For all the times a game comes up where I have some history, for once we have a blank slate. I knew the game is supposed to be good, so when Epic offered it for free, I decided "yeah, I'll take it." It was that simple with that little thought necessary. But as I finish the game, I'm kinda glad I didn't give it any more thought. I would not call it a must play, but I had a lot of fun with it.
Story: You never were supposed to wake up. You had left Earth on the Hope, one of two ships sent out to establish the Halcyon colony, but it didn't make it. The remaining ship (the Groundbreaker) unloaded on it's own and your fate was left as a mystery for legends to be told of....
...at least until the Hope was found drifting at the edge of colony space 70 years later. But the corporate Board of directors who now run the place really didn't know what to do with it. To reveal this to the public might cause unrest, and they had much bigger fish to fry then a mere half of the original colonists that were supposed to setup the place suddenly arriving and in a condition that could be incredibly dangerous to wake up from (no one had been in cryosleep this long and lived through the reanimation process). So they did nothing, choosing their bottom line over the chance to save these lives. But for one outlaw mad scientist, this was simply unacceptable, and Phineas Wells figured out a way to restore these poor souls, stealing aboard the Hope to retrieve who he could to revive.
On one hand, he really only had time to rescue one colonist from this icy grave. But on the other, you were the lucky one to escape this fate. But you are not given much time to enjoy your fortunate twist of fate, for the man pretty much woke you up in a drop pod. You see, his ship was damaged escaping security with you in tow, so he can neither collect more colonists to revive, nor the chemicals he needs to do it safely and that's where you come in. You are to rendezvous with a bounty hunter who Phineas hired to help you get these things and this drop pod was to put you directly in contact with the man for the mission. This may have gone a little too exactly as you find yourself having landed directly on the the now ex-captain, and you accidentally inheriting his ship: the Unreliable.
From this basic point, you will carve a path through the stars as you proceed to do your best with one goal in mind... save the people you left Earth with.... or not. The game leaves your motivations entirely up to you. You can be the kindest most selfless man in the galaxy, a sarcastic grumpy asshole with a heart of gold, a selfish piece of shit who's actions are always and ever looking out for number one, an absolute psychopath who murders everyone in sight, or a good mix of all of the above. I have to give credit to the writers here for making the character really feel your own through the writing however you choose to play them. How this might effect the story however, I do not know. I expect it wouldn't sway too much beyond the endings you get, simply due to the need for certain events in order for everything to make sense. And sadly this flexibility does come at a cost: the main story really doesn't have a lot to it. For an RPG it's incredibly simple... like the original Final Fantasy might just be as complex as the base tail we weave here. Still if you are in it to make your own way instead of follow the script someone else wrote, this may well be to your liking.
And it's not like the game doesn't have plenty of tangents to see to on your way either. There's a ton of things to do to get distracted from side missions of your own to special quests for your crew members to even two expansion packs that will become available one you are high enough level. It may not be in the core story, but there is a lot of lore here and a lot of grounds to enjoy if you are so inclined to explore and find it.
8/10
Graphics: Simply put this game is gorgeous, as one should expect from a modern day AAA game. You will find yourself playing this title from a first person perspective, and the worlds you will explore are vast and unique. From the fantastic and outlandish landscapes of Terra 2 populated by strange alien plant life. Later worlds will house more desert-like lands with green smoke billowing off acidic pools: and that's without talking about either the outposts and cities you will find yourself in. The landscapes are often breathtaking, but the details that make it up are simply exceptional and clearly whoever was in charged loved this project for the care that went into these worlds.
And the creatures that will share these worlds with you also look very good. Giant insect-like creatures, feathered dog-like aliens, and even alien apes, this lands will be populated by some very unique creatures you will have to deal with. Some are indifferent to humans among them, while others want to rip you apart as soon as they see you. And then we can get to the robots you will have to deal with. This game does take place in a future where mankind has reached out to the stars, so of course they will take some security measures of this nature, and not all of them will be happy to see you.
But the real population that will stand out here are your fellow human beings, and it's clear most of the modeling work went here, just for the pure variety. you see, anything you can wear can be worn by anyone, and this game offers a lot of gear which is used to carry the feel of any given place. And the people themselves look good doing it, opting for a style that isn't quite realistic, but closing on it enough to just feel right in this virtual world.
