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

[Tigranes]

So weird. Shouldn't the corporations thing be front and centre and the most interesting thing?

 

[Jenkem]

This game is not perfect but it is a fun game in the vein of New Vegas that will tide us over until ELEX 2. Simple as.

 

[Riddler]

There's examples and there's no examples. Provide examples lol

At this point these are just quick impressions.

I’ll give you one. Parvati. She’s a brown queer working-class young woman with an Indian name. Yet she talks and acts just like a ditzy white middle-class liberal Californian teenager. The character concept is interesting, the execution is Wonderbread.

But who knows, maybe it will eventually dig deeper than corporations bad m’kay, but we’re all just people m’kay, with our hopes and dreams m’kay

Side question. Let me ask you now, that you have begun noticing these little agenda details in ToW, why didn't you notice them in Deadfire?

I haven't played ToW yet but Deadfire wasn't that bad, it was just bland and predictable in its "social commentary".

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

People seem to be asking where I am. Well, unlike folks who "don't care about this game" but are furiously playing since 2AM on a Thursday, me the fanboy was only able to get 2 hours in so far.

First impressions:

- The game looks okay-ish, one thing that bothers me is the static sky
- I like the how colorful it is, but then I'm very masculine and straight. People who get triggered by colors are usually closet homosexuals trying to resist their desire to suck dick and balls.
- Overall, the presentation and art has that distinct Firefly vibe, which is great
- Music and VO are instantly forgettable
- Systems don't seem very deep, but they're about what you can hope for in a mainstream game :/
- I like how brainwashed by corporations NPCs are, it's a nice touch
- skill checks, skill checks everywhere
- combat is FNV untouched by Captain Balance, too early to tell if it's good or bad thing. Hopefully there are some builds that just break shit.

 

[MajorMace]

I've been more triggered by a few clips of tow than two playthroughs of deadfire in this regard.
And I don't care about politics, it's not the speech that annoys me here, it's how it makes the whole thing predictable and boring.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I once made the experiment of analyzing what stereotypes did Obsidian's brainlet team put Deadfire NPCs into, I got as far as Port Maje, but I didn't really need to go further. The trend would be the same. I'm interested to see what happens if someone does something similar for ToW:

Spoiler

Port Maje:
- Governor Clario - depicted as sly, simpleton, schemer, racist, servile, prioritising profit and disregarding kith lives, etc.
- Storm Speaker Ikawha - depicted as wise, honorable, fair, true to her word, humane
- Benessa - brave leader of the animancer expedition

- Rinco - gambler, cheat, greedy, racist - underestimates the Huana, hides behind his child to justify his case, insincere
- Mokeha - fighter, strong, honorable, strong sense of justice, sincere and compassionate

- Rum-Dumb Riggere - drunkard, gambler, simpleton, punches women
- Ilari - gang leader, cruel, aggressive, prays on the weak, simple - needs the player to explain to him that being owed a favor by the Watch is in his interest
- Savia - chief of town's watch, harsh, just, strong, responsible, concerned with keeping the peace/interests of the community

I'm too lazy to list further examples, but the trend continues in Neketaka, within the four major factions, etc. It doesn't take any looking to find it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

People seem to be asking where I am. Well, unlike folks who "don't care about this game" but are furiously playing since 2AM on a Thursday, me the fanboy was only able to get 2 hours in so far.

First impressions:

- The game looks okay-ish, one thing that bothers me is the static sky
- I like the how colorful it is, but then I'm very masculine and straight. People who get triggered by colors are usually closet homosexuals trying to resist their desire to suck dick and balls.
- Overall, the presentation and art has that distinct Firefly vibe, which is great
- Music and VO are instantly forgettable
- Systems don't seem very deep, but they're about what you can hope for in a mainstream game :/
- I like how brainwashed by corporations NPCs are, it's a nice touch
- skill checks, skill checks everywhere
- combat is FNV untouched by Captain Balance, too early to tell if it's good or bad thing. Hopefully there are some builds that just break shit.

I missed you. First question - based on these first impression, would you self-diagnose yourself with Denial yet, or is it too early to tell?

 

[Prime Junta]

The decline of Obsidian’s character writing is tragic really. Pillars 1 still had a few interesting, unique, characterful, or just plain funny characters, and most felt like they belonged in that world. Deadfire had mostly author self-inserts with a couple of them retaining a few vestiges of independent existence. TOW is the logical devolution.

