- Wasteland**
The game of Wasteland hit the shelves in the 1980's and has never left the hearts of the people who played it. Listed as a Top Dog by Home of the Underdogs, and hailed as a true classic by most, the game is a testament to the ingenuity, genius and skills of the programmers of the day. To this day, a popular [Group] exists which discusses openly new discoveries within the game, almost 20 years after it was released.
The PC version of this game, which was ported and put on sale around 1988 *still* runs on Windows operating systems. To put this in perspective, it would be like assuming an old pulse-dial telephone from the mid-80s to interface nowadays with the Mobile Phone network and support the Internet, without any modification.
To get a true feel for how well the game has fared, you just have to play it. The game benefits from a rich novella, interesting storyline, multiple-path thread and bright interesting well-drawn graphics.
In 2004/5, a small group of people have decided that the game has kept its secrets long enough, and it's time to open it up for two purposes. Firstly, we'd like to know whether you can get the Red Ryder Air Rifle, and secondly, we'd like to make a new version of the game based on the 'alternate' plot line.
You see, the game came with a manual, and with disks being small things, they couldn't fit all the story onto the disks (or didn't want to for translation and copy-protection purposes). So they put them in paragraphs in the manual. So, you'd come up to someone who's say "Read Paragraph 23". But, the developers knew that if you read the paragraphs like a book, you'd know the plot. So they 'seeded' the paragraphs with false ones. If you actually read them in consecutive-fashion, two or three 'alternative' plots are hinted at: The Martian Invasion and The Serpioid Menace. Both of these have sparked debate and controversy for years.
Tomten has pulled some info from the Squeezins group detailing all the things you *can* do. You can find it here. Quite amazing how much stuff they packed in there isn't it? Well, since we're going to all the trouble to interpret the game's data files, why not attempt to make a Wasteland 'B-side', with the alternative plot lines?
if you haven't played or enjoyed Wasteland, please do so, and also try the follow-up games Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics: BrotherHood of Steel (Although you can apparently give F:BOS a skip).