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

[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

 

[rusty_shackleford]

- mod support

They never had any real plans to support this, it would be too difficult.
It's one of those things developers always say "yeah we'd love to support it if we can make time" to but in reality they mean "nah never"

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Fluent I stayed optimistic about TOW through Emerald Vale and the second hub, but after that the game started feeling like a slog. You’ll see.

Besides, it’s not just us. If you listen to last week’s Gamasutra interview with Tim and Leonard, Leonard says he couldn’t really enjoy playing the game either. He was disappointed that they’d had to scale back their ambitions. TOW’s extremely positive reception took him by surprise.

When one of the co-directors says, “it’s hard for me to play this game because I can’t help comparing it to how much better it could’ve been if we hadn’t had to cut so much,” maybe there’s some merit to the criticism! I don’t think it’s a bad game, but there’s nothing stellar about it either. It’s just okay.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Fluent I stayed optimistic about TOW through Emerald Vale and the second hub, but after that the game started feeling like a slog. You’ll see.

Besides, it’s not just us. If you listen to last week’s Gamasutra interview with Tim and Leonard, Leonard says he couldn’t really enjoy playing the game either. He was disappointed that they’d had to scale back their ambitions. TOW’s extremely positive reception took him by surprise.

When one of the co-directors says, “it’s hard for me to play this game because I can’t help comparing it to how much better it could’ve been if we hadn’t had to cut so much,” maybe there’s some merit to the criticism! I don’t think it’s a bad game, but there’s nothing stellar about it either. It’s just okay.

Eh, it's normal for people who made the game to feel that way - what comes out is never what it could have been as there's always tons of cut content and features.

 

[Junmarko]

Eh, it's normal for people who made the game to feel that way - what comes out is never what it could have been as there's always tons of cut content and features.

Leonard even said on Matt Chat that he's never played Vampire or Arcanum since they released. He's always been hard on himself.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

When one of the co-directors says, “it’s hard for me to play this game because I can’t help comparing it to how much better it could’ve been if we hadn’t had to cut so much,” maybe there’s some merit to the criticism! I don’t think it’s a bad game, but there’s nothing stellar about it either. It’s just okay.

Nevermind , i think i found out.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

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.

reported for brofist harvesting u_u

 

[Dishonoredbr]

eonard even said on Matt Chat that he's never played Vampire or Arcanum since they released them. He's always been hard on himself.

Leonard sounds like he's never trully happy. Always disappointed and sad.

 

[Zer0wing]

Leonard even said on Matt Chat that he's never played Vampire or Arcanum since they released them. He's always been hard on himself.

Now that cut content restoration patches are available, he should. He should see what a competent game looks like because the TOW problems are not in what was left out but what remained in. Being its own creation hits even harder and more refreshing.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

As far I've played, the game seems good. But in comparison with New vegas for example, it feels very "small". When it was announced at E3 it looked like a big budget AAA game. But what i've seen is one very polished but with a small estimation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you can notice the limitations in things like gear and weapon variety for example.

If any sequel gets released in the future I hope it has more money put on to it.

 

[Prime Junta]

Funny thing.

I'm back at my gaming rig. I have a couple hours free time. I'm probably around 4/5 through the game. I've got TOW staring at me in the Microsoft rental thingy and my trial expires at the end of the month. I think of playing it. Then I just get this queasy feeling and I just can't bring myself to click that PLAY button.

Prolly for the best.