Outcast vs. Gothic

Hey,

I've just tried Outcast for the first time and I have to say that I'm very impressed. This game reminds me so much of how Gothic feels right now, but I'm not very far into it. The use of graphics and atmosphere are very unique, as if the world-- just like in Gothic. I know there are a lot of people that yearn for the Gothic feel, and some have mentioned Wizardry 8 for that, but currently I feel Outcast may be a whole new dose of Gothic-like RPG…

Why didn't this game get more media attention around 1999? I mean, it's the only other game I know apart from Gothic 3 that uses depth of field!! And apparently it uses a software renderer that has shadows and anti-aliasing!!

It did get attention, IIRC. The reason it didn't sold well enough (I think so, at least), is probably because of that software renderer you talk about. Most people at the time didn't have a PC powerful enough to handle it properly.

They even tried to make a sequel, but it was canceled.

I agree it's a little bit like Gothic, e.g. you have to collect five "mons" ( … focus stones).

I for myself especially enjoyed the music - the theme played in the big desert city is one of my favourite soundtracks of all time.

Thaurin,

Where did you find a copy of Outcast? Or are you talking about the demo?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi…8&s=videogames

i picked up a copy about 2 years ago off amazon. all i got was the cds an for some reason before i even got it the seller sent me a refund because he said he listed it inacurately and felt bad. score for me. it captured my interest for the first couple hours but i guess i wasn't patient enough. the sound didn't play right all the time, maybe the reason for the refund. the graphics do seem amazing for the time released but the resolution is less than 300x300. so i imagine it would look alot better on a laptop. i would like to give it another go someday but its not to high up on my stack of games to be played… or replayed

I think I read their was a bug in the options resulting in wrong resolutions. You had to choose the lowest to get the highest, which should be close to 640*480.

thanks for the heads up Gorath! although i don't have hopes it will run now on my system. just a few days ago i went to load and replay martian gothic:unification on my rig and couldn't get it to run. i'm almost postive i had xp installed the last time i played it, but i did upgrade my video card over a year ago…maybe i'll load both up on my old pentium 3 laptop.

I've never had the full version, but the demo ran just fine on a newer system with windows xp pro when I played it again last year.

Outcast is one of my favourite games. It made great use of Voxelspace technology too, which gives it it's unique look. As an action adventure with a big "living" world, semi-free exploration and NPC interaction it does indeed share similarities with Gothic. I think I should replay it some time.

Outcast was/is a great game !

Originally Posted by JDR13
Thaurin,

Where did you find a copy of Outcast? Or are you talking about the demo?

Don't hurt me, I downloaded it. *hides* I was young and curious! The company that made it is dead, so it arguably can be considered abandonware I figure. I just enjoy finding old obscure stuff that I have missed and is hard or impossible to get. I will probably only play it for a couple of hours anyway. I have this insatiable hunger to try everything that's out there. Currently, I have over 25 games installed on my PC, most of which are old games I bought years ago. And I still want to find out if this or that title really is as great as it's supposed to be. Then when I've seen it, I usually lose interest very fast. I blame the damn media age. Too much input!

I still buy more games than I can play (and subsequently never finish any of them). I never even installed Icewind Dale 1 + 2, Beyond Divinity, NWN, and hardly played many other games like Diablo II, Dungeon Siege, Runaway: A Road Adventure, Oblivion, Gothic 3, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate 2, the list goes on… all played for a mere few hours. It's crazy. It's a disease!

There's a demo, though?

Well … Outcast ? I have it here, still unplayed, once bought for a few bucks somewhere.

The thing I liked far most about this game are the Outtakes ! These small videos are really hilarious !

(Should be still available somewhere.)

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I blame the damn media age. Too much input!

Could be that you're a "highly sensitive person" (HSP). Check out www.hsperson.com to find out more about it !

Interesting … I'd heard of it before, but never played. Just noted there are a few copies on Goozex so I asked for one

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The thing I liked far most about this game are the Outtakes ! These small videos are really hilarious !

(Should be still available somewhere.)

Yes, found them here. Can't watch them now at work, though. http://www.outcast-thegame.com/gallery/outindex.htm

The dance scene for the credits was pretty funny too!

One of the coolest things in the game for me was that you actually got to learn some of the alien language. I have a fascination with lost languages and writing systems, so this really appealed to me.

I did a quick check today and couldn't see where the game could be bought (here) and I couldn't find any sites for downloading it as abandonware either!! Pity, it sounds intriguing!!

Amazon has a couple of copies.

I just got lucky last night. I've been reading this post, so my interest has been sparked in this game that I took a pass on when it first came out. So, last night I looked on ebay and there was a complete, boxed copy up for auction that was ending in minutes. There were no bids, so I put in a bid and won the game for $1. After $10 for shipping (it's coming from Canada to me in the US) I would call that a great bargain.

Thanks for the info on this (hopefully) great game.

narpet

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Outcast was/is a great game !

Maybe. but no way it was/is a RPG.

No, it's not really an RPG, more like an action adventure game. I still think it bears similarities with Gothic in terms of gameplay and atmosphere, though… even though it's a sci-fi setting versus a fantasy setting.

The graphics style is rather unique. The voxel engine is really interesting, just like real-time ray-tracing engines are to me. This game had depth of field and anti-aliasing all without hardware acceleration before any other game that I know of!

The graphics are still blocky, but with a lot of style. The story looks to me a lot of fun.