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!

You can feel the huge jump in polish, quality of life features and moment-to-moment gameplay feel from AC2/AC3 to this. Even though it uses basically the same engine and it has a lot of the same gameplay features, it feels way better and the open world is even ahead of its time (later AC games basically took this formula and run with it). The story is also way better than anything previous in the franchise. My two complaints would be the ship combat, which still felt like cumbersome sometimes, and the way the ending just goes and goes and goes and also features some of the most frustrating combat encounters in the whole game.

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.

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.

It could've been a total failure considering the restrains and limitations of the DLC, but somehow they made it work. The amount of tasks they give you is refreshing and satisfying to tick off, the song selection is on point, and if you're invested in Steph as a character you'll love reading her messages, exploring her trauma (in relation of your choice for Arcadia Bay in the first game) and trying to find her a partner on dating apps. Played the base game on Game Pass and I used Reward points to pay the DLC, so not necessarily the ideal person to talk about value, but I'd wait for a sale. $12 for a 3/4-hour experience that takes place in the same place and has off-screen VO for almost all of it seems pretty steep.

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.

Really enjoyable RPG. It sits uncomfortably between the older BioWare cRPG and the more modern, console-first ones (think Mass Effect), but it's definitely leaning more towards the second in gameplay and presentation. Small but quite dense levels that manage to evoque a huge world thanks to clever writing and a unique atmosphere. RPG gameplay is heavily stripped down, leaving only the essentials, but that means everything you encounter is hand-crafted, useful and thoughtful. Try doing every quest, enjoy your companions' company and don't spoil yourself.

Control at its best. Compelling mysteries, an awesome action set piece, cool new location, and two new traversal/combat abilities. Way better than AWE, and a proper epilogue to the game. This rules!

As a caveat, I'll say that I've played both DLCs more than half a year after finishing the main game, and I lost some of the combat flow and mechanic muscle it required, so I switched on 'immortality' and never looked back. You still take damage, and if you're like me, you'll still feel like you're about to die, but you don't, so you never loose progress. Completely enjoyed both pieces of DLC thanks to this, so I recommend doing so if you are in a similar position.

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.

Played the remastered version - which definitely improves textures and the lighting (the fire looks amazing!), but has weirdly inconsistent color grading, some stuttering and all-over-the-place audio mixing.

About the game itself: adored Connor as a main character. Nuanced stoicism yet emotionally potent. Extremely hot, too! It was interesting coming in blindly and wondering what was the game doing for the first few hours, and I admit once you play as Connor, the build-up is quite slow, but overall I like what they did character-wise. Also love the environments (snow!!) and the score (very cinematic, in the best possible way -- reminded me of Batman, for some reason).

Biggest flaw: the mission design. Tired, frustrating and mostly not very interesting. It basically has the same problems as ACII/ACB/ACR but with less imagination and a longer campaign. The open world systems are not very fun either. Crafting sucks, most of the liberation/contracts/assassination stuff is pointless and I didn't bother hunting.

I'd strongly recommend finding every single trinket so you can do the Captain Kidd missions. Very set-piecey but extremely fun! Also, do Homestead missions in between the main story. The character development and little stories are wholesome and show a different side to Connor. You'll end up thinking how can anyone NOT love him?

I think I might give the DLC (Tyranny of King Washington) a shot.

Finished the main game + Descent + Trespasser in early 2020, but recently I've been coming back to the game to finish open world stuff I had left, so I decided to also start the DLC and it was a great choice! Hakkon brings a totally new region, with its own lore, main story and conflict. In a lot of ways, it's like any other region of the main game but better. It uses many of the open world systems and type of quests you can find in other zones but they feel more natural and necessary, and the narrative keeps things varied and interesting.