The Outer Worlds - Review @ 3CR

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HiddenX

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3CR checked out The Outer Worlds:

Review: Outer Worlds is a Competent Bethesda-like RPG

I love the Fallout series, but I don't love all of the decisions Bethesda has been making in regards to the Fallout series lately. There's the controversy about Fallout 76, and before that, the much maligned Fallout 4. But I have a secret confession: I liked Fallout 4 and even enjoyed many hours of gameplay past what was required for my review for Fallout 76. I could play those games, despite their flaws, and enjoy the world that they occupy. Not just for the lore, and worldbuilding-but for the expansive openness of it, and the ability to go anywhere and see anything. That's why, when I found out Pillars of Eternity, and more notably Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian was working on a new IP that would be sort of like a spiritual successor to Fallout, I was super excited-and early reviews did nothing but accelerate my hype train.

I love the Fallout series, but I don't love all of the decisions Bethesda has been making in regards to the Fallout series lately. There's the controversy about Fallout 76, and before that, the much maligned Fallout 4. But I have a secret confession: I liked Fallout 4 and even enjoyed many hours of gameplay past what was required for my review for Fallout 76. I could play those games, despite their flaws, and enjoy the world that they occupy. Not just for the lore, and worldbuilding-but for the expansive openness of it, and the ability to go anywhere and see anything. That's why, when I found out Pillars of Eternity, and more notably Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian was working on a new IP that would be sort of like a spiritual successor to Fallout, I was super excited-and early reviews did nothing but accelerate my hype train.

[...]

Would my opinion of Outer Worlds change if I wasn't so immersed in the Fallout universe? I'm not sure, obviously. But I feel like most of what I enjoyed from Outer Worlds was because of Fallout, not despite it. Obsidian has done a great job creating a new IP, and making a decently fun role-playing game in it, but I can't help but feel like it's missing something overall. And I'm definitely missing the sense of wonder and exploration the truly open world gave me.

Score: 3/4
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More information.
 
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I am pretty much in the same camp as this reviewer. Is TOW a good game? Yes, it is. But it is so thanks to Fallout. Hell, people who overreact about how good TOW is by giving it more credit than it deserves, do it mostly to spite Fallout, because beating on successful developers that made some mistakes is a fun sport (ie, Jimquisition). On its own TOW just falls short and remains as an averagely good game. That is to say, the Failure that Fallout76 is (and to lesser extent Fallout 4) sold more copies of TOW than Obsidian developers did.
 
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I agree with a lot of the criticism of the gane I've read here at the Watch. I also agree with a lot of the good things I've read.

"Averagely good" is a pretty good way to describe it. I might even go a bit further than that. Atmosphere and setting go a long way with me, and I appreciate the Flash Gordon aesthetic, as well as the homages to Firefly. Charaacter development is weak, which is a shame. While I consider it to be an RPG Lite, if you will, it's one I'm enjoying.
 
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Yeah, I just finished it last night. It was a lot of fun with a decent amount of different solutions to getting through an area and different paths which conversations could take but it also felt like it could have had a bit more depth to areas to explore (with the unexplorable gas giants it felt like there was a 'DLC goes here' sign flashing), opponent types and party characters. One of the better games I've played this year, but won't be in my top ten of all time.
 
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I agree with some of the points the review, but to me the game scores higher. I strongly disagree about the Fallout parts, mainly because I think TOW is great in spite of it's obvious Fallout influences, not because of them. I felt the same way about New Vegas. I do love the original Fallouts, but in large part because of the great writing and character building, which is sorely lacking in F3 onwards. The Outer Worlds is a much more interesting world to me.

Also on the topic of open world, I actually hate it when you can go everywhere at once if that leads to excessive scaling. To me that's not "Go anywhere you wish" it's "It doesn't matter where you go" which is a totally different thing. Without scaling then yeah, I love it if I can go anywhere.
 
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The parts of an RPG they bothered to address they did well, which is more than a lot of devs can say. I can see how Obsidian could pump these out with relative ease. I'd buy the next one, though I hope they continue to work on the scant areas, figuratively speaking. It looks like a pretty smart acquisition by Microsoft to me.
 
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I am not reading reviews yet because I don't want spoilers as I'm I guess 2/3 of the way through the game (40 hours or so).

I am enjoying The Outer Worlds a whole lot and don't see any significant negatives or things which should have been improved. My feeling about it is similar to Greedfall which I also enjoyed a whole lot. Both games give me encouragement in the way these types of games are headed.
 
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Greedfall was pretty unengaging for me. So much running back and forth through similar environments. I'm more engaged with TOW so far, but it is on the bland side. Good writing. Lots of things I love about it. But it's also really, really easy if you've played similar games before. Lots to nitpick. But overall I really like TOW so far.
 
