Outlaws + A Handful of Missions (Classic, 1997)

I played this game ages ago when I was a kid, so after seeing that it was on sale I figured why not try it again. So I installed it in the morning....next thing I know end credits are rolling and it is around 9:00 PM.... I can't remember the last time I played an entire story in a single day, but yeah it is as good as I remember. Allow me to break down the pros and cons. Pros: 1)Great difficulty variety, easy to hard plus invincibility if you want it. 2)Enemies play smart. Enemies often use cover and guys with shotguns have a tendancy to wait for you to come to them. 3)Game is tough but fair, in my entire playthrough I never got angry once at the many deaths, because I felt it was my mistake. Damage recieved is based on distance and where they hit you. Round a corner too quick and not notice a regular enemy and you go from full health to dead. 4)Bosses are not huge bullet sponges. Some bosses died in a few shots. Some may say that is not much of a boss fight, but considering the bosses are just people with no body armor it makes sense. The challange comes from the fact that most of them will one-hit-kill you. This means boss fights are tough, but not long drawn-out affairs that get annoying. 5)Great weapon variety and all of them are great. Even late game, starting weapons are still good. 6)The "Doctors" death cutscene is awesome! Cons 1)Enemies never stop saying "Where are you Marshal?" and "You're outnumbered" 2)Graphics did not age well. 3)Enemies never stop saying "Where are you Marshal?" and "You're outnumbered" 4)Game does not handle being minimized very well, at least on my system, which would be fine except for the fact that to rebind controls or adjust other settings it minimizes the game and brings up a window. Basically be sure to save your game before changing settings, in case it crashes the game. 5)Enemies never stop saying "Where are you Marshal?" and "You're outnumbered" In all a good story-driven old-school game whose gameplay is still fun.

A blast from the past. Had a great time replaying this game. The last time I played it was back in 1997! I had to use a walkthrough for various places as it's not 100% obvious as to where you're supposed to go or what to do. But regardlesss of that, it's great fun to blast away cowboys in this game.

When I played the demo back in the 90's one I was totally impressed by the music. It was and still is truly a masterpiece what Clint Bajakian composed, definitely one of the best game soundtracks of all time. The rest of the game is an OK'ish first-person shooter, even if measured by the standards of its time. The structural level design is good, but the hunt for not always obvious hidden passages, keys etc. is tiring and not fun at all compared to the best and better FPS games which already existed at that time. If you want a Western-themed FPS from the 90's this game runs without competition, buy it for the music alone! If you already played through all the famous FPS of that time and want more - well, try it, but be prepared for some cumbersome key hunting in often sparsely lit passages. If that aspect always bothered you and you don't care about the soundtrack - stay away.

Everyone should have this game, just because of this piece of music art. With "Outlaws" theme, every single game would look cool.

Don't let the janky graphics put you off. At difficulty "Bad" and "Ugly" you need fast reflexes to kill your enemy before they take a large piece of your life down with them. Lots of fun if you opt to not rely on the save feature. Graphics can be sharpened by entering the nGlide Settings which will show up in your start menu, select your resolution and for aspect ratio select preserve. It will still be 4:3 but will be full resolution. FOV cannot be adjusted. Where are you, Marshal?