The Greatest PC Games of All Time: The ’80s, Part Two

The editors at GameSpy have returned to profile ten more of “the greatest PC games” from the 1980s. This installment includes Wasteland and Ultima IV, the former of which I’ll quote below:

The next time you’re tempted to scoff at an over-produced cut-scene, think about how Wasteland’s developers must have felt as they were forced to tell their epic story of post-nuke redemption mainly through the game’s instruction manual. 20-plus years ago, disk space was at a premium. But even way back then, RPG designers felt like they had something to say to the world, something that couldn’t be encapsulated in combat text.

Wasteland was the spiritual predecessor of the revered Fallout series, and something of an odd duck when compared with other RPGs of its era, mainly because it featured few swords and no sorcery. In fact, when it was released in the 1980s, it may even have felt a little bit prescient. As the story goes, nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union cooked much of the world. From your headquarters in a rebuilt Federal Prison, you and your crew of Desert Rangers head into the wastes and attempt to bring order to your small, brutal world.

Many of the Fallout series’ hallmarks can trace their DNA to Wasteland, not the least of which is its irreverent sense of humor. Other crucial elements, like varied skill choices for characters and open-ended skill-based solutions to in-game problems, continue to inform the RPG genre to this day. Wasteland is one of the definitive RPGs of its generation, and the progenitor of one of the most enduring series in gaming.