Outcast 1.1

I bought this game when it was first released because i was intrigued by the Voxel technology. A couple of hours later, I had forgotten all about the tech behind the graphics and was instead riveted by the compelling universe, clever gameplay, interesting characters, and epic story. I am getting it again now so I can forever be able to revisit this amazing world on my current and future rigs. This is a stellar game - buy it; you won't be disappointed!

I remember reading a Swedish PC magazine that reviewed this game when it came out, now over ten years ago. It got top marks and the review was titled with "The perfect game?". They were very taken with it, and once you get into the game it's next to impossible to not see why. A musical score nearly unsurpassed and years before its time, visual design that tingles the imagination and a story that is intriguing, surprising and utterly compelling. However, the game had numerous technical issues when run on modern hardware... until now. This is a title that simply shouldn't be missed for any reason.

Expect to spend a lot of time being lost in OUTCAST -- not necessarily with the controls or on getting around (which are adequately explained in a tutorial at the start of the game), but with what and where to go to next. There's a happy medium between "WTF do I do next?" and "Look a shiny quest arrow!" and OUTCAST doesn't quite find it. Much of what you must do in order to proceed can be gleaned through conversing with NPCs, but there's a LOT of exposition in OUTCAST and sometimes the NPCs feel more like triangulation devices than characters. Anyway, that being said, there's a lot to be said about OUTCAST being a good game. It sprawls, for one thing, so folks looking to satisfy their wanderlust will enjoy it. And, as stated before, the game doesn't hold your hand for just about anything, so players who like spending lots and lots of time figuring things out on their own, playing with the world, will also enjoy it. And the exposition. If you're a text-adventure nerd you will get all breathless and puffy with delight at the walls of text that you can plow through to learn about OUTCAST's world, characters, society, history, religion, and why Blartto over by the straw pile is... Other stuff to consider: - The action portion of the gameplay: OK, nothing special. 3rd-person shooty kind of stuff. The gun you start out with is a real peashooter, natch. - Graphics. Well. This is a voxel-based engine, similar to old Novalogic tiles. Back in the day, voxels were the best way to render detailed terrain. Problem is that voxel engines can't be hardware accelerated, so it was all CPU load. Back when this game first came out, CPUs couldn't push res past 512x384, so that's what you're stuck with now, as well, in the era of gigaflop multicore CPUs. There's 3rd party hacks out there to buff this up to 640x480, but they're...problematic. You end up with a limited letterbox res, clunky animations, clunky models, and Minecraft textures. But not altogether bad. - Story and other non-shooty stuff: vast. Detailed. Wordy. I'm not a pure twitch gamer, but the days where I could plow through pages of side story are long buried along with my Amiga. Some folks will love the heavy world-building, and this game. Others won't.

I bought the original release of outcast back when it was brand new, and proceeded to lose myself in perhaps the most atmospheric, enthralling and enjoyable gaming experience I have ever had. Many mediocre films are made great by a wonderful soundtrack... this game would have outshone its counterparts even without one. However, the musical score created for this masterpiece is simply staggering, and adds a deeper, almost primal level of immersion to an already spellbinding adventure. I can't remember another game of its time where your actions truly affect the disposition of the characters within the story, which gave you such freedom to roam and explore, allowed you to fight enemies based purely on your skill and daring rather than on the size of the weapon you had, and which STILL provided such an engrossing storyline with which to captivate your imagination. Side quests, beautiful panoramic views, romance, violence, humour, intellect, risk and an all round level of creativity rarely seen in computer games, leave you lost in admiration. I have playing this game so many times I could almost recite the script verbatim, and yet I still become equally immersed in its wonder as I was that very first time. Buy it.