Wasteland 3 is 50% Off on Steam (Buy This Game)

I just wanted to let everyone know that Wasteland 3, which is my pick for Game of the Year 2020, is currently 50% off on Steam.

Everything about this game was perfect. It was almost finished before the studio, inXile, was bought by Microsoft, so there is no woke stuff in it. I will say, at the very beginning of the game, it lets you choose “premade” characters, and one is a gay couple and another is a BMWF couple. But this was clearly tacked on after the game was finished by Microsoft. It does sort of taint it, but that is literally the only woke thing in the game.

If you’re not familiar with the CRPG genre, no one uses premade characters anyway, as the player characters don’t typically have any character beside you, the player character (there are notable exceptions, such as the Divinity series, but in general in a CRPG, you make your own character, just like in old tabletops).

Wasteland 1 was the precursor to the Fallout games. The same team that made Wasteland 1 made Fallout 1 and 2. Then, while they were making Fallout 3, the company went bankrupt, and the property was acquired by (Jew-run) Bethesda, who made their own Fallout 3, which was an okay FPS action game, but was not really an RPG.

Then, some of the original team were hired by Bethesda to make Fallout: New Vegas, which is one of the rare instances where an FPS game was actually a legitimate RPG.

After that, Bryan Fargo, who was the main producer on Fallout 1 and 2, crowdfunded Wasteland 2, which was intended to be a spiritual successor to Fallout 2. It definitely lived up to that.

He then made Wasteland 3 last year, and it is even better than Wasteland 2. Not only does it have a glorious post-apocalyptic story, filled with memorable characters and themes, but it also has a tactical turn-based combat system that is really on the level of the newer XCOM games – at least. Combining such a great story with great combat, top-tier voice acting, and the best music of any American game ever, easily made it my GotY for 2020.

Here’s a clip that displays all the strengths of the game (including a great cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Washed in the Blood of the Lamb” – yes, it is so politically incorrect that it was gospel songs).

If you’re really searching hard, you can impose leftist themes on it, but you’ll actually find that these are things that have always been around in games – strong women, etc. The basic story is legitimately far-right – if you choose to play that path. This isn’t really a spoiler, but you also have the option of siding with a woman to bring down the patriarchy (because it is a real RPG, and not political propaganda).

I can see how some people thought $60 was a lot for an indie game, but there is zero reason not to buy this at $30.

I will also say, although it was a nostalgic experience for me, this game is in no way “pure nostalgia” like a lot of games that have been released in the last years. It totally stands on its own as an amazing game, and I think the various modern UI improvements (if not really the graphics) mean that zoomers and teenagers will have as much fun as millennials, even though they’re not reliving their childhood.

By the way, I should note: there are elements from Wasteland 2 in 3, but they’re minor. It’s not a situation where you won’t understand the story if you haven’t played the last one. I recommend anyone who is new to this kind of old school CRPG to play 3 first, and then if they like it, they can go back and play 2. But when M$ bought inXile, they did give them some extra money to make improvements that make it more accessible to younger people.

This game has my total stamp of approval, and the saddest thing about it is that Microsoft now owns the company, which means we won’t be getting a Wasteland 4 (and if we do it will be some garbage with trannies).

Some Other Vidya Notes

Speaking of garbage with trannies, the new Diablo 2 remake has covered up the ass of the Amazon character, and made her face ultra-mannish.

BASED Takanashi Kiara was totally outraged (timestamp).

That said, the alpha does look okay. I guess. It doesn’t look nearly as bad as I’d expected, after the Warcraft 3 remake debacle.

In other gaming news, Disco Elysium has been completely remade with full voice acting. I haven’t played the new one yet. I don’t generally like voice acting in my CRPGs, as it’s the same issue I have with novels on tape: you don’t get to do your own impressions of the characters in your head; instead, someone else is doing it.

But I guess a lot of people don’t like reading. The other thing is, having the voice acting means that I could play it and record it without having to read hundreds of thousands of words of text aloud (reading aloud is something I’m infamously bad at, due to slight dyslexia).

I’m considering doing a series of let’s plays for Disco Elysium, uploading them to BitChute and then reposting them here. I’m not sure how many people would be interested in that, but I was thinking: I’m going to replay Disco anyway, maybe I should record it.

I wouldn’t hesitate if I was allowed to put it on YouTube, as I could use that to expand the readership, but I’m not banned from saying racist or denialist things on YouTube, I’m banned as a person, so I would have to use BitChute, and the only people who would watch it would be people from this site.

I actually had some recordings of me playing Wasteland 3, where I did the audio for my characters (Alex Jones, Sargon of Akkad, Ben Shapiro and Kathy Zhu), but I never edited/uploaded it. I might do an hour of Disco, and see what the feedback is.

Due to the nature of our current situation, much of my “personal time” is spent playing video games, so there is no reason not to share that, really.

In general, I must say: I think the video games situation is not bad at all.

Granted, I don’t ever play FPS, save for rare occasions (like the new Fallout series, and when I tried to play Cyberpunk 2077), and I know that is the most popular genre. I got headaches playing Goldeneye back in the day, and even though newer FPS games don’t give me headaches, I just haven’t ever gotten into them. So I guess for someone who is mainly an FPS person, I could see how it seems all games have gone to shit.

But one thing that I enjoy even more than playing games is flipping through Steam, and I see huge numbers of games that I would play coming out every week. The thing is, as I always say, you just have to get away from these big studios.

As regards Diablo 2: as soon as I heard about this, I said it must be impossible for them to make a better game than Grim Dawn, which is an indie Diablo 2 homage.

So, keep that in mind. Basically, Gamergate did win a quiet victory.

I’ve heard that in concert with World War III, Sargon of Akkad is thinking of launching a Gamergate II. I would support that. But when I flip through Steam, I do feel like we’ve already won.