#futurama is best when its being an extrapolative satire not a satire on things that are happening now

[realian]

the Hulurama episodes suck so bad holy shit.

[terryblount]

The Outer Worlds – Review

With a resumé that includes South Park: The Stick of Truth and, of course, Fallout: New Vegas, do I really have to introduce Obsidian Entertainment? Their unapologetically wacky and satirical developmental style has cemented several memorable titles into our libraries, and with The Outer World’s they finally get to unleash their unique style on the wild frontiers of space colonisation.

I have a dirty confession to make: I never played Fallout 3. I was just too deep into all the fantasy stuff at the time. However, I did give New Vegas a shot and the game’s writing, characters, and overall devil-may-care tone made me play it in big, greedy chunks at a time. Needless to say, I expected The Outer Worlds to scratch that same itch since this game is something like a homage to New Vegas.

I know a lot of people have been playing this game but I will stick to screenshots I took from the opening sections to avoid spoilers.

After spending my time with Obsidian’s latest RPG, there is no doubt that The Outer Worlds wears its developmental pedigree on its sleeve. There is something delightfully ‘old-school’ about how it handles itself, and even with a few minor grievances, The Outer Worlds has a truly special experience on offer.

Getting starstruck

I don’t get why so many previews had branded The Outer Worlds as a space opera. Mass Effect (1,2,3 and that crappy one) is a space opera because you have all the intergalactic politics, personal drama and aliens from different races mashed into one. The Outer Worlds, on the other hand, is quite obviously more casual in that you are essentially a space cowboy thrown into the set of 1960’s sci-fi B movie.

After once again spending a little too much time with the surprisingly decent character creator, the adventure begins and I discover I am part of a stranded cargo of colonists in stasis onboard a ship that experienced a malfunction during light speed. A shady-looking fella named Phineas Welles then unexpectedly lands on board and essentially kidnaps one of the pods – namely you – before making a quick getaway from the authorities.

“Noooothing compares… no-THING compares… TO YOU!!!” Don’t worry I didn’t end up saving the colonies as a young Sinead O’Connor

Turns out old Welles has got a bit of the (mad) scientist thing going on because while most people who spent this much time in stasis pop like microwaved egg upon revival, this guy figured out a way to bring people back safely. He only had enough ‘chemicals’ for one person though, and there is still any entire crew floating back on board, so he abruptly sends the player down to the nearest colony to get more.

Originally, it was supposed to be a quick trip down to Edgewater colony, hooking up with a smuggler, and returning to Welles so you can get to work on the rest of the colonists. Yet from the moment you stumble from your escape pod, things immediately turn sour since the ship needed to take you back to Phineas is missing a crucial component, which implies it has all the flying power of a very big paperweight.

Oh, and you kind of crushed your contact with your landing pod so you are basically on you own. Like, completely smooshed him, and just like that, you are Clint Eastwood – the gunslinger lone ranger – finding himself just passing through a little town but inevitably getting dragged into the bigger scheme of things.

So you do what any resourceful space cowboy would do: Befriend the locals and help them out with a few mundane favours on their neglected little deep space colony in the hope that they will give you the parts you need. You gain a few weapons, make some bounty hunting money, convince a tyrannical mayor to be nice and pick up a few stragglers who eventually become your crew.

This has got to be the best ship name EVER, and I am being dead serious.

Before you know it, you and your band of misfits have fixed up the ship, leave Edgewater in your rearview mirror, and the frontier of space is now your oyster. Of course, Phineas Welles wells has moved the goalposts by now. Turns out his motivation for defrosting the crew is to take on a deep space colonisation conglomerate named the Halcyon Holdings Corporation, and he has just found his newest lackey.

Spacing out

If I were to describe what you do in The Outer Worlds, it would probably read like a gameplay review of nearly a hundred other RPG’s. This is a testament to how Obsidian have thrown together something that plays it safe, and opts for a tried and trusted formula that worked in New Vegas, and gives The Outer Worlds a familiar but solid foundation.

For the most part, this works as well as you’d expect.The Outer Worlds uses the old routine of you needing something from NPC’s and they are willing to offer it to you in exchange for a small favour which usually involves your guns doing all the talking. It is the old, ‘I’d do it myself, but reason X prevents me so would you kindly’?

Obsidian even went for the whole talking head thing against a blurred background from New Vegas, and I swear they simply extrapolated the same lip-sync technology from Bethesda’s older games. Why is there no anti-aliasing on their teeth though? Did they copy the goddamn actual teeth from New Vegas too!? Ew!

Anyway, from the moment you have control over you own ship, the goals of Phineas Welles’s beef with Halcyon become the broader aims of the gameplay looming in the background. However, as the player moves between the handful of colonies that represent the areas you can visit, and once they get involved with the humdrum of the settlers, Obsidian goes ahead and does their thing.

