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

[cvv]

yet every turn shit they produce are outdone by bunch of russians and eastern european with 2 vodka/day budget.

This is a p. big story actually. American game development looks like a fucking wasteland. Bethesda is just a giant bloated corpse, Valve resembles the huge ape from the Disney Mowgli movie, a fat blob snoozing on a huge treasure hoard, Blizzard has always been kindda a popamole clown making colourful toys for children (tho I did enjoy SC2) but is increasingly focused on shovelling cheap plastic crap for the Chinese mobile market, Obsidian turned into the developer version of Kotaku and the rest of the former greats was exterminated by EA's death squad.

And those Kwan developers that can be considered respectable like Rockstar, Sony Santa Monica, Naughty Dog or id are producing mostly low-concept, low-ambition akshun games.

And what's worse I'm not seeing many indies and AAs filling the gap. I guess inXile is trying but they're very much hit-and-miss. What else is there? Where are all the American studios trying to do something more ambitious than the console average? Forget triple A counterparts to CDPR, those don't exist, but where in the US are all the AA devs like Piranha Bytes, Spiders, Warhorse, 4A Games and others?

I'm not bashing, I'm just sad. Kwans fucking created videogames and now look at them.

 

[Danikas]

(tho I did enjoy SC2

Please tell me what did you enjoy in that game? For me it was massive decline coming from first one, the moment when Raynor went full milady in the ending of first campaign I stopped caring about Blizzard games.

 

[cvv]

(tho I did enjoy SC2

Please tell me what did you enjoy in that game? For me it was massive decline coming from first one, the moment when Raynor went full milady in the ending of first campaign I stopped caring about Blizzard games.

Not sure about you but I've never played RTS games for the story, nor cared about the characters. Asking me if I find Blizzard's writing retarded is like asking the pope if he believes in God.

Thing is in my RTSs I can easily ignore debilitating writing. In RPGs not so much.

 

[HoboForEternity]

yet every turn shit they produce are outdone by bunch of russians and eastern european with 2 vodka/day budget.

This is a p. big story actually. American game development looks like a fucking wasteland. Bethesda is just a giant bloated corpse, Valve resembles the huge ape from the Disney Mowgli movie, a fat blob snoozing on a huge treasure hoard, Blizzard has always been kindda a popamole clown making colourful toys for children (tho I did enjoy SC2) but is increasingly focused on shovelling cheap plastic crap for the Chinese mobile market, Obsidian turned into the developer version of Kotaku and the rest of the former greats was exterminated by EA's death squad.

And those Kwan developers that can be considered respectable like Rockstar, Sony Santa Monica, Naughty Dog or id are producing mostly low-concept, low-ambition akshun games.

And what's worse I'm not seeing many indies and AAs filling the gap. I guess inXile is trying but they're very much hit-and-miss. What else is there? Where are all the American studios trying to do something more ambitious than the console average? Forget triple A counterparts to CDPR, those don't exist, but where in the US are all the AA devs like Piranha Bytes, Spiders, Warhorse, 4A Games and others?

I'm not bashing, I'm just sad. Kwans fucking created videogames and now look at them.

Not really RPG but wadjet eye is american based iirc.

While it is true the RPG american companies are alot rarer, there are still some AA to indie studios in US making games to fill their niche.

WayForward is america based and they have their own audience, devolver digital is US based and publish and fund medium sized games from all over the world. You also have supergiant games, and many other medium gamedevs.

But granted, most of them aren't taking complex ambitious project like CRPG and tbh i don't know what it is with eastern europeans and RPG, but i am just grateful they exist.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

RPG has always been a Slav/eastern-euro genre. Even the wargames were Prussian IIRC. The Americans merely adopted the RPG, whereas the Slav were born in it, molded by it. Even the Japs produce much more interesting games nowadays with the JRPG. Sure, you might not like them, but even the most basic JRPG often features much more complex mechanics than the usual western trite. Also, they got "gender roles" exactly right :')

 

[Danikas]

Thing is in my RTSs I can easily ignore debilitating writing. In RPGs not so much.

Most RTS's stories dont make me cringe like Sc2 story did. Gameplay was fun, but the artstyle was pure cartoon garbage just like Diablo3.

 

[Goliath]

Wow..

Not surprised, the guy must've went 100 Science/100 Melee weapons to have that hammer to shove up alien asses and one-shot them.

No, he used the pistol you get at the beginning throughout the entire run and skipped almost all combat by just running past enemies.

Turns out all you need to do to finish this game is to shoot a bunch of quest dispenser NPCs. E.g. the first planet can be "completed" by simply shooting Reed.

 

[Zerginfestor]

And yet every Eurojank shovelware is praised around here as long as it stays close enough to BG or Fallout templates from 25 years ago.

Honestly you just sound jelaous that these games made in Europe are well liked.

