Parents' Guide to Wasteland 3

This is a deep, challenging, and gratifying game. While not without its faults, Wasteland 3 will no doubt please fans of the series and rope in some new recruits, too. As in previous games, you'll select Rangers to play as, each with their own style and weapons; outfit your characters with better equipment; and upgrade your gear and attributes over time -- as with most RPGs (role-playing games). During combat sequences, you'll see a grid layout over the part of the map you're on and will want to find cover and spend your acquired AP (action points) on each offensive or defensive move you make per turn. You'll know when there's not enough AP to perform the task you want, or if the move is out of range from your specific location (like wanting to shoot an exploding gas tank near two enemies). You'll have access to some human and robotic help with sidekicks and NPCs (non-playable characters), too, should you enlist their help along the way.

Even though there's an Easy setting and a few optional and short tutorial elements (like how to heal yourself when injured), there isn't any direction when you land on your first combat scenario in this game. As a result, there will be a lot of trial and error to figure out how to play. There were also some questionable combat results, like being right beside an enemy but not landing a shot, while on the flip side, taking someone down easily from afar. Hopefully this can be fixed with a downloadable patch. Despite the aforementioned issues, and some random bugs and loading screens that could take an extremely long time to complete, Wasteland 3 is a fun old-school turn-based game that checks off most of the boxes. It's a brutal and violent game that delivers on its promise of tactical combat, memorable characters, and scenarios, along with a good story that has decent voice acting.