Game Review: Wasteland

Oh boy! I sure hope we can take on these desperate criminals with our fully automatic assault weapons!

Oh yeah, I guess I could have gone in the front door and used the password in order to infiltrate the courthouse, BUT THAT WOULD BE STUPID!

The fact that some stupid coydogs are attacking me is not the actual point of interest here.

It’s the fact that they were carrying 4 9mm clips and 20 bucks on them.

And here’s Mayor “Pussybitch” Pedros himself, who couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag much less run a town full of fucking crazy punks and mad bombers.

You study the torn piece of paper in your hand. Originally written
in red ink, the text has turned into large fuzzy blotches of pink.
Though mostly unreadable, you make out the word MUERTE followed by
HIDEOUT: THANATOS, but THANATOS has been scratched out and KAPUT
has been written under it.

At last, someone with some brains.

The one and only time the Silent Move skill is used, enjoy it while it lasts.

You lift up Louie’s lifeless wrist to look at his gold ID
bracelet. Twisting it over to view the underbelly, you see “27”
etched on the dulled surface.

Snake Squeezins save the day again.

Danny Citrine’s only purpose in life is to give me his money, making him slightly less useless than Pedros.

You flip the lifeless Hewey onto his back with the toe of your
boot. After you rummage through his pockets, you start removing
his jewelry, having a particularly hard time working the ID
bracelet over his swollen hand. You finally separate it from the
dearly departed with a hard jerk that pops the bracelet off.
Flipping over the bracelet, you read the only etching of “11.”
You unceremoniously rip the bracelet from Dewey’s limp wrist.
Rubbing it against your chest several times to remove the blood,
you see “16” engraved on it.

Danny’s father is easily the most memorable character in Wasteland.

Money money money!

Now get the fuck out!

Now it’s finally time to infiltrate the hideout and shoot the everloving shit out of everyone inside.

It wasn’t very tasty anyway.

Being a peeping tom can improve your perception all the way to level 3.

Surprise motherfuckers!

This was back before npcs had AI that told them they should run from bands of crazy, heavily armed people. Oh wait never mind we still don’t have that.

It was purely for entertainment purposes, I swear!

Now you know what the bracelets were for.

You’d think if Ugly had all this shit stashed away he’d be arming his guards with it.

Everyone has an obsession with explosives in this town.

I’ve already disarmed two bombs since I got to town and it’s not like anything important will be lost if I can’t disarm this one.

Ugly John gets a face lift.

See, this is why smart criminals hold hostages at gunpoint instead of putting complicated bombs in their laps, you can walk away with a hostage, it’s hard to convince people to let you go if you’ve rigged a bomb to a switch you can’t press before they kill you.

HOW grateful?

 And with that the town of Quartz is liberated! Freedom and Justice reign once again!

Now fuck off.

A few more dead people later…

And Ace is freed and unlike almost every other joinable npc in the game, Ace is actually useful.

A man sits up in the cell and stretches his arms. He squints at
you as if you’re brighter than the desert sun, then allows a small
smile to grace his tan, weathered face. “Rangers, I should have
known. Listen, I’ve been sent down from Vegas to recruit folks who
know the right end of a gun from the wrong. Bandits ain’t the only
thing crawling out of the desert, and we’ve got a war on our
hands. Interested in heading back with me?”

OK! OK! Jesus!

Ok sure why not, if they can booby trap beds with bombs then I guess they can train dogs to protect laundry with the ancient arts of Ninjutsu.

After we finished fucking up the hideout we piled into a conveniently broken down jeep just outside of town that Ace also conveniently knew how to fix and we headed back to Needles.

Where it conveniently broke down again.

Well I could just go buy another one or better yet just WALK to Las Vegas, BUT WHAT FUN WOULD THAT BE?!

Cannibalism is ok as long as it’s hobos.

Well excuse the fuck out of me!

What a shame.

Maybe the police can help us in our plight.

We decided to meet with the local detective.

Going back to his work, Sam says, “I suppose you wanna know about
the Bloodstaff.” He wipes his hands on a greasy rag and sighs.
‘Don’t mind telling you the murders have lots of folks worried.
People just up and vanish. Then, when we find them again, they’ve
been drained of blood – every drop.” He squints at you and his
voice drops to a tense whisper. “I seen one of the bodies and it
had a cut in the neck, just like a scar my grandmother had on her
neck. She said once, when she was little, a priest used the
Bloodstaff on her after she got snakebit. I think the Bloodstaff
is involved, and that means trouble.”

You know what?

FUCK THA POLICE!

I ain’t scared of no po po! Call da po po ho!

You unravel the message from the leg of this massively strong
pigeon. “Boss,” the note begins, “I’ve tracked the bum to Needles.
There’s lots of ruins and abandoned buildings here, so the search
is not easy. I know he’s hiding in one of them, and I hope I can
find him before someone else does. I don’t know if we want his
information to fall into the wrong hands. Oh yeah, there’s Rangers
about, so it looks like things actually can go from bad to worse.”

Well, that was a complete waste of time and ammo!

But I finally learned how to repair toasters!

And the people who do don’t usually leave by the looks of it.

A ruby ring!

I think there’s some madman running around the Northern California/Nevada area just randomly booby trapping shit with explosives.

The Mushroom Bishop explains to you, ‘I sent out my
second-in-command to look into a series of murders.” You notice
the bishop nervously twisting a ruby ring around his finger..
“Where did you find that? Oh my god, he must be dead. The
Bloodstaff was stolen from here and I’ll generously reward you if
you find it and bring it back. Last I knew he was going back to
downtown Needles.”

They wouldn’t get out of my way.

Who knew bloodstaff counterfeiting was such a problem?

It is in fact, a severe problem.