No, I'm mildly amused at internal inconsistency of posters who in one thread are champions of RPG innovation while in the other thread they furiously jerk off to "Fallout except with Russians".

Innovation is all fine and dandy, but the sad reality is that Pathfinder & ATOM are the best cRPGs of their respective sub-genres since IWD2 and F2 respectively. Beggars can't be choosers.

You cannot be fucking serious. ATOM was a fucking joke the last time I played it, with such a shitty perk system to boot.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Turns out all you need to do to finish this game is to shoot a bunch of quest dispenser NPCs. E.g. the first planet can be "completed" by simply shooting Reed.

That's not the case though, is it? You still have to disable the power plant? Or can you just hack the terminal near the power generator in town?

 

[Dishonoredbr]

That's not the case though, is it? You still have to disable the power plant? Or can you just hack the terminal near the power generator in town?

You still have to disable the Power plant, you only have to check his terminal first.

 

[Goliath]

Wow..

Not surprised, the guy must've went 100 Science/100 Melee weapons to have that hammer to shove up alien asses and one-shot them.

No, he used the pistol you get at the beginning throughout the entire run and skipped almost all combat by just running past enemies.

Turns out all you need to do to finish this game is to shoot a bunch of quest dispenser NPCs. E.g. the first planet can be "completed" by simply shooting Reed.

By the way I thought this was an indication that TOW lacks substance but it turns out the same guy completed Fallout: New Vegas in less than 14 minutes:

 

[Van-d-all]

(tho I did enjoy SC2

Please tell me what did you enjoy in that game? For me it was massive decline coming from first one, the moment when Raynor went full milady in the ending of first campaign I stopped caring about Blizzard games.

And Wings of Liberty was already the best SC2 campaign. After all the primal zerg bullshit in Heart Of The Swarm, I didn't even bother to play the protoss game.

 

[Van-d-all]

And yet every Eurojank shovelware is praised around here as long as it stays close enough to BG or Fallout templates from 25 years ago.

Honestly you just sound jelaous that these games made in Europe are well liked.

No, I'm mildly amused at internal inconsistency of posters who in one thread are champions of RPG innovation while in the other thread they furiously jerk off to "Fallout except with Russians".

Innovation is all fine and dandy, but the sad reality is that Pathfinder & ATOM are the best cRPGs of their respective sub-genres since IWD2 and F2 respectively. Beggars can't be choosers.

You cannot be fucking serious. ATOM was a fucking joke the last time I played it, with such a shitty perk system to boot.

Name a better post-apo game since F2 then (except Underrail since it's underground anyways).

 

[Reinhardt]

And yet every Eurojank shovelware is praised around here as long as it stays close enough to BG or Fallout templates from 25 years ago.

Honestly you just sound jelaous that these games made in Europe are well liked.

No, I'm mildly amused at internal inconsistency of posters who in one thread are champions of RPG innovation while in the other thread they furiously jerk off to "Fallout except with Russians".

Innovation is all fine and dandy, but the sad reality is that Pathfinder & ATOM are the best cRPGs of their respective sub-genres since IWD2 and F2 respectively. Beggars can't be choosers.

You cannot be fucking serious. ATOM was a fucking joke the last time I played it, with such a shitty perk system to boot.

Name a better post-apo game since F2 then.

Fallout tactics.

 

[Van-d-all]

Of all the settings... Something just died deep within me.

Shadowrun depicts a world where corporations run everything but compete with each other for people and leverage in the ultimate "free market" where morals are out the window. To me that rings more true of what a capitalist anarchy would be like. Outer Worlds takes a much different track where one corporation controls everything and acts as a totalitarian bureaucracy. I'm not even saying they're wrong to write it this way, and they explain it by having the corporation buy the colony in advance and whatnot, but it's definitely not the usual mix of political commentary and setting that one would expect.

Shadowrun is a lousy rip-off cyberpunk with childish understanding of idea behind the genre with zany fucking dragons and fantasy shit strapped onto it for more normie appeal. Praising it's setting is retarded like saying Big Macs are healthy because they add salad.

 

[Yosharian]

Nobody flirts. Nobody fucks. Women dress like men and look deliberately unattractive. The whole fucking planet could be asexual for all I know. And in that asexual environment Parvati instead of standing out is bland and uninteresting.

Everyone's single except Ellie's parents as far as I can tell. Reed Tobson should've had a wife, couple mistresses and a dozen children

Said before: The game's bare-bone af and has nothing on a pre-76 bethesda game except C&C/reactivity. Only person I saw who barely noticed/mentioned this was that Dansgaming dude, everybody else somehow ignores everything the game lacks for the type of game it was supposed to be. They even cut corners in narrative, giving characters 1-2 sentences of backstory max. Boyarsky wasn't kidding as he repeatedly said "time & budget".

