The Outer Worlds (2019)

This game had a great first impression and an overall enjoyable first playthrough but unlike the games it is inspired by, I had difficulty getting myself to play through it multiple times despite the build variety options.

Still, worth it for the first experience at the very least, even if it could never live up to the New Vegas hype it was marketing. Here's hoping the sequel will be great.

3.5 / 5 Stars

30 Hour Playthrough

I really liked The Outer Worlds! The best thing about it to me is that it has good old RPG player choice, you truly can talk your way out of a lot of situations if you spec into dialog skills, or you can murder hobo everyone in the game. It has many smaller open world areas rather than 1 big one, which I honestly prefer as its not as overwhelming with things to do. Even so, the environments all look very cool, though the character animations especially during dialogue are old Bethesda style.

The story and world building was really great and if the humor of the game clicks with you, then it clicks with you. If it doesn't click you might not like the game. I loved the characters as well, my favorite companions were Parvati and Nyoka. There are some choices in the game, too, that are not straightforwardly black and white which I loved.

The skill based level up system is simple and easy to use. There is a cool "flaws" system that when you do a certain thing your character gains some negative aspects in exchange for a perk, all tied together in a humorous way. For example, you can become addicted to the healing drugs you use, or afraid of insect monsters since you murdered too many of them.

The combat in the game is definitely the weak point as its just never that interesting. At least its good that your companions aren't useless in combat and their assistance is probably the best part. There is "tinkering" you can do to weapons to increase DPS or "modifications" for other attributes. But they never really seem to mean anything when they cost SO MUCH MONEY and then you find another mechanically identical weapon in the next tier area. So, the loot system here is never really interesting, aside from some unique science weapons. The consumables also I just never used them.

But despite the lackluster combat and loot system, I still really enjoyed the game and I think most of all it has some great ideas that will lead to a super awesome sequel.

Additionally to mention the DLCS. "Murder on Eradinos" is actually the best content of the entire game, I love it a lot. "Peril on Gorgon: was just okay.

First of all, I am a huge fan of Fallout New Vegas so that might have affected my expectations from this game, but in my defense, they're both made by Obsidian so I thought it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Fallout in space while playing this.

I hopped into the game and honestly, I enjoyed it! The starting sequence was actually great and the character creation process is at least an improvement compared to FNV. The humor was to my liking, and I found myself spending hours into this game.

However, it has problems sustaining the energy and excellence it had during the start. The longer I played, the longer I stopped caring about the story, which is HUGE for games like this. I found myself playing just to finish what I've started, and that is a miserable situation to be in.

I would like to discuss something that I really disliked in particular. Your companions have their own story quests while lets you bond with these characters more and experience what bothers them, what makes them happy, etc. This would have been a great part of the story, albeit not directly contributing the increasingly to the increasingly failing plot. The thing is... these were lackluster from the start. The only one I honestly liked was Parvati's, and I was still disappointed with that one. Parvati's story quests revolves around her feelings regarding a spaceship mechanic that you meet during story progression. It was honestly cute, but I found that it had little to no impact with the character interactions outside of ones directly related to the quests or ones inside the ship. Whenever I bring Parvati when speaking to the mechanic, there's NO DIALOGUE THAT SHOWS THE ROMANCE THEY HAVE, which is disappointing to be honest.

Very fun. Sure, the running around for the NPCs got old near the end, but I'm happy to say it took over 50 hours of gameplay before it did.

(Couldn't even finish the DLC anymore by then, I was just so exhausted and wanted to finish so I just fast traveled out of there and went off to the point of no return, but yeah, I might revisit the DLCs later.)

Having now put 18 hours into the game, I am now ending my run prematurely, as I feel I have gotten what I wanted out of it. The game is in the same vein as the Bethesda Fallout games, so I only find i reasonable to compare it to them - and the one thing I put on a pedestal from those games (excluding Fallout 76, which I haven't played, but I doubt retains it) is the atmosphere. My god, those games ooze atmosphere. Discovering the ruins of a war-torn USA, now overrun by bandits, ghouls and other crazy monsters, listening to radio hits from the first half of the 20th century... I ate that up back in '08 when Fallout 3 hit the shelves, and did it all over again when the settlements of Fallout 4 needed our help (even though I disliked the implementation of that feature greatly). It's all about the atmosphere for me in those games, and the open and connected world helps sell that feeling.

