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

[Junmarko]

Intelligent criticism is fine but people also have to keep in mind this was a low budget AA game. How much can you really criticize it?

AA budget. AAA price. AA½ game.

 

[Wunderbar]

Intelligent criticism is fine but people also have to keep in mind this was a low budget AA game. How much can you really criticize it?

AA budget. AAA price.

F quality

 

[Vorark]

I hate this game so much I started a new playthrough already as a freedom loving pirate pistol focused gunslinger. The game is a LOT better this way. Not saying it's great or anything, but a lot better. The combat lends itself to fast paced from the hip blasting, and the dialogue lends itself to "fuck you corporate slave!" If anything this makes me see the game as MORE flawed though, since it should be J.E. Sawyer balanced for different playstyles.

TOW keeps nudging you to take the side of the poor colonists against the evil corps instead of trying to mantain some sort of neutrality and let the player come to his/her own conclusions. Say, in NV you were shown the virtues and flaws of NCR, Legion (less so, unfortunately) and House and the player would be free to form his/her own opinions on the matter, even forgoing all three by the end. Here it begins with a manichaean view of colonists/corps that never goes further.

It's even more baffling when you compare it to Tyranny which played off of the order/chaos/loyalty/freedom spectrum in a much better way despite being almost a throw-away project.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It's even more baffling when you compare it to Tyranny which played off of the order/chaos/loyalty/freedom spectrum in a much better way despite being almost a throw-away project.

This might just be my own bias, but besides the Disfavored and the Anarchist route, the other two were caricatures as far as I'm concerned - the Scarlet Chorus being a Mad Max gang on steroids and the Rebel route making you a white knight do-gooder for the natives with no option of playing them for your own gain.

 

[Prime Junta]

This might just be my own bias, but besides the Disfavored and the Anarchist route, the other two were caricatures as far as I'm concerned - the Scarlet Chorus being a Mad Max gang on steroids and the Rebel route making you a white knight do-gooder for the natives with no option of playing them for your own gain.

I thought the Scarlet Chorus was done rather well actually. Sure it was a Mad Max gang on steroids but it embraced it. Also Voices of Nerat is a pretty damn cool villain. I also give extra props to them for making it so that Bleden Mark just executes them if you make your case to Tunon well enough, instead of forcing a boss fight on you.

With you about the Rebel route though, that went very much against the entire premise of the game.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

This might just be my own bias, but besides the Disfavored and the Anarchist route, the other two were caricatures as far as I'm concerned - the Scarlet Chorus being a Mad Max gang on steroids and the Rebel route making you a white knight do-gooder for the natives with no option of playing them for your own gain.

I thought the Scarlet Chorus was done rather well actually. Sure it was a Mad Max gang on steroids but it embraced it. Also Voices of Nerat is a pretty damn cool villain. I also give extra props to them for making it so that Bleden Mark just executes them if you make your case to Tunon well enough, instead of forcing a boss fight on you.

With you about the Rebel route though, that went very much against the entire premise of the game.

I agree on the Voices of Nerat, but it simply felt OOC to go their way given your character's background as a Fatebinder and the extreme methods which the Scarlet Chorus employed. Then again, I am quite set in my ways when it comes to picking certain archetypes to roleplay.

 

[Vorark]

At the very least these options still existed in Tyranny. TOW just lacks any kind of subtlety -- you know from the start what the game expects you to do. It never throws a twist in order to make the player question his/her alliances. There's no development when it comes down to the factions.

 

[Orma]

It's not that simple here, they are not just reciting a single slogan; they are trying to advertise various shit in between, like in the first convo, he says "all spacer's choice weapons are now 30& less likely to malfunction" then he recites the slogan. Ok I get why he's reciting the slogan but why try to sell shit when there is no buyer? And I don't believe they've been practicing their marketing skills for the unlikely event of a colonist from Hope dropping from the sky.

What do you mean there's no buyer? have you actually played the game?

Company sells them everything from their work tools and uniforms to their own graveyard spaces. Boss offers his employee 5% discount on branded booze when he has an acciddent at work etc.

 

[Trashos]

Are we seriously using a game's reviews as evidence of its quality?

 

[Prime Junta]

Are we seriously using a game's reviews as evidence of its quality?

Define "we."

 

[Junmarko]

Are we seriously using a game's reviews as evidence of its quality?

Depends if it's Ssethtzeentach.

 

[Trashos]

Are we seriously using a game's reviews as evidence of its quality?

Define "we."

We, as we say Codexers named Fluent.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The things TOW fails at cannot be fixed by just throwing more money at it.

Off the top of my head, things they cut due to budget:

- vacuum areas
- boss fights
- mod support
- 3rd person camera
- proper disguise system
- looks like they had a much bigger crafting system at some point but it was cut and all the loot was labeled as junk
- a lot of cut content in general. Blocked buildings in Byzantium probably had quests in them at some point. Some blocked areas in Monarch.

