Wasteland 1: The Original Classic

Oh it breaks my heart to park a 2/5 star review here for the single greatest game of my childhood. Alas, I can't get past the character creation phase because the game crashes during stat rolling. Running the original DOS game in DOSBox doesn't have this problem. While I appreciate the option to disable the scaling filter and hidef portraits, I'd like more scaler choices. Something with scanlines to emulate an old CRT at least. Running in DOSBox gives you plenty of scaling options... The in-game music seems out of place... I would have preferred subtle ambient sound effects.. like blowing wind, a barking dog, etc.. The voiceovers aren't bad really, but they suffer from technical issues. I experienced stuttering and pops during playback. You can switch to windowed mode (alt-f, control-f?) but it seems you first have to start the game in fullscreen and then switch out to windowed mode -- annoying. The integrated paragraphs are implemented poorly -- It screams "I'm a tacked-on afterthought!". The "About the game" menu option is simply broken and does nothing. As a kid I played the Apple II version of the game, which had a really cool intro animation of earth getting nuked. It was disappointing to see the static DOS intro screen... It's a shame they haven't included the original DOS version with this release. :(

I played this game for the first time ever. I don't know what to make of it. The dialog is quite cheesy and the combat/interface is pretty much the absolute worst. For me, the biggest issue is that the only way to change any settings is to exit the program and then start it up again. It doubly sucks that if you must save before exiting the program. More than once, I was forced to CTRL-ALT-DEL out of the program to avoid saving in a area where I was getting mauled. I wish they could have spend more time to overhaul the interface before releasing it like that. Another issue that bothers me is that the updated pictures are not animated. It is a shame that they are not, but the original sprite art is. Because of this, I just stuck with the original sprite art. It is too bad that this game has not aged well at all. It aged more or less like milk. As a gamer that grew up with fancy consoles like the N64 and SNES, I just don't have the rose tinted glasses to tolerate a game in this condition. It is too bad that InXile did not spend time to somehow fix the game itself and make it better, than to have slightly better looking (not animated though) portraits. Even options to change the settings and exit without saving would have went a long way. Fallout has aged like Patrick Stewart. Wasteland, not so much. I wanted to like this game, I really did. I give it a three for the immersion, but that is really all it has going for it.

Played this for the first time when it came out in 86, and have played it many times after that. Yes, youngsters, you've been spoiled by games that are no brainers. You do have to put in an effort to play this game, but that's what makes it so memorable. I'm definitely enjoying it again, and the uprezzed portraits makes it feel almost like a new game. Thanks for the memories, Brian and GOG.

It took me a while to learn how to play this game, and I had a lot of trouble along the way, but once I got into this game, I found myself in one of the most immersive Post-Apocalyptic worlds yet. This game is an absolute blast to play through, I will never forget figuring out how to get out of Finster's mind maze and the image of the Night Terror still grosses me out.. Since this is a game from 1988 I try not to judge its interface or graphics, I was never around for those times so I wouldn't know what was considered good. Give this game a try! It brought us most of the post-apocalyptic games we know and love today.