I just finished the Outer Worlds. I went in... not completely blind but I stayed away from all the streams and the pre-release blabbering here on the forums and elsewhere.
Overall I found it to be pretty mediocre overall. It has some nice points here and there for sure, but a lot of the good ideas don't feel fully developed and there's also a lot of crap getting in the way of those good ideas.
Good:
-There seems to be nice options in some of the quests. The game is at its best when you get into those things really. Sadly it doesn't happen too often.
-The visuals. So this was an area I was definitely skeptical of before the game but I actually think the game has a pretty cool look to it. It does go up and down a bit but overall I found it pretty nice to look at, with interesting landmarks here and there. It came together way better than I thought it would.
Mediocre:
-The setting has some interesting ideas to but sadly it just ends up feeling undercooked. They never do anything really interesting with it.
-The humor. It's just... not that funny. I mean, the funniest bits are little situations that were "crafted" for lack of a better word. Smashing Hawthorne with the escape pod, the cleaning mech trying to clean away Nyoka while she's drunk upside down against the wall. Stuff like that is worth a chuckle. But that's really rare. Most of the time the humor is delivered through dialogue and it just... doesn't... work. It's just not funny. It's *silly* a lot of the time, but it's rare that there's any real comedy going on.
The ads and all of that are also cute in the same way Fallout's world can be funny but that's more world building than anything that is truly funny and will make you laugh.
-Character system. So, this almost ends up during the bad section but at least I do have to appreciate that there are skillchecks here and there, there are dialogue skills to use, and they're not *rare*. I was pretty happy with options I was given during quests generally speaking and how I could use my skills for them. However, the perks are just... so fucking boring that it's unbelievable. And thus, the whole flaws system is just a complete dud. Because really, who wants the world's most boring perk in exchange for a flaw?
Bad:
-Combat. So... the actual shooty-shooty mechanics? They work, it feels and controls pretty good. I even like the VATs thing, and how you can target stuff. But holy shit, the encounters in this fucking game. So one thing you liked about Deadfire was that it reduced the number of trash encounters? Well, The Outer Worlds would like to say FUCK YOU to that. So there's tons of shitty, boring encounters with shitty, boring critters. Raptidons, mantisaurs... yes, sounds exciting right? And guess what, they respawn too!
Seriously, fuck the encounter design in this game. It is the most shitty and boring approach you can imagine. Which brings us to...
-Loot. Pretty much exactly the same as the combat section. The world is LOADED with containers all over the place. And they are all loaded with boring, boring loot, crudely designed to trigger the "hurr durr deres loot!!" mechanism in player's brain. And yes, there are many locked containers in the world and guess what most of them contain? The exact same shit as everywhere else except that there's a little more of it in the locked containers. It SUCKS so fucking bad.
-Companions. So I like Parvati. Yes, all cutesy, asexual and awkward and with a dumb quest where you teach her to go on a date all awkwardly and cutesy. But she was definitely the most likeable of the bunch just in terms of basic personality. The rest? Oh boy... the Vicar seems interesting but just ends up completely boring once you dive more into his whole backstory. An old character written by someone very young is what it feels like. Nyoka and Ellie? "Tough" characters with nothing interesting to offer at all besides being mildly insufferable. Nyoka is *ahahaha* an alcoholic who drinks a lot! Ellie is *ahahaha* stand-off ish and does piracy and shoots people because it's FUN and COOL and UNCARING. Ugh. I didn't even bring the other guy along that you find on Groundbreaker because he seemed insufferable from his intro dialogue. The cleaning robot is... well I actually don't know if there's any quest for him so I don't really know.
But yeah, the companions are just... not good. Again, Parvati is likeable. The others... no. And not in a "this character is an interesting foil" way. They are just insufferable most of the time.
-Quests. Again, there are nice things in some of the quests. Really nice things actually. But the way some of them are laid out is just retarded and badly designed. So you will be sent back and forth between areas you've already cleared out before (but which are now repopulated by respawning enemies), and you'll be fast travel teleporting back and forth to get to the objectives. The way they are laid out is extremely annoying. And then you have a few fetch quests thrown in for good measure as well.
Overall I had some fun with the game and I will likely try replaying it. I didn't hate it and I had quite a bit of fun in some instances actually. But I would have to say that what I wrote about combat and loot in particular really kills off a lot of the game for me. It turns into a slog, especially once you hit Monarch. It just devolves and whatever interesting quests are going kinda get lost in all the booooooring combat that's going on. Once you move on and the game moves towards the end a bit more I actually think it picks up again but the damage is done.
And it's also disappointing how it doesn't really throw any interesting curveballs to the player in terms of setting and stuff like that. If comparing with Tim & Leonard's earlier games (which may be stupid), there's never that *awesome* moment where you're going into the Glow and you're getting these great feelings of diving deep into the gameworld. Or uncovering the mysteries of the world in Arcanum, meeting Nasrudin and all of that. It feels very shallow unfortunately.
And playing it directly after Disco Elysium just highlights how unambitious it is in terms what it's trying to do with writing and humor. DE feels fresh, hard hitting at times and inspired. TWO does not.
Not terrible but pretty mediocre overall and a disappointment considering Tim and Leonard's involvement in it.
, but what about their personality beyond their quests? And speaking of quests, remember Arthur Kilpatrick in Bloodlines? He gave you quests to find bailjumpers and you ended up with a maniac and a serial killer! How does this compare to killing three random marauders and getting their fingers back to the constable? I agree with Vicar Max though, he is great. Just have him and SAM on a mission together 