That's where The Outer Worlds falls apart for me. The world just doesn't do it for me. Planettrotting to appease or destroy different selfabsorbed corporations just didn't wrok for me. Having to go to your spaceship and load into other areas made the world feel disjointed and every "map" was just that, a map, a little area, cut off from the rest of the game's world. Gameplay-wise, it doesn't have a big impact, but for me, it made it extremely difficult to lose myself in the world, as the atmosphere never absorbed me, even if it tried with its eerie, very Fallout-esque ambience music. It just didn't do it for me.

Now, after 18 hours, at level 23, able to one-shot most enemies with my hunting rifle while sneaking and exploting weak points, what ever sense of danger the world has, is ultimately gone. And that's partially up to me, as I'm the kind of experience points "hoarder" that'll grab any possible experience points I can. There's a scrat (harmless critter) rummaging through the trash in a back alley? You bet I'll beat it was a tossball stick to get that juicy experience. There's an option to use my speech skill to lie in a conversation? You know I'll use that speech option, just for the experience points. Because I love watching my character getting stronger and unlocking new perks. I can't get enough of that in games, but ultimately, for The Outer Worlds, it also means I don't feel like the world is dangerous - even though it is, as it's overrun with mercenaries and monsters, but again, I just don't feel it, and thus, the atmosphere takes another hit, and with it, my will to go on.

I had fun with the game, definitely, but I'm not walking away from it wanting to play the second game, even though I'm not too many hours from the game's finale. I just decided, that I'd rather leave the game now, content with it, rather than "risk" wasting my time, trotting through it just to be able to check a box. I'm fine moving on. I enjoyed a majority of my time with it, but it just never took me over, as the Fallouts did, with their intense and eerie atmosphere.

Finished this the same day as Prey (2017). It was a fun ride. I laughed more than a few times. The game definitely feels like an older game however, there are a few welcome changes from the older Fallout games but not enough to feel like it's a real next-gen title. I probably wouldn't have played this without Game Pass realistically.

I might write a review one day.

The Outer Worlds is a game that seems to have been made with a lot of love but not enough money, and I think I was, unfortunately, fundamentally predisposed to dislike it.

For one, I've played a thousand plus hours of Fallout and Elder Scrolls games. Hell, I probably racked up a thousand hours on Oblivion alone, and at least 100 on all the others. Despite being made in 2019 this does absolutely nothing to push that style of first-person western RPG forward and doesn't distinguish itself from what came before other than having an ever-so-slightly-different retro-future aesthetic than Fallout and a much smaller scope (which seems to be the main criticism, even by those who enjoyed it, so that's hardly a positive distinction). It's "another one of those," with all the minutiae you remember. People's faces still zoom way the fuck in when you talk to them, dialogue options are still displayed as a list of full sentences in a massive translucent text box on the bottom half of the screen. I mean, who does that anymore? It's just far too familiar to like five other games I put a ton of time into already and am burnt out on, even though it's been years since I've played one, and it feels incredibly dated because there's zero innovation or originality here.

That isn't inherently a bad thing mind you, and for many it seems to be no issue at all, but for me it became a deal-breaker, just as it was when Fallout 4 came out, try as I did to enjoy that game, and that's arguably even more innovative than this is since it has base building (that I didn't really enjoy, but hey, at least they were trying?). If Elder Scrolls 6 ever actually comes out and it's as similar to the last two Elder Scrolls games as this is to Fallout 3/New Vegas I'll probably have trouble getting into that too, even though at one point in time I would have said Oblivion is one of my favorite games ever. Innovation is important. Novelty is important. Discovering and learning new mechanics is important. Simply serving up new content on top of tired old paradigms everyone's already intimately familiar with won't work forever, at least not for everyone. Look at the lows Zelda sank to before Breath of the Wild came out if you don't believe me. I know Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword have their defenders, as does this game, but the majority were begging for a change to the formula.

