The Outer Worlds

I found this game extremely mediocre at launch, it felt like a competently constructed RPG framework, that didn't do anything interesting and as a result left me almost constantly bored. The writing is abysmal, despite the serious situations unraveling in the colonies the game just keeps treating everything as a joke and it didn't give you any options to take matters into your own hands. You are always required to conform to the limited options set by the writing. As a result, none of the choices, including the "secret" third peace options, felt worth doing in the slightest. I tried to replay this recently in preparation for The Outer Worlds 2 and I couldn't bring myself to even get to the halfway point before I wanted to do literally anything else that didn't involve playing this game. I hope to god the sequel is a major improvement in the writing and isn't just a rehash of what transpired here.

It's funny, it's fun, there's space, there's choices and there's guns 👍

I played the game a fair bit, but couldn't finish - the game can't load any of the saves for some reason - maybe it's GoG Galaxy, but it never happened before. I doubt I'll replay the 17 hours I spent on it so far. But to the point - how's the game? Plot has a few holes and stupid stuff from the get go. You're rescued from a ship just to be taken to a secret asteroid base of a mad scientist. You're then dropped down onto a planet to meet a guy who's supposed to meet you - but he dies and you take his place. But his ship is broken (why is it broken? Don't know) so you have to steal The Vital Part from one of the factions on the planet. Why is it the only place you can get this part and it's in walking distance? Because the plot wants it. So after you make enemies with one of the factions, you take off and go to... the secret asteroid base. Why send you to the planet in the first place? Don't know. But then you're free to go wherever. Writing is okay, but characters are as bland as they go. Your companions are as milquetoast as they get, the only interesting one was Vicar Max. Maybe the other two I didn't meet yet are good, but one is a literal robot (who might be more human than the rest for all I know). Most people you meet are females with coloured hair for some reason - the world is painted as bleak, without necessities like food or water, but I guess hair dye is in ample supply. Speaking of the world - corporations are the new government, hellbent on just having as much power as they can get, feeding their own people be damned. Propaganda is everywhere, nonsensical decisions are being made that benefit nobody and people are poor and starving, working at factories that produce stuff nobody needs. We've doing space communism now I guess! Graphics are amazing, art design of everything is pretty great, voice acting and music are also great. Gameplay itself is fine, there's weapons to choose from and they feel like from an FPS. But too bad I can't finish the game.

The game looked like something right up my alley. Created a character, so far, so good. This really feels right up my alley. Oh damn, it froze. Nevermind, this can happen. Now, I'm almost at the space ship aaaand the game freezes again. Crap. Try to repair the installation and it's working again. Until it's not, freezes and crashes to desktop. Repair the installation again and take graphics down a fes notched although I had chosen the recommended settings and my system is well above the requirements. Crashes again. Okay, I give up. This game looks and feels like something I could have loved playing but I'm not putting up with bad ports. Therefore, I requested a refund.

The whole enonomy makes no sense. You get absolutely flooded with items, which are all the same, but have different names, hence you need to read them, juand cluster your inventory. It is developed for console st too figure out, they all do the same and it shows big time, which is an incredible burden. Those items don't get stacked, but use up an inventory slot of their own, so your inventory floods. I bought it on sale and this one of very few reviews I ever made. It is not worth it, even though it has charme to its jokes. The never ending repairing of your guns after every single fight. I play it on the hardest difficulty and even there the fighting is an absolute joke. You can just run around enemies, they have no brains, can fire at you with laser guidance, all in all urgghhhh. But if one doesn't play on hardest difficulty the game is just simply boring, on the other hand it is extremely tedious on the hardest difficulty. I don't know if you have to repair your guns after every fight, if one plays on easy to hard mode, but I never read anything else and the ammount of items, that get thrown at the player, also don't speak for it. After every fight you end up with the same items (guns, armor, food) in your inventory thrice. Then you got to dismantle them, but for that you need to open the inventory, then navigate to them in an unstructred inventory system and then even need to confirm it. This in itself costs so much time... Then there is the perk system, which feels absolute obsolete, cause many perks just feel lack luster. They maybe usefull, but absolutely boring. "You can go faster", "you can sprint faster", "you can carry more" and so on. But you need to get that one and only perk, that safes your equipment from deteriorating 25% slower. And that is all one gets, so you still have to repair your weapons every single fight. Who thinks of something like this???? The characters are kind of funny, but that is not enough for a game.