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Except for First Person perspective, don't see virtually anything of Fallout here.
Hell, this is is probably the most unimmersive rpg I've played in years...goofy, cartoonish setting, static world and npcs, loot/itemization/object placement without any logical context, one note worldbuilding/themes, Borderlands color palette, etc...Fallout had a lot of self aware humor and tone inconsistencies, but not to this extent.
It's more like Larian made FPS space rpg.
I expected lot more from Obsidian..except for a lot of skill checks ( which I was never a big fan of) and good dialogue/follower surface level reactivity, it's actually very shallow rpg, with poor writing/characters.
You can literally see how their new writers are far worse, with character writing of Parvatti ( initially handled by Bioware's L'Etoile, until he departed mid project).
I agree that 76 was the best thing to happen to this game, though it has a funny sense of irony to it ( after New Vegas/metacritic incident).
But it's hard to see this game having any memorable legacy: there is virtually nothing here that stands out or hasn't been done better before.
KOTOR 2 had Kreia and subversion of SW thropes, AP ton of c&c, MOTB dark storyline, New Vegas factions&Mr.House..even DS3/NWN 2/Tyranny/PoE's had their moments.
 
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I'm still only 16 hours in due to RL and trying some other games this week, but I think it's better than what a lot of people are claiming. The edgelords over at the Codex are acting like it's the worst game in years in their typical fashion. :rolleyes:

A lot of it might be due to the wrong expectations. Maybe some people thought it was going to be the second coming of Fallout: New Vegas. Personally, my expectations were kind of low because I didn't see anything in the pre-release footage that really grabbed me. I like it quite a bit so far though. It's a step back from FO:NV, but I think it's good on its own and especially if you compare it to other modern Sci-fi RPGs.

That said, it certainly could have been a lot better. The companion AI is pretty bad, and I think the loot system is borderline terrible.

I'm still enjoying it more than I enjoyed Greedfall though. Artistic style and freedom to explore mean a lot to me, and it excels in those areas.
 
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JDR13 said:
I'm still only 16 hours in due to RL and trying some other games this week, but I think it's better than what a lot of people are claiming. The edgelords over at the Codex are acting like it's the worst game in years in their typical fashion. :rolleyes:
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They think every game is the worst game in years. Unless maybe it's an obtuse, ugly looking German indie game from 2005 or something. I'm constantly amazed by how much videogame fans hate videogames, but those folks take all the cakes. Maybe if Chris Avellone sprinkled some magic spunk on it, they would have loved it.
 
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I've only been to 3 of the destinations, but I can see this as a replacement vision of the future compared to Fallout's. Instead of WWIII ending life as we know it via Fallout; Outer Worlds supposes that man keeps developing but that the big corporations ousted the governments at some point. It's just as feasible as the nukes, so this works as a theme.

You can definitely "feel" Fallout 3/4 in different ways, but I think the game stands fine on its own. This has been my favorite Obsidian game outside of the borrowed FNV. However, they really need to work on companion AI. I hate taking anyone with me because I'm playing a sniper and the idiots rush the enemy unless I set them to totally passive. How about let me snipe until they actually find me?
 
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I can't get over the "look" of the game. They made the Unreal engine look like yet another Gamebryo title. Too derivative. I'll probably try it but way later at bargain pricing.
 
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crpgnut said:
You can definitely "feel" Fallout 3/4 in different ways, but I think the game stands fine on its own. This has been my favorite Obsidian game outside of the borrowed FNV. However, they really need to work on companion AI. I hate taking anyone with me because I'm playing a sniper and the idiots rush the enemy unless I set them to totally passive. How about let me snipe until they actually find me?
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? Just them on defensive behaviour. Then they won't attack until you tell them to, but once they're engaged they'll keep at it until the enemies are down.
 
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crpgnut said:
You can definitely "feel" Fallout 3/4 in different ways
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I couldn't.
Even after finishing the game (and of course turning every possible stone) I "felt" absolutely no Fallout anywhere.
As much as I hoped, there was no shotgun wedding for example.

If that's not enough, lemme add some comic that you can't call fallouty:
http://www.double-xp.com/?p=2264
GameComic337-1024x602.jpg


JDR13 said:
The edgelords over at the Codex are acting like it's the worst game in years in their typical fashion. :rolleyes:
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Well, it's not Neo Scavenger 2, so… I can understand their disappointment.
 
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NEO Scavenger was pretty cool. :cool:
 
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I am enjoying it. But it's not really an rpg. But it does have a very thin story. I guess all in all it's a fun game without a ton of real depth.
 
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Pelthin said:
I am enjoying it. But it's not really an rpg. But it does have a very thin story. I guess all in all it's a fun game without a ton of real depth.
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Umm... then what games ARE RPG's? I can understand if a FPS RPG isn't your thing (it's not my favourite genre either) but to say TOW isn't an RPG is quite the stretch.
 
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crpgnut said:
However, they really need to work on companion AI. I hate taking anyone with me because I'm playing a sniper and the idiots rush the enemy unless I set them to totally passive. How about let me snipe until they actually find me?
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I'm not entirely sure, as the two ladies I drag around with me are badass enough I just let them do their thing rushing in, but wouldn't putting them on passive work well enough? You could snipe and then just use the X key to send them in on your target when you're ready for it. You can also make them stand where you want with the Z key. My girls work just fine, although I usually just send them into the middle of things as I pick off folks from the periphery.
 
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