Another issue is that I was a very different person when I played those games than I am now. I was still a teenager When Oblivion and Fallout 3 came out. At 20/21 I started to get into reading in a big way, and it's long overtaken gaming as my primary hobby. I'd say I'm like 70/30 reading/gaming now. The result is that video games held up primarily by their writing don't impress me anymore, since even the best written video games are still absolute amateur hour compared to a good book. People like to say video game writing is good now, but that's really only in comparison to how shit it was in the past. It's serviceable now, that's the appropriate word. Nowadays the big games that actually care about their story hit that "good enough," Marvel movie level of writing much more often than they don't, and that's great, that's certainly progress, but it's not actually great writing, and does not do a good job selling me on why I should be playing this instead of a reading a book or playing a game that actually focuses on its gameplay and mechanics.

As time goes on I become less and less interested in games with a primary focus on story that have a bunch of cutscenes and trite dialogue to button through and much more interested in games which have innovative or enjoyable gameplay, put my skill/intelligence to the test, or tell their story in a way that is very specific to the medium of video games and wouldn't work well in a book (The Beginner's Guide, for instance). I have to imagine that's partially why this game did not land as well with me as Fallout 3 did even though if you compared them side by side now this is almost certainly the better game of the two.

Speaking of writing, I found the overall tone of the game to be pretty fucking lame. The anti capitalism jokes got old fast, there just wasn't any bite or wit to them for the most part. BioShock handled this theme far better thirteen years ago, and I'm not saying that from a position of nostalgia since I played it for the first time last year (turns out it's one of the best games ever made and I should've played it a long time ago).

The game's goofiness took away from the way too serious character moments they were trying to have and they all fell pretty flat for me, but the game isn't quite ridiculous ENOUGH to actually be entertaining the majority of the time. I'm pretty sure Vicar Max's drug induced spiritual awakening is the only audible chuckle the game got out of me. It felt bland, like they couldn't pick a tonal direction and fully commit to it, and later found out that's more or less exactly what happened. I watched NoClip's docuseries on the game and one of the leads said it was important to have a balance and not get too goofy or too serious, which is such a tepid, risk-averse stance to take. Middle-grounds aren't very interesting, generally, but they sure are easy to get large teams of developers and risk-averse publishers to agree to!

If you ask me, one of the reasons BioShock worked so well is it plays everything SO straight and serious. None of the characters have their tongue in their cheek at all. Andrew Ryan believes every insane fucking word that comes out of his mouth and the world around him takes it seriously, too. It's played so straight some players didn't catch the satire and bought into objectivism as a good idea, in the same way that many dumbasses watched Fight Club back in the day and took Tyler Durden's destructive, hypermasculine ideas seriously and wanted to start their own fight clubs and "tear down this emasculating society, man," rather than realizing the entire thing is a fucking farce written by a gay man to poke fun at the pathetic straight male anger we're still, unfortunately, dealing with in society today (The New Yorker article "The Men Who Still Love Fight Club" is a good, short read btw).

Anyway, I digress. What I'm getting at is the humor in BioShock is implied by the disconnect between the world the player actually lives in and the one they're virtually inhabiting, rather than the writers winking and nodding at the player through their characters, who in the fiction of Outer Worlds are not in on the joke at all, but the way the dialogue is written and voiced definitely makes it seem like they are, which became a grating disconnect for me by the end.

So...yeah. It's probably a good game? Idk. A whole lot of people seem to like it and it exceeded Obsidian's sales expectations, so I'm happy for them. KOTOR II is one of my favorite games ever, always glad to see them doing well. It's just not for me at all, I found the whole experience tedious and unsatisfying. Instead of serious philosophical themes like KOTOR II, there are instead pat anti-capitalism jokes. There's no challenge either mental or physical, no crazy new mechanics to wrap your head around, no real gameplay complexity at all for what is supposedly an RPG. The entire game really is nothing more than going through overly familiar motions to see the plot and character beats play out, which never impressed me at all. Although, again, I probably have much higher standards than the average gamer in that regard since the average gamer probably doesn't read very much, if I had to guess. The only reason I even finished it was because of how crazy short it is, so perhaps, at least for me, the short length IS a positive aspect of the game?

OVERVIEW

• Rating: 7/10
• Hours played: 22
• Pros: worldbuilding, quest design, characters, humour and aesthetics
• Cons: low difficulty, rushed 3rd act, lack of depth on build, combat and loot

I completed The Outer Worlds once on Normal mode, which took me 22 hours. My build focused on Science, Medicine and Pistols, but I ended up levelling a bunch of other stuff due to excess of skill points, as I reached the maximum level (30) during the final mission.