 

[Jenkem]

WOW! 40 Pages since midweek when I became busy with some projects and didn't have time to check out the Codex. This game must be totally popular!! The DE thread only had 3-4 new pages, seems not there's not much to discuss there while this thread seems to be absolutely EXPLODNG! Wow! Another Obsidian Slam Dunk? Seems there is A LOT to discuss about this game, anyone got some Cliff Notes? Glad to see another stellar thought provoking and discussion stoking triumph from Obsidian Entertainment!

 

[Quillon]

It's not that simple here, they are not just reciting a single slogan; they are trying to advertise various shit in between, like in the first convo, he says "all spacer's choice weapons are now 30& less likely to malfunction" then he recites the slogan. Ok I get why he's reciting the slogan but why try to sell shit when there is no buyer? And I don't believe they've been practicing their marketing skills for the unlikely event of a colonist from Hope dropping from the sky.

What do you mean there's no buyer? have you actually played the game?

Company sells them everything from their work tools and uniforms to their own graveyard spaces. Boss offers his employee 5% discount on branded booze when he has an acciddent at work etc.

Open a supermarket in the middle of no where and only sell to your own employees already working at the supermarket. That'll be profitable.

I just can't wrap my head around it, how are you a MEGA corporation if you only sell to your own employees?

 

[Prime Junta]

We, as we say Codexers named Fluent.

In that case the answer is clearly

.

 

[Adon]

Barely touched this at all this weekend. People have mentioned before that there is no good "hook" for TOW, but I don't inherently think that's the problem; at least not the initial hook. Nor is it its absurdist humor. I've been mulling it over my head as to why exactly TOW isn't nearly as captivating as it could've been.

I'm in the middle of playing Disco Elysium as well, and I realized that TOW's problem is that there is no meat. I'm not saying the game is shallow, but it feels shallow, it doesn't commit strongly to any one aspect. The writing, the level design, the premise, weapons, gameplay, none of it has enough meat for anyone to really sink their teeth into. I became aware of this as I played Disco Elysium because regardless of what people think of the writing, the RPG aspects (or the idea that its just an adventure game/visual novel), how railroaded the game actually is, and how small the areas you're exploring are, there's substance there for people to really get into both as praise and criticisms. DE easily draws you in with the mystery and its style and prose despite the diarrhetic amount of lore and history. TOW has none of that.

Some people probably expected better because despite how much content has been cut in Obsidian's previous games, those games are still remembered fondly, but we take for granted how for both KotOR2 and F:NV, Obsidian had a foundation to build on.

 

[Wesp5]

I also haven't seen anyone mention its similarities to Bloodlines in the immersive sim department. I think it evokes feelings of both the original Fallout and Bloodlines.

I never played the original Fallout, only FO3 and FONV, and while I see a lot of similarities to those game, I see little to no similarities with Bloodlines! I wouldn't even know where to begin describing the differences though...

 

[Junmarko]

I'm in the middle of playing Disco Elysium

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

We, as we say Codexers named Fluent.

Well how else are you going to come do a decent consensus objectively about quality, other than reviews? I think it's stupid too because trying to define a game's objective quality is an impossible task since we all view things subjectively. But a consensus of reviews is the best we have to go on.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I never played the original Fallout, only FO3 and FONV, and while I see a lot of similarities to those game, I see little to no similarities with Bloodlines! I wouldn't even know where to begin describing the differences though...

Memorable characters with interesting dialogue and great facial animations and lip-syncing. Plus the fact it's close to an immersive sim in first-person. I get some similar feels from it, for sure, and Bloodlines is one of my favorite games of all-time.

 

[Pegultagol]

WOW! 40 Pages since midweek when I became busy with some projects and didn't have time to check out the Codex. This game must be totally popular!! The DE thread only had 3-4 new pages, seems not there's not much to discuss there while this thread seems to be absolutely EXPLODNG! Wow! Another Obsidian Slam Dunk? Seems there is A LOT to discuss about this game, anyone got some Cliff Notes? Glad to see another stellar thought provoking and discussion stoking triumph from Obsidian Entertainment!

I think all these posts and discussion are partly due to the process of expressing and accepting, in many thousands of words and pages of posts, that we'll never see a game like New Vegas again.

 

[Prime Junta]

Well how else are you going to come do a decent consensus objectively about quality, other than reviews?

Would you really like to have a discussion about what criticism/critique actually means? It involves intersubjectivity. If you like I can even bring ancient Oriental wisdom into it. It's kind of a favourite topic but if I start on it I tend to turn into this:

 

[Wesp5]

I never played the original Fallout, only FO3 and FONV, and while I see a lot of similarities to those game, I see little to no similarities with Bloodlines! I wouldn't even know where to begin describing the differences though...

Memorable characters with interesting dialogue and great facial animations and lip-syncing.

You must be joking! Facial animations are nothing compared to Bloodlines which is 15 years old now. The same goes for memorable characters and interesting dialogue, just post someone here who's name you still remember who isn't a companion! Granted some of the companions are great and most of them have actually better looking faces than most of the other NPCs. I have the theory that they hand-crafted some of the more important faces and created the others with an automatic tool like you use on your own character. I can't explain otherwise why especially older people, like the deserter boss in Edge Water, just look like young people with wrinkled textures.

 

[Prime Junta]

one of my favorite games of all-time

They're ALL one of your favourite games of all time. There's the rub