. I realize times have changed but I hope something of this survives (and thrives) in Wasteland 2.

I look forward to going through dozens of rangers to finish WL2.

There's a really hilarious Let's Play of Bard's Tale where after a year the player finishes it with only one original character. Fargo tweeted a commentary from it a few weeks back:

I have a feeling that Brian Fargo lives in constant fear of enraged gamers.