GAMEPLAY

Fallout 3 and New Vegas are among the best experiences I've had with RPGs. As The Outer Worlds (TOW) bears the image of being a spiritual successor to this franchise, especially since it was the work of the creators of the original Fallout, it is natural that the game had generated a lot of expectations among fans, including myself. Despite being successful in carrying the spirit of a Fallout, I believe that TOW has built a foundation for something with its own identity, although in this version there are many problems that hampered my opinion of it.

The most interesting points of the gameplay are the quests. Most of the main and side quests have interesting stories and multiple alternatives to reach different solutions. The game makes constant use of speech-checks and interactions with mechanics like stealth, hack, lockpick and the like. This creates a good amount of options for players, so that different characters can seek solutions compatible with their playstyle.

Combat is fluid and serviceable. TTD (TOW's version of VATS) is useful and fun to use, but there is a lack of depth in the mechanics that prevents combat from being a big plus. The low difficulty and focus on a loot system that is generous without being rewarding made me lose interest in looking for new weapons and upgrades.

There is also little depth in character building. TOW is so generous with skill points that it is extremely difficult to build a specialist character, generating a tendency to be a little jack-of-all-trades. In addition, the perk system is extremely generic and boring, so the excitement of reaching a new level became almost non-existent after a few hours. Customization of companions is also too simplistic for me to bother with it. At least the system of attributes has been well established and used.

NARRATIVE

Despite numerous problems with gameplay, TOW met my expectations in the narrative aspects. There is great worldbuilding, based on the creation of space colonies led by corporations, allowing for creative and humorous allegories. However, in many instances the plot was predictable, and I felt there was a lack of nuance in some elements of the world, like the factions.

The main quest is simple and relatively short, but it's supported by a good number of secondary quests, including some related directly to companions, which helped to expand the world and characters on elements the main campaign passed by. Unfortunately, the third act is very rushed, with the main story ending abruptly, while secondary quests lost a lot of quality and substance. To compensate that, I found the ending satisfying, making good use of the slideshow, a classic from Fallout which gives players a clear demonstration of the consequences of main decisions they made during thir playthrough.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I believe TOW was successful in its story, presenting good characters, good sense of humor and aesthetics, in addition to well structured quests. The lack of depth in several elements, mostly gameplay ones, prevents me from considering it a great game, even though I have good expectations for a sequel. At the end of the day, I’m glad to have played the game and would recomend it to any RPG fan, especially those who enjoy the Fallout series.

The Outer Worlds - First Impressions

I'm a bit mixed on Obsidian's newest entry, especially when I came to it hot off the heels of what i played of Disco Elysium. It's a bit disappointing, not in a sort of marketing expectations way, more like it sets interesting themes up and then lets you down almost immediately.

Let's take things back, I might as well talk about the combat. The combat is fairly serviceable, giving you a somewhat interesting toolset for moving around and going for debuffs on enemies and optimizing damage but your defensive options being basically a run to cover. It's ok, it does what's necessary and ultimately doesn't impede in between the writing and exploration (however limited the latter may be).

The story itself is, well, leaves a bit more to be desired so far. It's drenched in very very clear anti-corporation messages, some of which is very compelling, especially with how strong the worldbuilding is. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that almost all of the characters here on offer are cardboard, even if the dialogue itself is pretty humorous and well done. Parvati being the sole exception, she's honestly too good for this game. I made quite a few jokes that this is just Parvati Worlds while playing, because she felt like the only human person here that wasn't just a device to spout the core message.

The story's pacing itself is so bullettrain fast that I found it hard to take somewhat seriously at times. Because there was never a stop to characterize, create more nuance for the conflict, as much as it needed to tell me "hey look how bad the people under the corporation have it!". Again, not to dig on the worldbuilding which is honestly great, but it really feels like the questing on offer here is safe and middling.

Part of me expects this game to get a much better more refined sequel that implements the solid foundation on offer here. It's good enough where I will come back and finish it, but it's not something I can hugely recommend. It's alright.

