The Outer Worlds

Outer Worlds is like an ancient chimera or Frankenstein's monster. It very obviously combines elements of Mass Effect, Bioshock, Deus Ex, Fallout New Vegas, Borderlands and Vampire: The Masquerade. Taking inspiration from so many titles results in a game that tries too many things at once, not expanding enough on any of them. It has multiple factions, but the reputation system does not lead to anything truly major aside from ending slides. Companions are generic and have absurdly short quest lines and some almost no character development. The player has access to multiple skills, but raising them never really felt like a difference other than being able to pass dialogue skill checks and access better loot easier. There's a lot of different guns and armor to collect and tinker with, but it does not feel rewarding and truly game changing. Almost everything is based on a solid idea, but not using the potential. The story is a classic without any major plot twists or giving evil characters interesting alternatives, but the combination of serious moments (bonus points for the ship's snarky AI) with corny humor works for the game and makes it a lot more enjoyable. There are truly spectacular moments and memorable scenes - too bad they are buried behind absolute basic fetch quests. It's also too short. I finished every single quest and explored locations left and right in just about 33 hours, jsut when I was getting into the story... Presentation is nice, with unique atmosphere to the planets, creatures, evil corporations and crazy color palette. The game runs flawlessly, is a visual gem in terms of style and has a soundtrack that you can fall in love with. All things considered, I still had fun, but I'm happy I bought it on a sale - for a full price I'd be disappointed.

One would expect this game to have some real and full spirit, That just maybe it could have a writing worth reading. At least based on the (sold, ehm.. sorry) names during promo. No this game has absolutely nothing in common with RPGs with provoking but believable writing. Characters are made to be acceptable by masses, but otherwise dull, generic and unbelievable. World authenticity is completely sacrificed to casual gameplay based on cloned business recipes - thousands of items you won't care about as they are scattered all around at every absurd corner. Everywhere you look you can literally hear the shouting: Don't forget this is just a business game for casuals! Move along, waste of time, money and most importantly your belief in content. Oh, if you happen to be casual consumer consider yourself a target audience.

Visuals and mechanics are mostly Fallout 4 but the structure is closer to Mass Effect 1: this is NOT a sprawling, Bethesda-style open world; it's a mostly linear series of smallish maps. The biggest failure of Outer Worlds is the lack of immersion and world-building of either of those series. Loot is the best example. (Almost) every item is a weapon or armour, lockpick, hackpick, med or ammo. This streamlining has benefits but ruins the sense of lived-in reality when every building and container is filled with ammo, drugs and lockpicks (be it a restaurant, bathroom, church, prison cell...). It never feels like anyone owns these things; they feel like FPS item pickups. But it goes further. Every planet has the same hostile wildlife and personalityless Raider stand-ins which respawn with obvious distance triggers that feel artificial, like Far Cry 2 enemy camps. (Writing) I won't dwell on the plot except to say your character has no specific motivation for most of the game (VERY similar to Rage 1). Thematically, the corporate commentary is as deep as Dora the Explorer. This isn't about "bad politics" or politics in games being bad; it's about being bad at it. Simply presenting a caricature isn't making a clever point. It fails at satire yet it's too cartoonish to take seriously. (Roleplaying) Meaningful choice is about TESTING beliefs; it is NOT simply expressing pre-existing beliefs over and over again – that’s no better than a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Obsidian have an on-off relationship with this concept and Outer Worlds was clearly created during an off phase. Choices aren't nuanced or interesting: just 2 competing caricatures and you pick the one you like less to ruin (often in a menu). Worse, character expression is at its blandest where you just click a menu option to bypass combat if you have the skill – Persuade, Hack and Science all feel the same to use. Quests may look broad in a wiki summary but the different paths aren't interesting to PLAY.

First I will start by saying that I am a female in my mid 40's with several kids. I've never said that in a review but I think it could be relevant due to the nature of some of my views in the current climate. The game play is very easy. I prefer melee game play and all I did with this game was spam the attack button while moving and jumping. I'm glad it was easy because this game just got me down so much & I just wanted to get it over with. There is no shortage of weapons and armour. You pick them up everywhere. You end up having to dump most of it as you are constantly over encumbered. Lots of customization options that I didn't even bother with. I ended up using the one weapon I picked up at the start and just kept upgrading the damage. It got to the stage that I was annoyed at getting loot and I am a bit of a loot obsessive - in Fallout I picked up every burnt book & sold them. The narrative is nothing spectacular. The NPC's and side quests were so annoying. The quests were all: you need a thing, you need to go to someone to get that thing, that someone won't give you the thing until you get them a thing, that next thing won't give you the thing until you do something from them, and so on. I ended up cutting off dialogue and not caring about what dialogue choices I made. The NPC's weren't interesting and I wished I could have killed most of them. Not open world. All the areas are linear and there is nothing to explore or discover off the path, except for maybe a loot chest. I've played my fair share of buggy and unfinished games that haven't annoyed me as much as this game. What angered me most about this game? The obvious social justice issues that were rammed in my face with nearly every NPC interaction. The SJW themes were thrown into everything. All the heroes and smart people were women. The evil, incompetent and dumb people were all men. Just make a game, stop telling me how to live my life. I need to go back to Witcher 2 to cleanse myself of this.

The Outer Worlds had a lot going for it in the first part of the game and most of it fell flat on it's face in the second half. Pros -Interesting characters and npcs -great art design -Player agency -Fantastic opening segment -Good RPG mechanics, provides solutions to problems based on the players skillset Cons -After Edgewater every location seems exactly the same -nothing really sets the corporations apart, they all use the exact same armor and weapons with nothing but a palette swap -Loot is boring, you can find basically everything within the first 5 hours of the game. After which point you're picking up the same guns and armor all the time. Would have been better if they had ditched the random loot and expanded on the existing weapons and armor in interesting ways. -Can't continue playing after finishing main storyline. -Way too many consumables. There are a handful of effects (6 or so, can't remember the exact number) which is fine. However each corporation has it's own version of space booze, and you end up with 10 different stacks of items in your inventory which all do the same thing. Grouping these items together in the UI would have alleviated this problem. -The board is comically evil, I doubt anyone would side with them for any reason outside of roleplaying. -Mods are basicallly irrelevant.