no Outer Worlds 2 thread ???

[DigDog]

I'm playing the new Outer Worlds game, and .. it's actually good.

Anyone else?

reviews have been lukewarm, but from my own perspective, this is actually what i expect out of this kind of an RPG.

 

[sandorski]

Game doesn't do anything for me.

 

[DigDog]

oof. i guess i must be out of touch with the general populace.

What i like:

1. it's hard.
i did choose "hard" at the beginning, and then imagine my shocked pikachu face when the game turned out to be hard! who coulda known. But yeah, mobs do hit hard, requiring me to squeeze out every ounce of FPS sk1lz to take them down. Which is a welcome change since in F3 only Cazadors and Deathclaws had a chance to hurt me.

2. dialogue aren't expositional.
You need to pay attention to what people say, and guess which attitude is going to work to manipulate them. Speaking to NPCs actually takes effort.

3. the game hides information well.
Just like IRL, you don't have an arrow pointing you to the keycard on the desk, but just to the generic area where your target might be.

The visuals are ok. The combat is .. acceptable. The game mechanics are a bit weird, but i got used to them fairly quickly. Enemies are a bit too spongy, but i put that down to having starter weapons.
The movement is not great; you have a doublejump which is integral to the gameplay, but at the same time the geometry doesn't allow for any creativity, there are too many hidden "ledge grab area" everywhere, but if they are not there you can't really interact with the map - creative exploration doesn't exist.

finally, i would say that the world building is perhaps the closest thing i have seen to the original Fallout 1. It really has *that* kind of absurdist, grim aspect about it, made up of fanaticism, ignorance, and having accepted the twisted reality that the NPCs are born in - between the hyperconsumeristic Auntie's Choice, and the drone-like quality of the Protectorate.

 

[quikah]

I enjoyed the original Outer Worlds, will play this eventually, but I am still working my way through Silksong. Will be a while I guess....

 

[DigDog]

I enjoyed the original Outer Worlds, will play this eventually, but I am still working my way through Silksong. Will be a while I guess....

just want to chip in that OW2 is better than OW1.

 

[KMFJD]

have not tried it yet but it looks interesting, you even get this perk(!) if you pre-ordered it

 

[DigDog]

brief update, i have found this game to be really growing on me.

and then i had a game-breaking bug.

i have since restarted, but it took me a whole day to shake off the annoyance of having wasted 14 hours.

on the main quest, a dead body that is supposed to hold a keycard without which you cannot advance, has not spawned in. at the same time, a machine you're supposed to interact with bugged and, after interacting with it, i lost the ability to interact with some other machines .. one of which is the navigation system in my ship, which allows me to change map. completely stuck, can't be fixed.

 

[KMFJD]

heard quite a few good things about this so i jumped on it, looks interesting and reviews are solid everywhere

 

[DigDog]

after the restart i managed to get back to the spot where i was stuck, and pass it. it seems a mob that was carrying a keycard may have fallen off of the geometry into a void during my previous run.
for those playing it, it's the first fight on Greater Tranquillity station - you will be fighting 2 mechs and a handful of flies, and at least 1 human that holds the card.
THIS spot: https://img.game8.co/4323172/7000877bb17c362b8491057f445b497d.mp4/show

 

[EXCellR8]

It's alright. I'm all for half-serious space shenanigans, but there've been times where it feels a bit exhausting. I also feel like every single gun I have is terrible; that makes combat a lot less fun.

I'll most likely stick with it and play for a few more hours, because I do like Obsidian stuff, but if it doesn't hook me in I might dip early.

 

[DigDog]

I also feel like every single gun I have is terrible; that makes combat a lot less fun.

OW2 suffers from the same problem as the Oblivion remaster - the difficulty levels are unbalanced.

I started playing on Hard (there's Easy, Normal, Hard, and even harder?) because i figured, i got a ton of experience in what is essentially a FPS, and it was brutal. Mobs hit incredibly hard, generally 2 hits means you're dead, maybe 3-4 hits with the shield.
After the restart i played on Normal, and then switched back to Hard once i got back to where i was before. The difference is night and day, on Normal you mow down monsters by just pressing fire. On Hard i was crouching for my life, more than once.

Once you get geared up, the game flows a lot smoother. The various assault rifles you find on the second planet are vastly better. Now, there *is* a mechanic where you're supposed to match damage type to monster, for example, a incendiary shotgun will rekk animals, and a shock SMG will rekk automatons .. but it's not mandatory once you have more capable guns.
Putting points into the Guns skill is almost mandatory, though; good thing at least it boosts all guns, not just rifles.

i also found very early on, during my second playthrough, an armor that has 22 base; before that i had the plasma caster armor that was 11-rating. I have no idea where i found it.

One problem that is very real with these games is that, i'm constantly picking up TONS of junk. There is no weight limit, but when i'm picking up literally hundreds of coils, springs, flywheels, vodka, biscuits, crisps, nuts, bolts, cannisters, energy cells, animal skins, etc there is absolutely no way i can actually pay attention to what i'm picking up. (almost) none of them are particularly important and the resale value is very low, because you're basically meant to hoover up all this just, constantly.

it's not a perfect game, but i am really liking it a lot. I tend to be very negative when it comes to RPGs, so this is particularly unusual for me.