The good:

• Choices. The game offers a strong sense of freedom for the player, you can behave in a number of different ways and ultimately many decisions you take have a noticeable effect on the world, the story and other characters.
• Character development. I liked the moderate depth of the RPG mechanics here and how it eases you into them. Smplifying at first with the 50 points requirement before you are able to really specialize in the individual skills. The skills are varied and useful and it's nice that dialog or tech skills have direct combat advantages as well, it makes investing in them that much more rewarding. The perks and the flaw system are good and pace the character progression nicely.
• Combat. Very enjoyable combat, I've only played mostly with long guns though so I can't comment about other options like melee combat. Making heads explode and using the TTD system to target weaknesses feels enormously satisfying. It falls on the easy side even on Hard difficulty though, you only have trouble if your gear is underleveled.
• Music. It's good.
• Humor. There's plenty of pretty ironic and funny dialogs to be found here. The game is pretty humorous without trying too hard.

The ehh:

• Story. The main story is pretty basic and simple, the world-building and the setting itself are way more interesting here. Characters are well written for the most part though.

• Length. The game is pretty short for a RPG I think, doing most secondaries I encountered it only took 20 hours to finish. I might have missed some here and there I guess?

• Difficulty. As I said before, combat is pretty easy even on Hard. The supernova mode seems like it'd be more annoying than difficult, reads like a survival mode tacked onto the game more than a harder difficulty per se but I haven't tried it.

• Performance. Some performance issues, the game could be a lot smoother.

• Graphics. I guess they're just fine. There're a couple of places that truly pop and impress but most of the game looks just ok. The effects and reflections do look very nice. Not very impressed by the character models either.

The bad:

• "Backtracking" & loading screens. Admittedly the game loads very fast if playing on SSD but after a certain point in the game you spend way too much time running back and forth between planets, quest locations and quest givers and such. Could've been done better given that you have a comm system on your ship and there's often no point in going back to some other planet just to talk to the quest giver and get your reward. This usually will involve at least 4 loading screens.
• Graphic settings. I'm still in disbelief that they don't allow us to change anything related to AA. The game runs some kind of forced TAA that makes everything really blurry at 1080p, it's better at 4k but still. Not many options here.
• Clunkiness. Collision detection is a bit weird and jumping is really clunky, you sometimes get stuck on stuff for a bit while your characters seems to have a seizure until you get out of it.

Overall, this has been a fun experience, but after 30hrs of doing every single side quest I can find, I think I'm about ready to just mainline the story and be done with it.

The sidequests in Byzantium seem to be of a lower caliber than the ones earlier in the game. "Remember those crappy pieces of armor & helmets you've been selling for the entire game? Go to two different planets and get some more so you can bring it back here. And now, remember all the animal part junk that you've sold at every opportunity? Bring me some of that now."

Then I run into some dude who wants me to go collect some rats for him from the sewer, and I'm all, "Good for you, pal. Later!"

FWIW this is a good quality game and has a lot. It's a nice story and setting and is fun to play but a lot of it could be improved and other aspects of it should be trimmed down.

Share a nord ale with your power armor space pirate crew on down time

It's good don't get me wrong, but this isn't something that blows me away. Maybe my expectations were a bit high, as the game has gotten a lot of chatter, (I think that is partly because of the dark and damned road bethesda has taken with fallout 76 in recent months.) The creative forces do make it feel like New Vegas at times. Its fun and wild and rompy. You have janky robots and computers and retrotech. You have vaudevillian villains and heroes and all that. You have the fun streamlined designs and golden age space gun jazz.
Plenty here for a fallout fan to enjoy

BUT, it has flaws.

It's a stretch to call this game of the year or a five star game. Many of it's flaws are probably going to get ironed out over time. Nothing major, just a big pile of things, with some i found more annoying than others. The first thing I noticed was the absurd in game economy. Then the cryptic weapon stats. Rapid obsolescence of equipment and meager upgrades that go against a barter or crafting builds, an impossibly hard/unfair/annoying jump from the super dumb easy hard mode to 'hardcore/realistic' mode (Which is really painful and punishing to play and that just sucks) skills that are stymied by others (melee why?). a seriously low reward-to-time investment ratio in regards to exploration and looting, or even investing deeply in any real bit of the game (despite the fact the game has some very interesting places to both explore and look for cleverly tucked away loot) a clear and distinct 'right choice' with very little hope for lawful evil or chaotic paths. Often the game has an illustion of choice. Unsatisfying unique weapons or quest rewards. Crashes (some at key plot points/conversations)

Like a Sniper Sir.