(Outside of codex)People hate Bethesda atm and for that reason alone they don't wanna criticize Obsidian at all, hope this won't give Obs confidence to double down on how they made this game and proceed to make the sequel with same shallowness in most everything.

The problem is that we live in a world where Fallout 76 exists. Because of that, a game like TOW is going to get a lot of love, even if it's actually quite flawed.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

The problem is that we live in a world where Fallout 76 exists. Because of that, a game like TOW is going to get a lot of love, even if it's actually quite flawed.

I am not offended by F76 as much as I am with TOW. F76 was a lost cause from the get-go. They did try to trick people into thinking they are getting a classic (Bethesda classic, which is not saying much) Fallout experience with it prior to launch, but it was very quickly revealed to be a sham entirely. With TOW, the masses seem to be under some sort of high level retardation spell (from the school of Urqheartian illusion) which makes them think it is a much better product than it really is, and that's what bothers me the most. F76 is decline, and even the normies know it. Hell, it's even another kind of genre altogether. TOW is veiled decline. It will do the most damage if it becomes the new norm for the first person rpg.

 

[Nano]

And what's worse I'm not seeing many indies and AAs filling the gap. I guess inXile is trying but they're very much hit-and-miss.

Uh. Reminder that Microsoft also bought inXile at the same time they bought Obsidian. They're no longer really indie/AA.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I am in state of doubt, what are the goods and bads of t i8he game?

I finished it twice, didnt even like it that much. You can try.

You played through it twice in less than a week?

Second playthrough was kill everyone you see, it took me about 2-3 hours.

 

[JarlFrank]

By the way I thought this was an indication that TOW lacks substance but it turns out the same guy completed Fallout: New Vegas in less than 14 minutes:

Fallout 1 can also be completed very quickly, as can Morrowind if you know what you have to do to skip the main quest and go straight to Dagoth Ur.

Being able to speedrun a game that quickly is actually a mark of quality and player freedom, because it shows that the main quest isn't just a linear A->B->C->D->E slog but allows you to skip ahead and fulfill your goal while skipping all the in-between things if you have pre-knowledge of how to get to your end goal.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

After finishing the game 2.5 times my verdict is - its okay. Its basically fallout 76 without multiplayer, or call of duty with fast travel and worse gunplaOy, graphics and writing. 8/10. Acceptable if you want to shoot some space bandits with a light machine gun.

 

[Roguey]

Incidentally, I think TOW is the ARPG equivalent of a Marvel movie (did Prime Junta already say this?).

I did. Bioware started aping Whedon 10 years ago with Dragon Age: Origins, it took Bioware Jr another ten years to decline so much.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Outer Worlds takes a much different track where one corporation controls everything and acts as a totalitarian bureaucracy. I'm not even saying they're wrong to write it this way, and they explain it by having the corporation buy the colony in advance and whatnot, but it's definitely not the usual mix of political commentary and setting that one would expect.

I think it makes sense in a colony that has to scramble for resources and struggle to survive. Halcyon needed to have some oversight institution that keeps the competition between corporations from escalating into open conflict, otherwise the whole place would fall apart. Hyper-capitalist setting doesn't have to be hyper-libertarian.

This fundamentally misunderstands what the mass market audience wants out of a game. Occam’s Razor: the people praising The Outer Worlds to high heaven genuinely like it. Maybe they have bad taste or low standards, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone here. There are millions of people who love Skyrim, Fallout 3/4, Mass Effect 2-3, or Dragon Age 2-3. Their standards for ARPG gameplay are low. Their standards for character building and progression are low. As for the writing, The Outer Worlds works very hard to ape Joss Whedon (and I think the dialogue often succeeds at sounding like something you’d hear in a Whedon series/film). Maybe you never liked that style, maybe you’re burned out on it now that it’s colonized the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe (Whedon wrote and directed The Avengers), maybe you’re fine with it in a two hour movie but don’t think it fits in this particular 20-40 hour video game. Doesn’t matter, there are hordes of people who fucking adore this stuff.

Kingdom Come was a mass market success despite launching with extreme mechanics like limited saves in the open world and hunger system. You seem to think audience that wants hardcore AAA RPG exists only on the Codex, but that's not the case at all. There's a huge fanbase that longs for a RPG with mainstream production values but deeper gameplay, and that's the fanbase TOW was marketed towards. And those people are certainly not praising the game to high heavens, there's plenty of bitching in all of the mainstream places, aside from TOW subreddit where all the fanboys decided to gaher.

 

[Wunderbar]

Breaking! Sawyer throws Tim Cain under the bus by claiming that Cain's colorblindness was a reason behind TOW's obnoxious color scheme.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Breaking! Sawyer throws Tim Cain under the bus by claiming that Cain's colorblindness was a reason behind TOW's obnoxious color scheme.

If they decided to make colorblind person responsible for creating color scheme for their game - what else shouldve been expected?