Getting Wasted. Part 2: School's Out.

Day one:

We finally decided that we couldn't hang around in the Ranger Centre forever. Sure, it's fairly comfortable... more comfortable than anything we're likely to find in the Wasteland... but we needed to see what's out there, and how bad things are. Unfortunately, it didn't take us long to find out that they are really bad... we were attacked by a Slithering Lizard as soon as we set foot out of the door. Fortunately, YJ Malmsteen had his gun loaded and likes shooting animals. I guess we could have tried the friendly route, but this guy didn't look like he wanted a pat on the head.


Oooh, look at that fella. Wonder if we could use his hide for anything?

Day two:

We set out beyond the nearby mountain range, in search of civilisation, or maybe abandoned technology. But it's so hot by those mountains! We headed inland for refuge, and in a secluded spot in the mountains found ourselves a settlement called Highpool. It seems somewhat deserted ... and it must have been a school town, as there are lots of abandoned dormitories here. It seems like a good place to rest for now... it's pretty enough, and there's a fresh water supply. At least, it seems fresh...

Tomorrow we'll explore the place.


Civilization! Or is it... it's too quiet, and we don't know how civil any residents might be...

Day three:

Well, it seems that Highpool is not entirely deserted. In the farthest corner of the settlement, we found a sobbing child. All efforts to gain information about the place proved fruitless, though... the child was so upset about something that he just blubbed at everything we said.

Having failed to coax so much as a useful sentence from the boy, we headed back to town. We found another resident... a shopkeeper, of all things. It seems bizarre to us that a shop could survive in this place... it's practically devoid of life. And yet, there he was, offering us a range of, it has to be said, useful items. Pity we hadn't thought to bring much in the way of cash...


Jesus! Erm, no thanks... that's alright... see ya...

Day four:

We've stumbled across an infirmary. When we entered it, I initially had thoughts of pilfering anything that might be of use in our travels, even if it were just a few bandages. But then, somebody stepped from behind the curtain...

I take it he was a surgeon or doctor, because he was offering to heal anyone that needed it. Luckily, nobody did... from the look of him, or should I say, his blood-soaked scrubs, it's possible he's not the most proficient at his trade... we thanked him for his offer, and then hot-footed it out of there!


Well, now. This looks interesting. Surely we can do something here...?

Day five:

Things have begun to look very interesting in Highpool. In one of the dormitories, there's a large machine. There are pipes going under the floor... I wonder if it's hiding something? We're going to try and move it later.

Then, later in the day, we went back to try and talk to the weeping kid. Turned out he's upset over his sick dog. He said he'd hidden him in a cave behind the bushes. We've searched the area and can't find any cave... is the kid deluded? Or are we just looking in the wrong place? Hopefully we'll have more luck tomorrow...

Getting Wasted. Part 1 - We're Having a Party!

I'm starting a couple of new irregular features, to be updated when I feel like playing the games in question.

Getting Wasted will follow my attempts at playing an all-time classic RPG - Wasteland. I owned it on the Commodore 64 and got a little way into it, and really enjoyed it. But it ground to a halt for some reason that I can't remember. I've always really wanted to get back into it, but I haven't got the patience these days, even with an emulator, to figure out all that disk swapping and boot disk creating and what have you.


It all starts here...

Fortunately, I've got the PC version. I've had it for years, but haven't been able to play it because it's a DOS game and I can't do DOS. I know, I'm rubbish. I've tried and tried, and can't figure it out. And I know it's probably quite simple, but apparently so am I. Help is at hand, though, courtesy of a program I've discovered called D-Fend Reloaded. It's a front end for DOSBox from what I can gather, for people like me who can't even manage that program. And it works. Programs I haven't been able to use for over a decade are now up and running.

I have to say, compared to what I remember of the Commodore 64 version of Wasteland, the PC version is somewhat lacking charm. It's very generic looking, whereas the 64 version has more style. But that doesn't matter for this... I just want to be able to play the game.


I don't want anything to do with this lot. I'll have all their gear, though.

So, why "We're Having a Party!"? This hasn't been much fun so far. Well, mighty oaks must start from little acorns, and before you can embark on the quest you must create your party of characters. I've always struggled with this... I've always had a hard time naming so much as a pet, and you don't want to know how long it took me to come up with my kids' names. So, naming fictional characters in a video RPG? Impossible.

Still, it was done, with the party leader being me, PaulEMoz. Strong as an ox (eh?), lucky and highly charismatic (who said games had to be like real life?), I was the perfect choice to lead this little band. Next up is YJ Malmsteen. I always put him in role playing games... named after Swedish guitar maestro Yngwie J. Malmsteen, I always figure you can't go wrong with a Viking by your side. Quick and agile, he'll hopefully be doing the sneaky work for me. My third character is Ed the Head. Strong, clever and lucky, he'll be patching up the gang if they get injured, and hopefully still slaughter enemies like the Iron Maiden mascot he loves. Yeah, I spelled it wrong.


And we're off. Let's see how long we last...

Aaaand finally, we have Kelly Bundy. Wasteland was something of a revolution to me, in that it was quite important to have a female character in your squad. And I thought it would be quite funny if the most intelligent member of the party was called Kelly Bundy. I always thought that girl had hidden depths. She's also a nurse (medic), which I like the idea of, and she's highly charismatic, so should be able to charm the socks off any would-be assailants.

And so, with that, we're all set. The party is formed, and out into the Wasteland we venture...