This is a good game and it will only get better as some of these things are fixed. The settings and characters are good and its overall immersive and what an First person RPG should be. It's alright as a shooter too I guess. One of it's flaws that wont be fixed is how the players choice of agency is geared in certain directions and I'm unsure of just how much CNC is really going on in this game, because the ultimate direction of the story is on rails. This makes it not so enticing for a second playthrough, in addition to the fact you dont really get a sense of reward from your choices or factions or character development in terms of outcomes. I played this game a bit slower than most would and it feels like it's meant to be burned through at a faster rate. Would you play system shock 2 on a second playthrough just to see what it would be like to fight with rifles over pistols? probably not, (psi-amp/magic maybe, but there isnt really anything like that you can spec in the game beyond dialogue checks which do not unlock secret pathways or anything really)

PROS

• Fast-paced objectives quickly move you through many different scenarios
• Quests are open-ended and allow for player choice
• Focus on smaller, denser map designs reduce down time
• Building your squad of loyal crew members is satisfying
• Many dialogue options allow you to have lengthy conversations with NPCs

CONS

• Story, world, and lore are all uninspired and uninteresting
• Ugly character and enemy designs
• Highly, highly derivative of Fallout 3 & 4
• Mediocre combat is rarely exciting
• Like many a WRPG before it, a large concurrency of quests make much of the game feel like work

Started it and, unsurprisingly, I'm really enjoying it! I love fallout 3 and this is basically fallout 3 in space, so.. 5 stars?

One thing that sticks like a sore thumb is that the inventory system is really not that good. Sorting items by value to weight ratio is a great addition, but for the life of me I can't understand which equipment is equipped and which isn't. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not?... It gets awfully annoying every time I want to buy or sell weapons or armor.

Outer Worlds не плохая игра, но мне было очень скучно в неё играть. Я наиграл всего пять с половиной часов, но чувствую, что возвращаться в игру не хочу.

При этом критичных проблем у игры-то и нет. Графон, если убрать хроматическую аберрацию, от которой болят глаза, — нормальный. Стрелять скучно — оружия мало, и оно никак не ощущается — но не противно. Самое утомительное — в игре куча лута, 90% которого — барахло на продажу, патроны и прочие расходники.

Подвох, (для меня), оказался неожиданным. Квесты. Типичный квест в игре выглядит следующим образом. Пришел к маркеру, поговорил или всех убил, пошел сдавать квест. Казалось бы, типично. Но маркерами отмечено ВСЁ, имеющее отношения к заданию. Поэтому не покидает ощущение, что тебя ведут за ручку.

Усиливают это ощущение и социальные навыки. Солгать\Убедить\Запугать — никакой разницы, результат один — награда в виде опыта и\или денег. За использование навыков в игре дают опыт. То есть причин НЕ использовать прокачанный навык нет вообще. Если видишь, что в диалоге можно использовать навык — жми! Варианты без навыков не нужны. Мой любимый пример. Я вытащил из камеры бандитку в обмен на квестовые документы. Убедил её заплатить мне денег (получил опыт), а потом солгал, что документы бесполезны (получил документы и опыт). При этом, я был 11-го уровня (максимум — 30-й), а каждый разговорный навык был развит до 80-ти (максимум — 100).

И ладно бы это всё было интересно. Но нет. В игре крепко написанные, но совершенно пресные тексты и крайне искусственный мир. Ретрофутуристичный дизайн окружения, кислотные цвета, и постоянные смехуёчки. Всю игру давят одну ноту: сатира на корпоративные порядки. Все квесты, вся их изначальная мотивация строится на этом.

Почини корабль, потому что корпорации насрать, что от духоты все помирают. Найди формулу зубной пасты для похудения, это важно для моей работы в корпорации. Выбери кому помочь: корпорации или хиппи-дезертирам.

Постоянный выбор из двух зол, и это неплохо. Проблема в том, что мир — карикатура. И поверить в него не получается. А значит мне насрать кому помогать: хипарям или корпорации. Я не могу поверить в этот мир даже как в выдумку, потому что за 5 часов, что я наиграл, всё что я видел — постоянные смехуёчки (однообразные к тому же) на тему «корпорации — зло».