 

[Prime Junta]

I once made the experiment of analyzing what stereotypes did Obsidian's brainlet team put Deadfire NPCs into, I got as far as Port Maje, but I didn't really need to go further. The trend would be the same. I'm interested to see what happens if someone does something similar for ToW:

Spoiler

Port Maje:
- Governor Clario - depicted as sly, simpleton, schemer, racist, servile, prioritising profit and disregarding kith lives, etc.
- Storm Speaker Ikawha - depicted as wise, honorable, fair, true to her word, humane
- Benessa - brave leader of the animancer expedition

- Rinco - gambler, cheat, greedy, racist - underestimates the Huana, hides behind his child to justify his case, insincere
- Mokeha - fighter, strong, honorable, strong sense of justice, sincere and compassionate

- Rum-Dumb Riggere - drunkard, gambler, simpleton, punches women
- Ilari - gang leader, cruel, aggressive, prays on the weak, simple - needs the player to explain to him that being owed a favor by the Watch is in his interest
- Savia - chief of town's watch, harsh, just, strong, responsible, concerned with keeping the peace/interests of the community

I'm too lazy to list further examples, but the trend continues in Neketaka, within the four major factions, etc. It doesn't take any looking to find it.

Interestingly though you get the best ultimate outcome by siding with the Vailians.

 

[cvv]

- I like the how colorful it is, but then I'm very masculine and straight. People who get triggered by colors are usually closet homosexuals trying to resist their desire to suck dick and balls.

That's exactly what a repressed self-hating homosexual would say tho.

 

[Junmarko]

There's examples and there's no examples. Provide examples lol

I’ll give you one. Parvati. She’s a brown queer working-class young woman with an Indian name. Yet she talks and acts just like a ditzy white middle-class liberal Californian teenager. The character concept is interesting, the execution is Wonderbread.

But who knows, maybe it will eventually dig deeper than corporations bad m’kay, but we’re all just people m’kay, with our hopes and dreams m’kay

So basically Junta, everyone needs to stay in their box? Especially if your brown, or a letter of the abcd+ people, don't ever act non-brown or abandon the alphabet guild?

So, so woke

Or not woke at all. Which is your problem with this game.

You really are in a cult

 

[the mole]

I'm playing on normal and regular gorilla enemies can tank 30 grenades, you heard that right, 30 fucking grenades plus straight to the face, the gunplay is inane because most nonhuman enemies are bullet sponges that cant be killed without cheesing them in some way, companions are braindead and will run face first into 20 gorillas and die instantly

Sounds like your build is trash. I can 1 shot those gorilla with a plasma rifle on supernova

There are no bad builds in this game, maybe I exaggerated a bit, it's more like 10 or 12 grenades, still tedious as fuck, we're getting close to oblivion territory here, you're constantly running away because the guns have no power

Let's talk about the 30 plasma rifle shots to take down a manticore, is that really necessary, compare that to New Vegas where almost every enemy in the game will be dead in 5 shots tops from a plasma rifle

 

[SkiNNyBane]

I'm playing on normal and regular gorilla enemies can tank 30 grenades, you heard that right, 30 fucking grenades plus straight to the face, the gunplay is inane because most nonhuman enemies are bullet sponges that cant be killed without cheesing them in some way, companions are braindead and will run face first into 20 gorillas and die instantly

Sounds like your build is trash. I can 1 shot those gorilla with a plasma rifle on supernova

There are no bad builds in this game, maybe I exaggerated a bit, it's more like 10 or 12 grenades, still tedious as fuck, we're getting close to oblivion territory here, you're constantly running away because the guns have no power

Let's talk about the 30 plasma rifle shots to take down a manticore, is that really necessary, compare that to New Vegas where almost every enemy in the game will be dead in 5 shots tops from a plasma rifle

I think past first planet you are supposed to run past the beasts until you get better shit.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I missed you. First question - based on these first impression, would you self-diagnose yourself with Denial yet, or is it too early to tell?

That is all.

 

[Prime Junta]

So basically Junta, everyone needs to stay in their box? Especially if your brown, or a letter of the abcd+ people, don't ever act non-brown or abandon the alphabet guild?

Oh she didn't abandon the alphabet guild at all, nobody in TOW did. The alphabet guild is integral to white middle-class Californian wokeness after all. My problem is precisely that everybody stays in their box -- the liberal Californian middle-class alphabet-soup woke box, with skin tone and name and what have you applied as cosmetics only. Put another way, Parvati is, effectively, blackface. Her writers are just too oblivious to realise that's what they ended up with.

Again: it's early days and maybe this will change -- I'm on the Groundbreaker, just got clearance to leave -- but so far everybody I've talked to has given me this exact same vibe. Even the psychos are a middle-class liberal Californian's idea of a psycho. It's like a larp in Pismo Beach.