It all just fits very well.
8/10
Sound: Sadly, this game is also very much a modern AAA game when it comes to sound: the music is nothing that is going to stand out beyond it's moment and generally be yet more grand orchestrational works that are meant to sound impressive but all just blends together. Nor are the sound effects going to be anything particularly impressive either. All your weapons make their appropriate clangs and things when you hit someone with them and all the guns sound good enough, but nothing sounds really impressive. Meanwhile monsters and robots clunk around about as expected as well.
No, once again we have a game who's sound palette is pretty much dominated by the voice work, which is absolutely brilliant. Every single character you encounter is voiced and anyone with actual conversation brought their A game to the table. You will have some favorites as you play and even some you will consider absolute asshats before you are done. In fact I can personally attest to two of my crew getting their personal story maxed strictly because I liked them as characters, while a 3rd I refused to move forward because I decided she was an absolute asshole who deserved nothing.
Enjoy the performances.
7/10
Gameplay: As noted previously, The Outer Worlds is a first person game, but it is not a straight forward shooter. Rather it is a blend between shooter and RPG, and if you have played Fallout 3/New Vegas, you will likely have a good idea of just what you are walking into. Even as I have not played them, the vibe oozed so strongly I have a hard time believing this game could be seen any other way.
But for those who haven't, your first order of business is to decide who exactly was in that croysleep chamber Phineas was able to pinch before security threatened to pinch him in return. You will be given a descent character customization system which will give you some basic starting points and let you control everything else from hair color to age.... but the real fun is about your stats. Choosing personality demeanors (both for good and bad) as well as skills and your career before you shipped off Earth, you will basically build a short picture of what your life you left behind was probably like in your head as you craft a starting point for how you will play. Not that you will be tied to anything, mind you. There are not so much classes as a starting point here, since as you play, you will find yourself leveling up, gaining a handful of points each time that you can spend at any time to increase those base stats you selected at the beginning... at least for a while, anyway. Each of these stats influences a couple of skills and when you upgrade the stat, you spend one point to upgrade all it's skills... up to a point. Once a skill reaches a certain level, it will require you to spend a point directly on it, making upgrades from that point on that much more expensive. Still you shouldn't have any trouble getting enough points to run with whatever build plan you come up with. Add to this an absolutely insane variety of equipment you will find and this becomes all the more true.
If anything this might be the one real weakness in the game: balance. You see, in the original game you had one main quest and the game was balanced well for it. But this remaster includes both DLC campaigns the game eventually got as part of the base experience. Rather you will unlock them based on the level you reach. This wouldn't be an issue if the first one you get to did not remain balanced like it was end game even though you will likely gain access before you are 1/3rd through the adventure. The result of playing it then is you getting such awesome gear and so many levels that you can basically steamroll the rest of the game without a single concern. It all becomes way too easy. And for how well the combat plays, this is kinda a shame since once you do this, you can basically walk through it without having to really try while playing.
7/10
Bugs: While this game ran exceptionally well on my machine, it did not run perfectly. The game did crash to the desktop exactly once before I was finished and I have no idea why. I didn't get any kind of error message... I was just suddenly on my desktop. Again, it only happened once over almost 70 hours of gameplay so I don't think it was a big deal. However, I still have to note it since anything that does happen can happen.
Digital Rights Management: This is suprisingly a DRM free game! Whatever launcher you install it from (Epic, Steam or GOG) is not needed to run the game once the game is installed. The exe alone will run just fine.
Score: Honestly, this is a very solid game, and if you have a taste for action RPGs and first person shooters, you will likely enjoy the blend here. If you enjoyed previous Fallout games Bethesda released, you already should expect to enjoy this one. And if Dilbert style humor amuses you, you have that much more to look forward to. Just be aware if you want the game to keep it's combat engaging you may have to ignore the temptation of the expansion packs till you are well into it, lest they make the game FAR too easy.
7/10
System Requirements:
- Intel Core i7-6700 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600
- 12 GB RAM
- Geforce GTX 1060 6 GB or Radeon RX 590
- 62 GB hard drive space
- Windows 10 (64-bit only)
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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