From the conversations you have with NPC’s to the world building at large, everything in The Outer Worlds is wholeheartedly steeped in a sardonic, black humour. You see, in the era of space colonisation Halcyon Holdings did what any corporation would do if they had monopoly over settling on other planets, namely capitalise everything, including their employees.

As a result, the game acts as a satire on the preposterous corporate legalese that I am sure the working gamer will be able to relate to on some levels. Many reviews have mentioned the grave digger you encounter as you enter the first colony who explains that inhabitants of Edgewater literally have to lease their own graves (as a commentary on how the bureaucracy cannot be avoided even after death).

An early personal favourite was chatting to an NPC in a factory where they put something called ‘saltuna’ into cans (apparently it’s not fish). I was supposed to pick up a grave fee as a favour to the grave digger, but during our conversation I figured out she was sad over a bunch of paperwork. Seems she is the closest living relative to a person who had just committed suicide.

Was it her brother or something? No, she informed me, she was the closest living person relatively speaking when this worker shot himself. Considering that the factory basically owns him, she has to fill in a report on vandalism to an asset.

It’s Spacer’s Choice!

This little interaction is emblematic of the general tone that Obsidian have endowed upon their game, and it is supported through some utterly superb writing. You can see it in the quirky messages found on random terminals scattered through the environment, or the ridiculous culture of capitalism that has taken over the colonies. “It’s not the best choice, It’s Spacer’s choice!” is actually one product chain’s slogan.

Yet the writing shines at its brightest in the dialogue between the player and the NPC’s. Their lines have been written in a very immediate and engaging format, and they have been executed by great voice acting that never tries to be overly dramatic. I could often have a proper chat with certain characters in the world, and I even returned to the suicide lady at one point because I couldn’t wait to tell her when I discovered something about her co-worker’s suicide. She was genuinely thankful for the news too.

Furthermore, most RPG regulars would notice that The Outer Worlds often presents an above-average number of dialogue responses when you engage with NPC’s. You can be the kind and caring paragon type of captain that always speaks with gentility, or you could basically be Bender from Futurama as you mock the misfortune of others or talk down to people. I even gave a space station engineer the finger once… with both hands!

A space station independent of Halcyon Holdings named Groundbreaker

What’s really nice in all of this chitchat is that the game is willing to offer the player both ways without the cost of the overall experience. I could often lie my way out of all the times NPC’s caught me stealing, or you can intimidate people which might radically change how you can complete a quest. For once, the XP points invested speechcraft actually amounted to something!

The black hole

If you read my stuff, you know that I glorify the Unreal Engine 4 to a point where most would think I am sort of undercover shill. However, my admiration has hit something of a rupture with The Outer Worlds as this game needs some TLC in the optimisation department.

Visually, the game is above average. Obsidian have really committed to this spaghetti western meets 1960’s budget sci-fi movie (including the shrink ray!), so the styling of the levels is very palpable. Aside from those jaggy teeth, the characters have also been rendered with surprising detail, and The Outer Worlds manages to feel distinct enough to set itself apart from most RPG’s that have gone this route.

All I need now is some alien tumbleweed rolling by

Technically, the game needs some work. The frame rate could/should certainly be higher which tells me Obsidian needs economise by culling assets not rendered on-screen, and this is combined with some really terrible texture pop-in. In some areas I would often just wait in one spot for all the surfaces to finish rendering, only to find more pop-in once I started walking forward.

The combat was also rather insipid. Naturally, there is a decent selection of guns, heavy weapons, melee weapons, and armour all of which have stats that players can modify or enhance at workstations. You can tell whoever was the designer lead on combat plays a lot of games like Destiny or Borderlands or Anthem. I was kidding about that last one. No one plays Anthem.

In a game like this, however, the enemies just end up feeling a little bullet spongy. You blast them with huge balls of energy from ray guns, or you zap them with crackling bolts of electricity, but their health bars barely drain. They also do that Bethesda thing where they run to a certain point, and become permanently rooted in place while the player is free to empty their entire arsenal at them.

See Obsidian, this is what I do to enemies that don’t fight back properly! He once had a head!

Space balls

These are more like irritations rather than deal-breakers, and The Outer Worlds remains a gem because it is rare to find games nowadays that invest so much in their moment to moment gameplay. The abundance of huge, open-world RPG’s show that publishers sometimes tend to fixate on the overall experience, whereas it will be the player that must work through all the meaningless little side quests to get there.

As such, The Outer Worlds is the kind of controlled and condensed RPG that I like. This game will set the average player back roughly 30 hours with some change, but there is all the world building, character development and stats manipulation that you can expect in games that are three, even four times longer. Let’s face it, Bethesda has forsaken us, and if Obsidian the kind of company that aims to replace them, the future is certainly a bright one.

Excellent writing

Black humour

Variety of environments

Character interaction

Never overreaches itself

PC optimisation

Slightly repetitive

Combat AI feels dated

Guns lack power

Useless loot

        PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM 

The post The Outer Worlds – Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

The Outer Worlds – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/