The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[Ivan]

chilling music

 

[Kaivokz]

Are weapons really that limited? One thing the game does not do very well is convey information. For example, you can get a special prototype plasma pistol and if you only look at the hover tool-tip it seems like a mediocre plasma pistol. However, if you right click it, there is a little description which tells you that the bullets ricochet off of most surfaces. Paired with the fact that the plasma bolts are pretty big (easy to bounce around corners and into enemies), it's actually a pretty neat gun. Unless you try it out or read the expanded information, you would not know that it ricochets, though.

I'm not quite at the end of the game yet, but I feel like I'm finding new weapons in each area. You certainly don't find the 2h power hammers or plasma launchers on the first planet or anything. Some of the 'unique' weapons are a little bland (the tossball bat which does extra damage to raptids, for example—which you also might not realize unless you look at the expanded description), but you can find quite a few if you explore. And there are the science weapons which are neat and definitely not just repeats of 'pistol mk3'.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[flyingjohn]

this game is crap.
a role playing game is a 4x: xplore, xpand, xterminate, xdialogues.
exploration is pointless, maps are tiiiiiiiiiny minuscule squares of very linear land, and if it's not linear it's a circle, nothing much different. indoor maps are made like that too, absolutely predictable.
expansion is character-side, and it's extremely limited there too, the only meaningful interaction with the world is lockpicking, with very minor role for hacking and three different but totally interchangeable ways of diplomacy. perks are uninteresting one-ups, only companions have skills but only one each. a very very small amount of weapons contributes to this lack of variety.
extermination is combat which is either retardedly easy or, on supernova difficulty, retardedly lethal which limits further the available choices. the new vats means only "get these free headshots to jumpstart this combat". the aforementioned lack of weapons is a decent amount of nails in the coffin.
dialogues? verbose, useless, uselessly verbose, all the nerd blabber about the virtual love story is just retarded stuff. drinking together? i'd have smashed a bottle on her face. i had been told there would have been humor, but i found none, only derivative stuff from firefly, fallout and futurama. all the while chats are spent with fallout 3 level models, stiff puppets not even remotely comparable to a 15 years old bloodlines'.

really, this game is crap under every aspect.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Are weapons really that limited? One thing the game does not do very well is convey information. For example, you can get a special prototype plasma pistol and if you only look at the hover tool-tip it seems like a mediocre plasma pistol. However, if you right click it, there is a little description which tells you that the bullets ricochet off of most surfaces. Paired with the fact that the plasma bolts are pretty big (easy to bounce around corners and into enemies), it's actually a pretty neat gun. Unless you try it out or read the expanded information, you would not know that it ricochets, though.

Yes, that's another thing I noticed, game buries a lot of information in some incredibly dumb ways.

- hiding important weapon descriptions under right click.

- damage displayed on weapons only shows base stats unaffected by your skills. You need go into UI and uncheck "show base stats" and it turns out a lot of items do far more damage than it appears.

- positive faction reputation actually lowers the skill checks with that faction, but it's not explained in the Codex[/QUOTE]

 

[Fedora Master]

IT BEGINS

Spoiler

 

[Grotesque]

I just realized why this game looks like the way it does.
Didn't Boyarsky worked on Diablo 3?

now with the announcement of DIablo 4, it's clear

 

[Hot Coldman]

Speaking of open world, 3D RPGs. Haven't played these in a very long time. I'm pretty far into the one on the right,
and when I'm eventually finished with it I'll dive into the game on the left, a cRPG I can really get behind as a European.
And it wasn't made to make hundreds of millions. But it ticks all the boxes I would want out of it.

 

[Reinhardt]

Overall though 10/10, yet another OBSIDIAN classic

Always thought she looks ok. For non-human.

It looks like a tranny.

It's half-orc. And she's still more feminine than TOW characters.

 

[DalekFlay]

Once again I just have to stand in awe at the Codex's "ability" to crap on a good game and make it seem like the worst game ever.

That's just how it is on the interwebs. The game isn't as good as I hoped it would be, and has lots of faults, but yeah we're all still playing it for many hours. People can't just say "meh," they have to act like it's the best thing ever or worst thing ever.

 

[Prime Junta]

Once again I just have to stand in awe at the Codex's "ability" to crap on a good game and make it seem like the worst game ever.

Fluent. Bro. Listen.

TOW isn't the worst game ever.

TOW is mediocre.

Mediocre means that there's nothing horribly wrong with it, but there's nothing really right either. Mediocre is spending a lot of energy to make something that's not really worth making in the first place. Mediocre is decline. Mediocre is worse than bad, because bad usually has at least a spark of worth in it.

