Man Wasteland 3 is a fantastic satire of American politics right now. It opens with the following message:
"Stories we created early in development have in some cases been mirrored by our current reality..."
It goes on to assure players that they are not attempting to mimic the actions of any one individual, despite the entire game clearly being a satire of Donald Trump and the Republican party. The rest of this post is going to contain some spoilers of the moderate variety, so if you want to go in spoiler free I would suggest skipping past the spoiler block. I am not going to spoil the ending since I haven't made it to the end myself, nor will I spoil some of the major plot twists, but there are several moderate plot developments I will go into detail here. The most significant spoilers in this spoiler block will be further blocked out.
For those wondering about the quality of the game itself, I would say it is very good. It is a bit buggy and unpolished at this point, but nothing game breaking. Some of the subtitles are incorrect or identify the incorrect speaker for example. And some minor quality of life improvements could be made. Most notably, you can upgrade your tank that you use to travel around the game world, but there is no way to compare the items you are going to purchase with the ones you have equipped and your tank isn't considered part of your party when you are in a city so you have to walk back to your tank and memorize all of its equipment stats and then walk back to the vendor or risk wasting your money which you really need to save for ammunition and healing items.
Of note, I have seen several critics describe the combat in this game as being very difficult, especially later on. I want to disagree and say that the combat merely requires you to plan ahead. See once you engage in combat you enter into a turn based mode. But before that you can place each of your characters as you see fit freely. So before combat starts you need to place your snipers in a high distant spot, your rifleman at medium range, and your handgun/shotgun and melee characters in close range. Some abilities can be popped out of combat as well, and it is incredibly important to make sure you always fire first. This is because like X-Com each team goes entirely before the next. That means if you get caught unaware you could find your entire team wiped before you get a turn. That might seem harsh, but the game clearly draws circles of awareness around enemies, and you are given ample time to move before an enemy spots you. Play sloppily, though, and you will get wiped in seconds. You need to position yourself and then open fire first. That ensures your team gets the first turn, which means enemies will often not be in cover, allowing you to take them out before they get a turn.
Also worth noting, as I said above, you need to purchase ammunition early in the game. While you should eventually have plenty if you spend time exploring, early on you need to make sure you are well stocked before leaving Ranger HQ. Your team also does not heal between encounters, and any who fall in battle receive an injury that can only be removed either by a doctor back at base or by a team member with a high enough surgery skill and a surgery kit. You also need suture kits to stop bleeding, and antidotes to cure poison. Do not make the mistake of buying guns and armor. You will get plenty of those from your dead foes. Your money early on needs to be mainly spent on ammo and medical supplies and if you are running low you need to high tale it back to base to sell your junk and buy more.
On that note, the barter skill is essential in this game. It opens up the single best perk in the game that makes it so that some items are sold for 10x their value. You should make sure you get this perk as early as possible. Also early on be sure to focus on hacking and lockpicking skills as it will allow you to break into areas without fighting and also unlock lockers and chests that contain higher end gear. Lastly, make sure you min/max your characters in this game. Outside of weapon skills which you will likely want to double up on, every character should have their own skills that you should max out before investing in other skills. In addition to barter, lockpicking, and electronics/hacking, you should have someone maxed out in explosives as it allows them to disarm traps and is also required to use some of the better rocket launchers, and a maxed out medic. I had a couple characters that had a point or two in medicine just in case my main medic went down, as only people with at least one point in that skill can heal their team members. There is an item that heals oneself, but if you run out you want to have two or three characters who can perform healing. Bear in mind, though, that one of the later perks in the medicine tree is that using the health pack doesn't consume it, meaning you should try to get that perk as soon as possible and then only use your other characters to heal your medic who would then heal everyone else.
Using these strategies I made all the way to what I believe is the final act of the game without wiping. I did wipe twice in the final act, and both were because I failed to notice that an enemy had spotted me and I was wiped before getting a turn. I have not yet failed a battle that I got the first turn on though. The game is very beatable if you play it smart. Do not hoard items in this game. Use what you have and purchase more. The two exceptions to that rule are rockets and nukes. There are maybe 50-75 rockets to be both found and purchased in the game total. So you do need to avoid using rockets if you don't need them or you will run out. I have also found 3 nukes in total the whole game, and have not found any vendor who sells them so nukes should only be used in the most dire circumstances, that is assuming you actually find a nuke launcher, which I have not. Beyond that always use all of your resources and you should be fine.
One final spoiler for those who wonder what the Toaster Repair skill does/is. This is not a story spoiler but if you have never played a Wasteland game you might not want to know about this unique skill. If you have then feel free to read this as the skill is unchanged from the previous games. Toaster repair is a long running skill in the Wasteland series dating all the way back to the original in 1988. Toasters in the Wasteland are like Epic Chests, containing the absolute best and rarest loot in addition to Golden Toaster parts. I cannot stress enough that you should not sell the Golden Toaster parts despite their insane value. I promise you it will be more than worth it in the late game if you manage to collect them all. Anyways, to get any items out of toasters you need to repair them which is what the toaster repair skill is for. So think of it like lockpicking or hacking but specifically for toasters. It is not an essential skill, but you will miss out on some of the best gear in the game without it.
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