Having not played a Wasteland game (or even a Fallout) before, I thought the setting and humor wouldn't grab me but I was completely wrong.

Wasteland 3 is an amazing CRPG with very engaging, satisfying turn-based combat, excellent presentation (the soundtrack, the switch to fully animated NPCs in first-person for important dialogues, the voice acting, the sound effects...) and great writing. The main story is perfectly decent but the best stuff is in the margins — you'll find genuinely hilarious bits in side quests and overall world building. Loved exploring every single location, reading loot descriptions, talking to weird quest givers and absolute psychopaths. It's also a very reactive RPG, with plenty of decisions and a lot of skill checks (in and outside dialogue) that matter.

From a game design perspective, everything feels tight and polished, like a studio that knows what it wants and knows it can deliver it.

The only downside are the technical issues. Playing it in 2022, I still encountered constant Unity crashes, which could happen every five minutes (even during the final credits). Rebooting my PC usually helped, though. I also had a couple quest bugs that I could fix reloading and doing things in a specific order, and then some frame rate issues in Ranger HQ that required to restart the game.

Overall, a fantastic experience. Played 47h in two weeks, and I want more (will look into the two expansions). I also think it's a great first CRPG for players that are looking to get into the genre. Do it!

A very solid, polished and confident 7/10. The main mechanic is a great success — chaining kills with Deer never stopped being fun, and my brain loved the dopamine hit of seeing the death icon followed by the bravado glow and sound effect. Had to rely too often on the very generous auto saves to fix apparently harmless mistakes that ended with half of my party wiped out in the next turn (thanks to sometimes unclear enemy ricochet but also pure carelessness from my part). Could've switched to Normal instead of Hard but I honestly liked the stakes, and the missions seemed fair. The story is very thin but what it lacks in emotion and depth it has on spectacle and flair.

At first I was enjoying it, even though it was a bit jarring to see some changes between BG:EE and this having just played the former - mainly the insane amount of loot, so much that it becomes somehow less exciting and purposeful, and the unnecessary overdesign of some quests. Near the end, I just turned on story mode because I was getting tired of battles with huge numbers of enemies, something that I didn't do during all of BG:EE. I don't regret playing it, but it's been an underwhelming experience.

Expeditions: Rome is a very welcome surprise. It’s a very narrative-focused XCOM-like, or a CRPG with tactic and objective-based combat. Or it’s a mix of both and very refreshing for that same reason. It takes cues from Larian’s Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Rome’s developer, Logic Artists, were supposed to make a tactics Divinity spin-off) with its reactive elemental surfaces and extremely good voice acting, but keeps things focused and snappy, with dialogues never using more than two or three lines, back-and-forth conversations, and great 2D character art that immersive you in the cruel but extremely attractive world it presents. Everyone here is hot, so why not make companions romanceable? And they do – even if the romance arcs are a little sudden and rushed.

But combat is what you’ll be doing for 80% of the game, and it’s never boring thanks to its class variety and puzzle-like encounter design. The legion encounters are a different story. Simplistic in nature, neither challenging nor rewarding, they serve as a minigame in between main stories. But the fact that you have to grind them out to get resources or simply progress is what end up making them tedious.

Overall, Expeditions: Rome offers a great tightly packed story with memorable characters and dialogue, plenty of meaningful choices, and a surprisingly engaging tactical combat. The legion battles and conquest progression overstay their welcome, but never managed to bring down my enjoyment.

Despite loving the first game, I found this one to be sort of a chore to get through. The cases get too crazy and supernatural, and they’re worse for it — not because they aren’t grounded or realistic, but because they lack a certain logic or thread to follow, and in an adventure game with puzzles that’s essential for me to be engaged. There are longer cases where you’re left to wonder kinda aimlessly and way more moonlogic than in the first one. The bonus cases are also very hit or miss, which was a disappointment compared to the mostly excellent from the first game.

I admit if I hadn’t played that one first I’d have dropped ‘Fumble in the Dark’ or at least given it a 5.

Technically, it's a marvel. The jump in detail, character and face animations and lighting is remarkable, while other strong aspects of the series in the past (voice acting, sense of place) remain very compelling. Having said that, I'd be lying if I said it hit me as hard the original game and Before the Storm (which I actually prefer). It doesn't pack the same emotional punch, even though Alex is a completely "fine" character with an interesting story and personality. It's quite hard to nail exactly what makes it less special, but yeah, it is. It looks and plays better, but it left me feeling less. Still, if you love story-driven games, it's a must play.

Trying not to be harsher than I should because visually I'm sure it felt revolutionary at the time and there's a good number of impressive set pieces with excellent presentation (in fact, besides the faces, almost everything holds up really well), but I didn't really enjoy it. The two aspects I adored in Control, I nearly hated here. Combat peaked 2 or 3 hours in so they decided to throw more and more enemies at you. When it's to support a set piece or build momentum, it works, but most of the time it just exists to add filler. The story was equally disappointing. It heavily meanders and is not well paced at all. Characters are either dumb, annoying or just extremely flat. Alan has a good voice but only one voice so it becomes boring fast. Almost every dialogue is bad exposition, pop culture references that date the game and just expose how empty and unoriginal this world is, or just annoying banter with clichéd characters.

Played this in preparation for Control's AWE expansion (and, allegedly, upcoming Alan Wake 2), but I also expected to find a diamond in the rough, a cult classic or at least a solid 7/10 game. What I found was none of these things, but a very middling game with counted moments of ambition.

First time playing it, and I really enjoyed it. Used a walkthrough for some of it (the city's quests are a bit of a mess and the constant back-and-forth between city areas can become annoying), but half of the fun really is the exploration and the joy of stumbling into interesting things. A simple combat in an otherwise empty wilderness area can be interesting and satisfying. The main story was fine, nothing revolutionary but good enough, and there's plenty of side quests to do thanks to the Tales of the Sword Coast DLC.

Having said all of that, PLEASE if you're playing the Enhanced Edition, when you reach the ending, just skip the final cinematic and search the original one on YouTube. They completely botched it in the EE and it can ruin an otherwise epic moment.