Stygian is an honourable failure. They tried to do something worth doing, but they weren't quite good enough to pull it off.

TOW is a dishonourable success. They had the proven creativity, ability, and resources to make something truly great, but they settled on something that's just okay.

This really is at the core of . It's not that they've forgotten how to make games, it's that they've gotten too chickenshit to try.

 

[Nano]

I've never seen Prime Junta so angry before.

 

[Prime Junta]

I've never seen Prime Junta so angry before.

I'M NOT ANGRY!!!

 

[AwesomeButton]

TOW is limp dick game development.

It's also a cultural movement.

EDIT
Citation:
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2...t-read-the-reviews-and-whats-next-for-the-ip/

Kurvitz said ZA/UM is less a studio and more a cultural movement in the vein of Dadaism or Fluxus, and they’re just using video games as their medium rather than theater or painting.

 

[Riddler]

This really is at the core of . It's not that they've forgotten how to make games, it's that they've gotten too chickenshit to try.

To be fair, it could be a bit of both.

 

[toro]

ToW is so mediocre and bland that I prefer to shitpost in the Disco Elysium's thread.

 

[Shackleton]

Yeah, I've really been trying to like it but I've just got to Monarch and I'm just... bored. Nothing is interesting enough to keep me hooked. Story is meh, combat is meh, everything is just so bland. Looting is unexciting, guns are all peashooters and it doesn't matter because everything dies so easily anyway. I enjoyed the first five hours or so but after that it just all seems so dull. The conversation with the Asian dude in Monarch, I found myself speedreading it and just mashing space to get through the convo, then I quit and have no desire to start it up again.

They played it safe and in doing so, made it terribly boring. Such a shame, I dared hope this might actually be a good game.

 

[Lacrymas]

IT BEGINS

Spoiler

That's a heterosexual encounter for gay/bi dudes. And ones without taste at that.

 

[ciox]

Have the elite researchers of the codex figured out a way yet to see what your actual critical chance is? Skills like Long Guns say they increase it by up to +190% or so, while base weapons all say their crit chance is 20%, does that mean my crit chance is nearly 60% just because I upped a skill a little or what is even going on here?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

This really is at the core of . It's not that they've forgotten how to make games, it's that they've gotten too chickenshit to try.

To be fair, it could be a bit of both.

If you watch that Gamasutra interview with Cainarsky from yesterday, Leonard was pretty clear-eyed about the game's core flaws (or at least what I consider its core flaws). He mentioned they had to cut a bunch of content as well as some mechanics fairly early, in the interest of making a more polished product. He straight up said he can't really enjoy The Outer Worlds for what it is, because every time he plays it he imagines how much better it could've been. I think we've all had that same experience with it, albeit to a greater or lesser extent.

If anything, the problem with The Outer Worlds is that Tim and Leonard know *too much* about making games. They know they made three flawed masterpieces at Troika and it drove their business into the ground. They know you only get one chance at a first impression. They know you don't get to make a sequel when you release an ambitious game that's full of bugs and doesn't sell very well right off the bat. They know the development process is a lot easier when you cut content early and often. They know a polished mediocrity will net them a bigger bonus than a flawed work of genius.

 

[Prime Junta]

All true Kyl Von Kull . I don't even hate them for selling out, as I said earlier we're all whores one way or another.

But I am still gonna call 'em like I see 'em.

 

[Shadenuat]

What does it have to do with pretty bland writing and uninspired quests and roleplaying system tho? Or difficulty?

You can make smaller game but that still draws you in. If anything, if game is smaller, every quest should have been Tarant/Caladon negotiations, not bringing cigarettes.

 

[Hot Coldman]

What does it have to do with pretty bland writing and uninspired quests and roleplaying system tho?

For some reason fo RPGs, cant speak for other genres, that's par the course for huge multi million dollar
"aaa"

 

[Nano]

They know you don't get to make a sequel when you release an ambitious game that's full of bugs and doesn't sell very well right off the bat.

Pillars 1 played it safe and the result was a flop sequel. Not that Pillars 2 was a lot more ambitious than Pillars 1, but there you go.

 

[Prime Junta]

What does it have to do with pretty bland writing and uninspired quests and roleplaying system tho? Or difficulty?

You can make smaller game but that still draws you in. If anything, if game is smaller, every quest should have been Tarant/Caladon negotiations, not bringing cigarettes.

They're playing it safe.