There's one element I consider necessary for any modern RPG to qualify as a good RPG. I have to be able to tackle the gameplay in a non-lethal manner. I find games which fail at this often fail in other ways. See: BioWare titles, Bethesda titles, and so on. I enjoy pacifistic play. It doesn't matter to me whether this makes the game absurdly difficult, nor does it matter what means this non-lethal play is achieved by (stealth, stun weaponry, diversionary tactics, et al). However, I do tend to find it difficult to get into a story if I'm playing a psychotic serial killer. In an action game, being murder crazy is the standard since it's not about story, characters, or roleplaying. What do you remember of the characters of GTA V beyond that they're all utterly nutso and quite evil? In an RPG though where I'm supposed to feel immersed and I'm to bond with characters? Forcing me to be a murder-hobo just pulls me right out of the experience. I don't approve, nor do I condone. An RPG isn't about watching numbers get bigger for me. A good RPG is founded on the concept of choice and consequence. I choose to play the way I desire, I deal with whatever the game throws at me for my choice. The trailer and 15 minute gameplay video of The Outer Worlds got me excited for some Sci-Fi RPG fun. And since I spotted that Elex was on sale, I thought I'd give it a punt. I wish I hadn't. In that 15 minute Outer World video, one of the earliest things mentioned is that you can gas wild animals rather than kill them, and that this action is the player's choice, whether you did or did not having repercussions. In Elex, right out of the gate you're forced to be a murder-hobo. It's gutting. I admit, the last Piranha Bytes game I tried was Gothic III, in that game, not being a murder-hobo was trivial. Combat didn't kill folks, you could make them subservient. Animals didn't run at you like a Mario goombah with a deathwish. I was just expecting more.
It doesn't have the magic of prior Myst titles. One of the biggest problems is the writing, it's bad. It focuses around a conflict-related plot that didn't need to happen. They could have instead gone with a plot based around the four races presented by the game using too much power, which has damaged the structure of the artificial reality they found themselves in, and then having to go into suspended animation to reserve what they have left. With a handful of 'remainers' sticking around to fix up the place. With the ending being that all the races get to go home, though some choose to stay and try to repair all the harm they caused. A meaningful choice for the player then might have been whether they want to stay or go. It would be a lot of work to repair all of the damage, but they'd prefer to stay in this incredible place surrounded by wonder rather than returning home. Or they're homesick, and tired, and they just want it all to be done with. And they'd have company, since some people were even born there and they'd want to stay, too. Instead, no, it was all about evil aliens. The ending was about the goody two-shoes getting to go home to dullsville, away from all that terrible alien stuff, back to terra firma familiar. It felt xenophobic and a little unsettling, and completely out of place in a Cyan game. On top of that? The characters in the game are flat, rather than round, which is to say they're all one-dimensional and presented in very black & white tones. They only really exist to info-dump. The humans are all always goody two-shoes that want to do right by everyone, with no variance. No one's greedy, or selfish, or shows any actual human traits to speak of. Compare this to the intrigue and more grey tones of the DRC in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and you'll see what I mean. The next issue is the locations. Instead of focusing on bizarre, atmospheric, strange, magical places steeped with unknown history and filled with alien technology, with peculiar animal life pitter-pattering about? You know, the sorts of things that made Myst famous? The first area you find yourself in, the only area that's actually got any size to it? Well... It's New Vegas. The aesthetic of the first age (and it is the only area with any size to it) is that of New Vegas. It's a junk world in a desert... And while some aspects of it are executed better, I feel that the commonness of the concept did it no favours. I feel that this focus on humanity and an overly familiar junkworld setting was a cowardly appeal to a soporific mainstream. That doesn't work though, and they've ended up pulling a Sunset Overdrive. A game which is still too fantastic for the mainstream, but not remotely fantastic enough for their fans. The alien ages, by comparison, are so small they feel almost vestigial. They're just barren, with no alien animal life to speak of (compared to the vibrant alien animal life in every age of Uru). There's also very little trace of what kind of life the sapient aliens there lived. And that's a real crime because the alien races who inhabited these worlds sounded so wondrous in concept, I'd have loved to learn more about them, their home world, and their ecology. And if it were written better, I would have. If it were written better, there could have been fun politicking between the races about power usage; Who's using the most, and who's not being transparent enough about what they are using. We could have learned more about the alien races and how they think that way, as they all struggle to survive. But no, it's about fightin' them aliens and winnin' them wars! How utterly banal and... just disappointing. And that's what Obduction is. It's a disappointment. It's not a bad game by any means, but it's an uninspired, boring game that feels half-baked. I'd never have expected that from Cyan. You give me brilliantly alien races and then next to no chance to learn about them! The little focus that even occurred within this game (with its profound lack of depth always showing) was spent on the humans. Whoop-de-doo. I have other games that focus on humans, Cyan. I play your games to experience something truly alien. And it's in this way in particular that Obduction is such a total let down. Conclusion: This was a game someone else could have made. Not a bad game, but certainly not a Cyan game. And a Cyan game is what I bought it for.