Outer Worlds — типичная игра Obsidian. Да как, и случае с Bioware, это не комплимент, а признание, что игра сделана по проверенной формуле, которая до жути приелась. Смехуёчки, возможность практически все квесты пройти через болтовню и выборы в каждом втором задании. Но сделано это настолько, простите, без души, что даже бесплатно играть не хочется.

As someone with very little experience with these types of games, and as someone who really couldn't get into Fallout games as much as I tried, I really enjoyed this far more than I thought I would. There's alot being thrown around about this being like New Vegas or better than the Fallout games, but since I didn't have that experience going into this, I could look at this game with very little expectations. While I did enjoy it though, it still has elements that always irk me about open world games and some game design choices.

The thing I liked the most personally is the length of the game. Its actually quite short even if you do all sidequests(about 15-20 hours I'd say) and I can appreciate that as someone who doesn't have much time to dedicate to video games. This can easily go the other way though, as some people would definitely want a game of this caliber to be far bigger and longer and it's certainly an understandable sentiment. An open world game in SPACE just begs to be further explored and expanded on. Consider this before you drop 60 dollars on the game..

The dialogue is definitely the strongest part of the game, as it's all about corporate dystopia and the horrors of possible extreme late stage capitalism. The constant bashing and humor of these two subjects definitely brought smiles and laughs to my face. Where the dialogue provides mostly comedy and fun skits, terminals provide plenty of lore and world building about just how awful this world is. Honestly, it's funny in it's own way reading how workers have to pay for their own sick days. In fact, the funniest and realest bit I read was how management told one of the workers to just work through the sickness, cause trust me that definitely happens in reality ALOT. I'm sure alot of these depicted events are far closer to some people's experiences than one may think.. The story is what it is. I won't peg it as either bad or good as it really depends on how you tackle it. Will you fight the corporations? Or will you become their dog?

The things I didn't like are some general things that are very common with open world games and something that others likely wouldn't mind. The first being durability, though it's more of an after thought as you get so many weapons you'll likely never find yourself wanting for parts to fix your main weapons with. This may be different on Supernova though. WEIGHT LIMIT!! Eventually you can also ignore this through perks, but if you're just gonna eventually bypass it then don't use it in the first place! Those slots in perks could go for something far more interesting. As for game specific things, the looting doesn't feel very exciting or meaningful. Ammo is one thing, but you pick up so many drinks and food that you just.. don't use. They give you temporary buffs but even on hard the game isn't so difficult that you'd need any of this. Nor do encounters last so long that you'd need any buff that isn't just your companions. This is undoubtedly far more important in solo runs or Supernova runs, though it's a bit lame some gameplay potential could be locked behind max difficulty. The skill trees, while interesting at first glance, aren't very engaging after a while. The first few perks you unlock are cool, but the endgame stuff feels like they were just pasted on. Most of them just involve % increases and don't really impact the gameplay too much. And finally, the gameplay, more specifically the combat aspects. It feels very... barebones compared to the conversation sections. If you put points into the correct stuff, conversations open up SO much and allow for all sorts of wacky possibilities that I really liked. Put points into guns or melee and... well.. you hit harder? You end encounters faster? You eliminate encounters entirely with fear? It's clear they really wanted the conversations to shine, but maybe they could have put a bit more into the combat sections. And again, this probably changes in Supernova but I really don't like the idea of gameplay potential being locked behind max difficulty. Oh, I completely forgot to mention this but it's not a huge thing; a radio implementation. One thing I liked about the little bits of Fallout I did play is the radio. What does music sound like in Outer Worlds? Is there even an entertainment business outside the sports they talk about? A radio with either music or laughably insane ADs or corporate messages would do the game wonders when you're not fighting or conversing.

All in all, it's a very enjoyable game if only for its dialogue and conversation bits. The world is interesting and far more relatable than one may think and some may even feel at home. It heavily relies on the conversations so please do try to talk to as many people as you can and exhaust dialogue options. This is a game where I didn't mind talking to random people or doing as many sidequests as I could. The combat IS serviceable but it could be far better and more engaging. I didn't touch upon roleplay possibilities or aspects as I have little to no experience with that so keep that in mind. Maybe something I said changes entirely when you take roleplay into consideration? For the type of game it is, it's very short, so maybe I'd wait for a sale? If you have the Xbox Pass thing I hear that's a good alternative to playing it.