Wasteland 2

There wasn't a thread for this... so here goes.

Anyway, in the beginning, there was Wasteland. Then there was fallout from an intellectual property schism, and… there was Fallout. Fallout is the offspring of Wasteland. Wasteland 1 was published in 1988, nearly 30 years ago. Wasteland 2 was published two years ago, in 2014.

The 25-year gap was filled with Fallout because Interplay couldn't use the Wasteland brand, and that's why I recently picked up Wasteland 2, and started to play it, and it's… strange.

I've been so invested in the Fallout lore for so long that I keep running into things which are Fallout-esque, and break immersion. For instance, there's a faction in Wasteland called Servants of the Mushroom Cloud - which are basically the same as the Children of Atom, with some superficial differences. The monks of the SoMC likes to blow themselves up, for instance. The Children of Atom don't. But both factions still worship the atom, or the mushroom cloud, or whatever. Both factions are also quite insane.

That's just one example. The location also keeps me checking if I'll run into Caesar's Legion. The Desert Rangers, the player's faction, is a lot like the NCR.

I'm having motivational problems thus. How about you? Have you played this game? What did you think?

Yes! There's a word that fits here. 'Zany', as in ludicrously or whimsically comical; clownish. Fallout is Zany, with its 1950s retro feeling. With its robots and crazy scientists and Zeta aliens. That zaniness just doesn't exist in Wasteland. It feels like the game is taking itself too seriously, even with the insane factions.