- Nov 16, 2006
- 7,887
- 8,980
- 136
The Outer Worlds is easy to dislike at first glance. It feels like a game designed by committee for maximum likability, and like all things designed by committee it feels like its a day late and a dollar short. It feels inoffensive, but somehow that makes it even more offensive.
Lets list what The Outer Worlds feels like and cops from:
The graphics and general color scheme of the game give it a sort of No Man's Sky vibe.
The companions and their associated quests feel like they're lifted from your stock Bioware game.
The game's premise and themes feel like they're aping Bioshock hard.
The gameplay is essentially lifted directly from Bethesda's Fallout Games.
Everyone talks like its a long episode of Firefly.
I really wanted to dislike The Outer Worlds. The first 10 hours of gameplay were a snooze fest. I enjoyed playing the game before bed just because it got me kinda drowsy. The story lacked any and all sort of urgency and agency (the inverse is usually a major issue, where some pressing issue is put off for 3 months because you're side questing), and it just sort of felt like I'd seen all of this before.
Then you reach Monarch, and the whole game sort of pulls together a bit. Its still treading familiar territory, but the whole thing feels better assembled, intriguing plot threads start coming together, the world and atmosphere feel a bit more high stakes, there are real faction issues to resolve. From this point on the game felt leaner and higher quality, like the team figured out what they were really going for. From this point forward I actually really enjoyed my time with The Outer Worlds, and the game went into a reasonably strong close.
Its not a difficult game, and definitely suffers from the "pollyanna" design philosophy where in trying to make the game accommodate any odd playstyle means it does not handle any of them particularly well. Being a high speech character often means just skipping gameplay through dialogue, the sneak/stealth/thief mechanics are wildly broken in favor of the player (you can basically steal anything and so long as no one ever sees you there will be 0 consequences... and even if someone sees you you can talk your way out of any consequences), and combat is staggeringly easy to the point where the VATS knock off bullet time system and all the different damage types feel totally irrelevant to winning fights.
The endgame also suffered a bit thanks to me not actually knowing who the hell the "final boss" was. The dialogue indicated that we had some sort of running rivalry or had interacted previously but maybe something failed to trigger in my save or I was just brain farting hard because I was drawing complete blanks while this character was talking to me as if we knew each other.
Its also worth noting that the game is not one huge open world, but really 3-4 reasonably large areas of maybe a couple square miles and a number of "instanced" zones or levels. Obsidian lacks Bethesda's touch for "environmental story telling" and frankly the smaller zones played to Obsidian's favor in giving the player a couple of factions with opposing goals in each zone and letter the player figure out who to play off of who. Outside of that, the levels are fairly dead and really lack that living feeling Bethesda manages to capture in their games.
Obsidian is trying to lay the groundwork for a series and make sure their systems and execution were on point, areas where they typically fall down the hardest were where they actually performed the best this time around. The world they created, while kind of cliche and sleepy at first, certainly fleshed out and felt far more interesting by the end of the game. Oddly enough their story and characters, usually where Oblivion shines, were actually the weakest parts of The Outer Worlds. This feels like a primer game.
The comparisons to Fallout New Vegas certainly didn't do the game any favors.
Anyhow ATPCG, don't believe the hype, one way or another. TOW isn't irredeemable garbage, but it is also far from Obsidian's strongest entry. It starts of incredibly weak, almost like its tempting you to turn it off and walk away, but ends on a much stronger note. The end result is a perfectly serviceable but ultimately average game.
On sale for $10 bucks or less, and you'll have yourself a good time.
Lets list what The Outer Worlds feels like and cops from:
The graphics and general color scheme of the game give it a sort of No Man's Sky vibe.
The companions and their associated quests feel like they're lifted from your stock Bioware game.
The game's premise and themes feel like they're aping Bioshock hard.
The gameplay is essentially lifted directly from Bethesda's Fallout Games.
Everyone talks like its a long episode of Firefly.
I really wanted to dislike The Outer Worlds. The first 10 hours of gameplay were a snooze fest. I enjoyed playing the game before bed just because it got me kinda drowsy. The story lacked any and all sort of urgency and agency (the inverse is usually a major issue, where some pressing issue is put off for 3 months because you're side questing), and it just sort of felt like I'd seen all of this before.
Then you reach Monarch, and the whole game sort of pulls together a bit. Its still treading familiar territory, but the whole thing feels better assembled, intriguing plot threads start coming together, the world and atmosphere feel a bit more high stakes, there are real faction issues to resolve. From this point on the game felt leaner and higher quality, like the team figured out what they were really going for. From this point forward I actually really enjoyed my time with The Outer Worlds, and the game went into a reasonably strong close.
Its not a difficult game, and definitely suffers from the "pollyanna" design philosophy where in trying to make the game accommodate any odd playstyle means it does not handle any of them particularly well. Being a high speech character often means just skipping gameplay through dialogue, the sneak/stealth/thief mechanics are wildly broken in favor of the player (you can basically steal anything and so long as no one ever sees you there will be 0 consequences... and even if someone sees you you can talk your way out of any consequences), and combat is staggeringly easy to the point where the VATS knock off bullet time system and all the different damage types feel totally irrelevant to winning fights.
The endgame also suffered a bit thanks to me not actually knowing who the hell the "final boss" was. The dialogue indicated that we had some sort of running rivalry or had interacted previously but maybe something failed to trigger in my save or I was just brain farting hard because I was drawing complete blanks while this character was talking to me as if we knew each other.
Its also worth noting that the game is not one huge open world, but really 3-4 reasonably large areas of maybe a couple square miles and a number of "instanced" zones or levels. Obsidian lacks Bethesda's touch for "environmental story telling" and frankly the smaller zones played to Obsidian's favor in giving the player a couple of factions with opposing goals in each zone and letter the player figure out who to play off of who. Outside of that, the levels are fairly dead and really lack that living feeling Bethesda manages to capture in their games.
Obsidian is trying to lay the groundwork for a series and make sure their systems and execution were on point, areas where they typically fall down the hardest were where they actually performed the best this time around. The world they created, while kind of cliche and sleepy at first, certainly fleshed out and felt far more interesting by the end of the game. Oddly enough their story and characters, usually where Oblivion shines, were actually the weakest parts of The Outer Worlds. This feels like a primer game.
The comparisons to Fallout New Vegas certainly didn't do the game any favors.
Anyhow ATPCG, don't believe the hype, one way or another. TOW isn't irredeemable garbage, but it is also far from Obsidian's strongest entry. It starts of incredibly weak, almost like its tempting you to turn it off and walk away, but ends on a much stronger note. The end result is a perfectly serviceable but ultimately average game.
On sale for $10 bucks or less, and you'll have yourself a good time.
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