Ode to Wasteland
by Jarred Walton on November 8, 2013 9:41 PM EST- Posted in
- Gaming
- inXile
- Wasteland
- Kickstarter
I’ve been covering some gaming stuff more of late, branching out from my laptop reviews to look at the various Humble Bundle offerings and a few other titles. I’ve also got several new releases on my plate, like Batman: Arkham Origins (a prequel to the earlier games) and Call of Duty: Ghosts (which I haven’t even launched). Instead, I just started playing something else (again). Consider this a short fanboy letter for one of my all-time favorite games, Wasteland.
I mentioned in the latest Humble Weekly how I started playing computer games back in the halcyon days of yore, when Sierra Online and Origin Systems were a couple of the biggest names in the business. Electronic Arts (with its square-circle-triangle logo) was around as well, and there was another company called Interplay Productions (then a developer as opposed to a publisher). Interplay created the Bard’s Tale series (which I’ll be honest hasn’t aged very well), and then in 1988 they released the granddaddy of post-apocalyptic RPGs, Wasteland (published by EA).
I first played Wasteland on a Commodore 64, swapping floppies and dealing with level load times measured in minutes. Ah yes, the good old days of LOAD “*”,8,1 how I miss them…. I finished the game, then I went back and played it again, and again. Then I got an IBM compatible computer (thanks, dad!) and played the game again (more than once). I yearned for a sequel for a very long time, and when the Fallout games came out I was thrilled and enjoyed those as much as Wasteland, though they weren’t quite the same. Later we got Fallout 3 and New Vegas, which while excellent games in their own right continue to be quite different from the original. Eventually Wasteland was even given away for free, on a magazine CD if memory serves, and I think I’ve gone back and played it at least a couple more times over the past 25 years. So it’s perhaps only fitting that as we pass its 25th anniversary, Wasteland is getting a new release.
No, I’m not talking about Wasteland 2 – well, not entirely, though I backed that Kickstarter, and I’m really excited to return to the wastes. What I’m talking about is Wasteland 1 – The Original Classic, which is an updated version of the original Wasteland with some improved graphics, integrated journal entries (no more spiral bound book containing descriptions of areas!), new music, and even some voiceover work for good measure, plus there’s the ability to have multiple save games. The game is free to all backers of Wasteland 2 as well as Torment: Tides of Numenera, and if for some reason you missed both of those but still want in on the action, you can go hit up the Wasteland 2 Late Backer Store. I’d assume it will eventually show up as a game you can buy on Steam or GOG as well. I just received my Steam code in the mail today, and I’ve downloaded the 300MB (!) game and fired it up.
As for the gameplay, it’s definitely from a different era, but it’s still a fun way to see the precursor to the Fallout series, not to mention a good way to get you ready for the eventual release of Wasteland 2. So if you don’t have anything else going on this weekend, why not revisit the wastes and brush up on your toaster repair skill – you never know when you’re going to need it!
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JarredWalton - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
BT2 isn't quite as bad, but BT1 you can't even tell which buildings are important from the side, so you have to turn left/right all the time to look at the buildings and figure out if it's the place you're looking for. Healing is expensive (exorbitant), monster fights even early on can wipe you out in a hurry, and you're basically running around a maze in a town for a good chunk of the early game. Yes, you have a map, but it's not quite as useful as you might think! Hahaha.LordHaHa - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
Yeah, nothing's labeled on the map so on your first run through or two you are guess if you are heading to a bar or Roscoe's. And if you get to Roscoe's you can't afford to regen your magic there until you are high level.Another thing, aside from the difficulty (8 skeleton group as your first opponents? Back to chargen!) is you can sequence break in a game that's really not designed for it. Remember figuring out the Mad God's name before for exploring the basement below the bar and getting into their Temple. Needless to say that did not end well.
Although from a difficulty standpoint Dragon Wars (originally a BT development before having a name change halfway through development) takes the cake. Same tough enemies at start, your party starts the game buck naked, magic is illegal and thus hard to get at the start, you can beat Skyrim and all the DLC in the time it takes to get to Level 2, and if you get a death that's pretty much it for that ex-character.
ssiu - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link
You should check out gog.com (Re: A lot of people simply won't even touch a DOS game even though you many times just need to drag the EXE to a DOSBox shortcut, let alone the pain trying to get some Win9x titles to run with modern hardware and/or WinXP+ systems.)augiem - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
Looks cool! I have been playing games since Popcorn on the TRS-80, but I have to admit I missed this one. Looking from the pics, just from the graphics and screen layouts it reminds me a bit of Mars Saga, Battletech Crescent Hawk's Inception, and the map screen makes me think of Omega and Times of Lore (a bit). (All of the above mentioned games are excellent too.) I'm gonna have to play this!takethree - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
Mars Saga! I remember that one. I had just finished Wasteland and started getting withdrawal symptoms but I didn't want to play it all over again. Mars Saga did just fine. Not as great but very good too and enjoyable and pretty different. I wouldn't mind a Mars Saga 2 as well!Brutalizer - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link
Here you can play Wasteland1 online in a web browser:http://dosdose.com/game/436/wasteland/
I remember the first W1 install file was like 2MB big or so. And now the new updated version is 300MB? Times are a changing...
JarredWalton - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link
Lots of audio files is the main reason for the size increase, along with a few higher resolution graphics.JarredWalton - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link
Did a bit more digging. It turns out there's an 82.3MB WAV file (for the soundtrack audio), which is also available in OGG format as a 1.8MB file; there's another 21.4MB of OGG audio files for voice overs (journal entries and I'm not sure what else). The original GIF portraits use 1.08MB, and the uprezed PNG portraits are 17MB. Oddly, for some reason the journal entries and portraits also appear to be in BIN files that together use another 38.1MB. There are five grayscale desktop backgrounds included as well, as PNG files, that together use 63.6MB. Last but not least, there are four PDF files included, which appear to be scans of the original manuals and a hint book; these four files use 78MB.So if we eliminate the unnecessary stuff (manual, WAV file, backgrounds), the core "enhanced" game files look to be more like 100MB, give or take.
JNo - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
Is Bobby a man or a woman?JarredWalton - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
He's a young boy.[Spoiler, though it's a small one....]
Yes, Wasteland was so "edgy" that you could actually kill children in some areas. And unlike Fallout, no one ever removed the kids running around some towns. (Though I think Highpool is the only place with children in Wasteland.) You basically get attacked by Bobby's dog that has rabies, and have to kill it, at which point Bobby hates you and attacks. I suppose you can probably just run from him repeatedly, but other than making you feel bad there's no real penalty for killing him.