Outcast: Second Contact - Outcast remake

[Gord]

Finally got the game during the sale on GOG. One of the games I always wanted to try, but for some reason never did.
A shame it did so poorly and they had to abandon it.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Well, it was an interesting experiment. They moved the 20 years old sourcecode to a new engine, which was a cool feat but turned out not optimal.

I also dont know why they whine (?) because the port was not promoted, has technical issues and was nothing but an oddball in software development. You just cannot expect to push out a HD version of a 20 year old game, do very little in terms of promotion and post release work and hit it big.

 

[v1rus]

Well, I saw outcast for the first time in like 2004. Gfx proved too heavy for my 10 year old eyes, so I quit. As soon as the remake came out, i beat it, and it was a great experience.

Imho, Outcast is a great game. Perhaps even a masterpiece in its own time - i played it through the prism of today, and it held really well. Quite sad i didnt manage to get past the gfx at the time.

 

[Burning Bridges]

gfx is one thing one could past, but the UI and combat is another that is much more problematic. I think the beginning of their failure was when they did not create a new UI that is pleasing and intuitive.

 

[Gord]

When it came out, it was considered great graphics-wise, iirc and it had a few cool features for the time.
The remake so far plays good, but yes, the interface is merely ok-ish but could have used an overhaul. Also it doesn't help that you get no manual and very little information about things your character should know about (human equipment, especially).
Combat by modern standards is a bit clunky as well, of course.

They moved the 20 years old sourcecode to a new engine, which was a cool feat but turned out not optimal.

Interestingly enough we saw a similar thing with the remastered Bard's Tale Trilogy - although the focus was a bit different there. Anyway, it is an interesting way to remake an old game without having to redo everything from the ground up.

 

[Dexter]

When it came out, it was considered great graphics-wise, iirc and it had a few cool features for the time.

It wasn't. I remember playing the demo back in the day from a magazine CD and thinking that both graphics and animations were ass for the given time.

Remember this was the same year System Shock 2, Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena, Medal of Honor, Kingpin, Aliens vs Predator etc. came out.

It was also a year after Half-Life, Blood II, SiN, Unreal, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II etc.

It's really sad what happened to the Remake. The bits I played from it were really great and it didn't seem that they just Remade it for a quick buck. It seemed like they remained really faithful to the Original and put a lot of work and love into the Remake.

 

[Ezeekiel]

When it came out, it was considered great graphics-wise, iirc and it had a few cool features for the time.

It wasn't. I remember playing the demo back in the day from a magazine CD and thinking that both graphics and animations were ass for the given time.

Remember this was the same year System Shock 2, Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena, Medal of Honor, Kingpin, Aliens vs Predator etc. came out.

It was also a year after Half-Life, Blood II, SiN, Unreal, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II etc.

It's really sad what happened to the Remake. The bits I played from it were really great and it didn't seem that they just Remade it for a quick buck. It seemed like they remained really faithful to the Original and put a lot of work and love into the Remake.

The game had graphical glitches etc, but it did some things very well, way better than other titles at the time. Especially water and water reflections (esp in the snowy part), traces in the snow and such. Huge open maps. Lots of rounded shapes in the landscape due to voxels.
Being a pure software rendered game didn't help overall... Iirc it ran on 512*384 resolution maximum? All that aliasing...
Very mixed bag overall.

 

[Gord]

Maybe I misremembered, so I hunted down a few old reviews. Seems it was considered a kind of mixed bag - art style was favorably received, as was the viewing distance and large open world with organic environments, but the low resolution due to the voxel-based engine hurt the visuals. Also some visual effects like water-surfaces got praise.

Edit: Ezeekiel beat me to it...

 

[Dexter]

I remember that the only thing that people were "praising" about the graphics of the game at the time was that it used a Voxel-based engine, but even that mostly because it was considered a curiosity, not because it was done particularly well. I think one of the main reasons I didn't want to play it beyond the Demo at the time was graphics and lack of resolution.

 

[passerby]

It did look on screenshots nice enough for the time, but it was a software renderer in the age of 3d acceleration. It was unplayable for 80% of potential customers and very choppy for the rest.
That secured a financial failure. By the time CPU that could run it became affordable, both graphics and control scheme were very outdated, so very few people bothered to pick it up even from bargain bin.

Which is a shame of course, it's an open world adventure of gothic 1 calliber.

 

[Ismaul]

Just saw that it's back on sale at GOG. I'm getting it, now that I have time to play.

 

[Outlander]

Free on HB (DRM-free version)

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/outcast-second-contact

 

[Solid Snail]

Free on HB (DRM-free version)

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/outcast-second-contact

The download link will expire apparently:

"Immediately after 10AM Pacific on November 29th, the download will magically vanish as if it were just a figment of your imagination, leaving this cryptic message behind in its wake."

 

[luj1]

They are identical apart from animations, graphics...

And thats how you do a remaster. Polish the visuals, sound etc. Keep the gameplay

 

[Jinn]

Crazy that they're already giving this away for free! Super happy about it, but I feel bad it didn't sell better for the developers. At least Humble made sure they got paid for these copies.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

(DRM-free version)

The download link will expire apparently:

"Immediately after 10AM Pacific on November 29th, the download will magically vanish as if it were just a figment of your imagination, leaving this cryptic message behind in its wake."

 

[Bad Sector]

I always save DRM-free games to my external HDD, so i don't mind the expiring link. So, thanks .

I didn't knew there was a remaster of that game though.

 

[SniperHF]

So I've got all 3 versions, never played any of them, which to play?

1.0
1.1
Second Contact?

This makes me a little nervous from the description of Second Contact:
"Combat even more dynamic with new moves: dodges, rolls, sprint and cover system."


Which if tacked on poorly could ruin things? Or is it fine/no problem?

Any other minor differences of note?

 

[Dexter]

The Remake is pretty great and faithful to the source material/a labor of love (aside from some of the Remade CG videos). Best thing you can do is probably play the short Tutorial in both the old and new version and decide which you want to play.

 

[SniperHF]

Ha, the original 1.0 version lets you pick performance settings based on CPU.
Pentium III with 64mb RAM !

The lack of a proper main menu though is a real drag. Makes me lean toward Second Contact.

 

[ghostdog]

Playing the original in higher resolution will make you appreciate how beautiful the game really was.

 

[Paul_cz]

My vote is on the remake. Yes the original has a certain charm, but personally I could not get immersed in its giant textureless voxels and Cutter's "stick in ass" running animations.

 

[J_C]

My vote is on the remake. Yes the original has a certain charm, but personally I could not get immersed in its giant textureless voxels and Cutter's "stick in ass" running animations.

But they redone the cinematics and the voiceovers, which is a dealbreaker for me. They were not amazing in the original game, but they are even worse in the remake. And it just feels wrong hearing the new voices, after the original burned into my brain.

 

[Outlander]

Outcast ending cutscene:

Spoiler

 

[zapotec]

I wonder if there is still the "game breaking oversight" in the remade version because it was still present in the 1.1:

Pratically, when you enter Okaar (the forest zone) you will se a red dot on you radar and while it looks like an enemy it's actually a NPC necessary for the main quest.
If you kill it like I did, you will have to respawn it by using the console or persist in the doomed world you have created.