 

[Monkeysattva]

I've only watched parts of a playthrough, but as the game went along, the factions and general game-world seemed to get less and less interesting. F:NV had interesting locations, and in this game they attempted that, but seems they failed, and just crammed them with "cute" NPC's. You also seem to acquire companions faster than a teenage girl on speed. Cohh's been playing for 25 hours and his ship is already filled to the brim with people. And they're all covered in power armor like they're waiting for a hive fleet to land at any moment.

Also, a question: Is this game just "Borderlands with NPC's?" Does it feel like that?

 

[Drakortha]

I've just taken to doing anything and everything to my own benefit, seeing as so far I haven't really come across any characters I care about. Focusing my skills & perks into combat effectiveness and my SAM companion hitpoints and using heavy guns so I can blast away everything in my way. I'm treating it as though I'm playing an FPS with RPG elements. It's not absolutely mindless like a pure FPS game and it has enough RPG elements and numbers to keep me satisfied and keep playing.

It's a fine FPS/RPG hybrid and you really can play it how you want. It doesn't try to force you to care by making quests and NPC's essential to progress. So it's a Win-Win.

I like the way the inhaler system works, where you can make your own druggy cocktail (I always enjoy drug addict builds in FNV). So when I heal up I get Healing + Damage Resistance + Other crap with only 1 injection.

But yeah, can't say I care too much about the NPC's. Half the time I just blow them up and take what I want, if I can. And that's working out pretty fine to me. Beats the hell out of Fallout 4 where you cannot even kill Preston at the start of the game. I would have done it every single time if I could!

 

[AwesomeButton]

I missed you. First question - based on these first impression, would you self-diagnose yourself with Denial yet, or is it too early to tell?

That is all.

That's indeed all. All you can dig up. If there was a breakdown by thread, most of them would have been in PoE and Deadfire.

 

[AwesomeButton]

So basically Junta, everyone needs to stay in their box? Especially if your brown, or a letter of the abcd+ people, don't ever act non-brown or abandon the alphabet guild?

Oh she didn't abandon the alphabet guild at all, nobody in TOW did. The alphabet guild is integral to white middle-class Californian wokeness after all. My problem is precisely that everybody stays in their box -- the liberal Californian middle-class alphabet-soup woke box, with skin tone and name and what have you applied as cosmetics only. Put another way, Parvati is, effectively, blackface. Her writers are just too oblivious to realise that's what they ended up with.

Again: it's early days and maybe this will change -- I'm on the Groundbreaker, just got clearance to leave -- but so far everybody I've talked to has given me this exact same vibe. Even the psychos are a middle-class liberal Californian's idea of a psycho. It's like a larp in Pismo Beach.

I like the new Prime Junta

 

[cvv]

Also, a question: Is this game just "Borderlands with NPC's?" Does it feel like that?

Well let's not get carried away here. TOW is bland and faintly cringey but it's still a conventional RPG.
B3 is brain-destroying popamole by retards for retards.

 

[cvv]

I like the new Prime Junta

Wasn't he a SJW or a suburban socialist or some shit like that? Or maybe I'm wrong, I haven't been very active on our /pol lately.

 

[felipepepe]

I’ll give you one. Parvati. She’s a brown queer working-class young woman with an Indian name. Yet she talks and acts just like a ditzy white middle-class liberal Californian teenager. The character concept is interesting, the execution is Wonderbread.

THIS, this bothers me so much. The ultimate failure of "diversity" that US game devs push is that it's just different shades of the same goddamn middle-class liberal Californian teenager. Some are white, some are black. Some are straight, some are gay. But they all sound extremely similar, have extremely similar world views and extremely similar humor.

I'm just fucking tired of writing that sounds like it's from people who failed to make a webcomic about nerdy stuff. FFS, just look at this:

Spoiler

This is what reddit posts of unfunny people look like.

Outer Worlds is not a bad game, but it's so goddamn bland & mediocre - and proud of that. It's the worst possible game to play after Disco Elysium.

 

[Infinitron]

Put another way, Parvati is, effectively, blackface.

This itself is a woke critique, disguised as an anti-woke critique to get brofists from Codexers. Well played.

Her last name is "Holcomb" and she was raised in a society that the developers explicitly say has left all the old world distinctions of race and nationality behind. You can say that's Obsidian staying in their safe space ("hey, we intentionally designed a setting that just happens to let us write people who behave exactly like Californians!") but they aren't as oblivious as you're saying.

 

[J_C]

Mack gave it a thumbs up. He hated the oversaturated graphics. Also didn't like the worlds, which were a bit limited and samey in his opinion. But loved the roleplaying elements, the gunplay, and most of the dialogues.

 

[hexer]

meanwhile at Steam forums