There's a whole lot of quasi-philosophical nonsense and pseudo-intellectual navel-gazing going on, here. It ruins what would otherwise have been a fantastic experience of romantic exploration, for me. It just reeks of trying too hard to be smarter than everyone else, arrogant about its own opinions, without having any real substance to back it up. It's also needlessly convoluted and not a particularly fun experience. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a much better choice. Black humour, it's actually clever, and it won't ever try to over-exert itself to screech at you about how clever it is. Unlike PS:T. PS:T is desperate for you to believe it's smart. It's that pseudo-intellectual emo kid at school that writes bad poetry and makes obvious observations about life, dressed up in flowery words plucked from a thesaurus. Not a fun time.
Following Fallout 2, Tactics is most likely my favourite Fallout game. Some fans go nuts about it, but it's mostly due to some entirely clerical errors which can be so easily explained away with the slightest modicum of imagination that they're not even worth considering. But you know how purist fans are, they don't have any imagination, so they learn something to the point of gospel, only to hate it as though it were their art. Like I said, fans are bad karma, mon. The worst kind. Fallout suffers the trope of Fandumb more than any other game I've seen, which is a shame. The thing is, it's an amazing game. Not only is it a competent squad based tactics game, but it feels right, too. I loved Fallout 2, I can't stress this enough, it's one of my all time favourites and it's only improved over time with mods like killap's Restoration Project. So I love 2, 2 is my fave overall, but Tactics is a damn close second, it's really under-appreciated. The thing that bothers me I suppose is that when you play Tactics, you'll get the feel of a Fallout game, more than you will with either 3 or New Vegas. 3 is a good game, just not particularly a Fallout, it's puerile, and a bit... challenged in the mind department as far as RPGs go. New Vegas is fantastic, a return to form, and my third favourite Fallout game (following Tactics), but it has a stick up its arse and takes itself too seriously. Apparently being intellectual is serious business, and being intellectual and funny would be too intimidating for most players. Bah! Doctor Who is intellectual and funny. Learn from that, games developers! Suffice it to say, this game is also that way, it'll make you laugh, and it'll make you think. That's what the best Fallout games did, sometimes they'll even offend and upset, but that's what the best Fallout games did, too. And overall, it's just an entertaining game set in a post apocalypse that doesn't take itself entirely seriously. Just as Fallout 2 didn't. The special encounters from 2 are there, and the humour is still as golden and true to form as it was in 2. One of the biggest complaints you may hear from fans about Fallout Tactics (and this might be spoilery) is that they aren't really like the Brotherhood. Well, no, they're not. The intro of the game actually explains away this argument, but people keep piping up with the same old argument. See, normally the Brotherhood are a monastic order, they hide away technology and guard it so that it can't destroy the world again. But due to their limited numbers, they're having a hard time. With Fallout 1, there was a vote: whether to start taking on new recruits and providing services in exchange for services, to keep the Brotherhood going, or to get by as they always had. They chose to simply go on as they always had. But of course, some disagreed. This is where Fallout Tactics picks up, and it isn't the shambles of a saintly order of paladins that you might think it is. It's more of a town guard scenario, the Brotherhood are still a monastic order, still very militaristic, and their primary goal is still to secure technology and guard it from the world. Their holy grail in this story is the heralded Vault 0, which you quest for. There are so many things in this game though that you'll laugh out loud at, so many things that will make you smile, and things that will make you think. If you're not a purist, if you can look past some clerical errors, then you'll see that this game has the heart, soul, and passion of a Fallout game. It's better at that in my opinion than either 3 or New Vegas were. 3 and New Vegas are fantastic games, but Tactics still feels like a Fallout game. Tactics feels closer to Fallout 2 than 3 or New Vegas could, really. Closer than 3 could ever. So I can't recommend this enough. It's hard, I'll say that, but there are mods that can give you an edge if you want an easier time, and there are some crazy mods out there, there are mods that rework the weapons, mods with entirely new campaigns(!) which are really well done, and mods which even do wonderfully crazy things like adding races, so you can play as a super mutant, a ghoul, a robot, or even a hairy (sapient) deathclaw! Consider that the base game will last you 60 hours, and that the mods will take you much further than that. There's true value here. If you've never played Tactics but you've played any other Fallout game, you'll likely love this, so much. And if you haven't played Fallout, then this is as good a place as any to start if you like squad-based games. I'm sure it'll make you as happy as it does me, unless you're one of the plague of purists. :p Go on, treat yourself, you won't be disappointed.
