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

[Ash]

5/10 or 6/10, sure. Anything above or below that has their scaling off.

 

[ItsChon]

All of you are retards. TOW was a 3/10 game with the potential to hit a 4/10 if everything was firing on all cylinders. The framework was just as shit as the product. I would love to hear the good things about this supposedly "functional" framework.

There are not many bugs. The game plays as intended. Everything is in place with a degree of consistency and direction. It can be completed. It has a degree of overall polish. It has a degree of complexity. Some semblance of balance exists.

The game is shit but it is in no way a 3/10. It is you that is retarded. 3/10 = some slavjank half-baked thing with balance all over the place, copy-pasted level design, and half the guns AAA quality modelling and animation, while the other half of the guns are broken jank with no tweening. But hey, it can just about be completed, but not without a great deal of boredom and frustration with maybe a handful of interesting parts. As an example of what a 3/10 might look like.

When looking at a scale between one and ten, one is an absolutely terrible game while ten is a fantastic game. Since five is in the middle, it is meant for games that are flawed, where the pros and cons balance each other out, and you have a game that offers an experience that is not good enough that it warrants playing, but not outright poor enough that it is offensive. Games that are rated above five when the pros of the game outweigh the cons, while games are rated below five if the cons of the game outweigh the pros. In some games, one pro is enough to take a game to a six despite a plethora of flaws, while in other games, one con is enough to take a game to a four despite all of its pros. It just depends on how good/egregious said thing is.

TOW is a 3/10 game, as its cons significantly outweigh the pros of the game. In fact, I cannot think of any pros off the top of my head. Let's see what you had to say in favor of TOW.

Spoiler

There are not many bugs.

That's not a pro, that's just a lack of a con.

The game plays as intended.

What does this mean? The intended game is trash; I've detailed the reasons why first person shooters do not make and TOW is just another example of this. I don't see how this is a pro.

Everything is in place with a degree of consistency and direction.

Again, this isn't a pro in and of itself, it's just a lack of a con. The game is consistently shit, and the chosen direction is not good!

It can be completed.

A lack of a con does not constitute a pro.

It has a degree of complexity.

Complexity in and of itself is not a pro or a con. It needs to be contextualized within the game/system itself to see if it's worth a damn. There are non complex combat systems that are great, and complex combat systems that are shit, and the vice versa is true as well.

Some semblance of balance exists.

Balance in and of itself is not a pro or a con. It needs to be contextualized within the game/system itself to see if it's worth a damn. There are unbalanced games that are great, and balanced games that are shit, and the vice versa is true as well.

The game is shit but it is in no way a 3/10. It is you that is retarded. 3/10 = some slavjank half-baked thing with balance all over the place, copy-pasted level design, and half the guns AAA quality modelling and animation, while the other half of the guns are broken jank with no tweening. But hey, it can just about be completed, but not without a great deal of boredom and frustration with maybe a handful of interesting parts. As an example of what a 3/10 might look like.

You basically just described ELEX lmfao.

Spoiler

My scale judges how enjoyable a game is to play. If I rate a game a 6/10, you can be rest assured that you will enjoy the game, despite its problems. If I rate a game a 4/10, you will not enjoy the game despite the things it does well. Using your system, it is concievable that someone might enjoy playing a game you rate as a 4/10 while they dislike playing a game that you rated a 6/10 or a 7/10. A rating system such as this does not make sense.

TOW gets a 3/10 because I am hard pressed to name any pros that stand out in spite of the games flaws. Sure there are a few, but none of them justify it even reaching a four, much less a five.

 

[Wunderbar]

Let's rate this game using 5-point scale, where:

5 - masterpiece;
4 - great;
3 - decent;
2 - OK;
1 - bad/not worth playing.

This puts TOW right in the middle between 2 and 1, aka 3/10.

 

[toro]

Let's rate this game using 5-point scale, where:

5 - masterpiece;
4 - great;
3 - decent;
2 - OK;
1 - bad/not worth playing.

This puts TOW right in the middle between 2 and 1, aka 3/10.

TOW is clearly "not worth playing".

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Will mods fix it?

 

[Avarize]

Let's rate this game using 5-point scale, where:

5 - masterpiece;
4 - great;
3 - decent;
2 - OK;
1 - bad/not worth playing.

This puts TOW right in the middle between 2 and 1, aka 3/10.

1.5

 

[Tyranicon]

Let's rate this game using 5-point scale, where:

5 - masterpiece;
4 - great;
3 - decent;
2 - OK;
1 - bad/not worth playing.

This puts TOW right in the middle between 2 and 1, aka 3/10.

See, the problem everyone has is switching between the 5/7/3 average on 10 point scale.

If we reduce 10 to 5, it should look like this:


5 - Masterpiece
4 - Good
3 - Average
2 - Bad
1 - Horrible

And since this is the codex and we love to jack off about how prestigious we all are, we tend to give titles lower rankings just to be edgy.

As a dev looking at a competitor's work, I give TOW a 3 out of 5, which is 6/10. The game is mediocre.

Of course the average codexer could give TOW a 1/5 for being a horrible, boring sack of shit that should've never been made, and that's fine because it's all opinion anyways and a good argument could be made for why it's a 1.

I just don't agree with it.

 

[HeyCheckOutHowHardICanPee]

The Outer Worlds doesn't get a rating because it isn't a game anyone should waste their time with.

This isn't even some funny edgy gotcha comment either, the game is just so perfectly "meh" all around that you're unironically better off trying to extract joy from the most bottom of the barrel trash game instead of wasting your time with it. There is nothing worse than pure mediocrity.
At least with a bad game you can go searching for a glimmer of joy, laugh at the sheer badness of it or find what the developers were trying to do and why they failed in doing so.

 

[Deadyawn]

Presicely! Nothing in this game stands out. Not the gameplay, not the story, not the visuals, nothing. It's an allaround numbing experience. That makes me despise it that much more, even though those who go by genre standards would say it's "competent".

The only thing that surprised me about this game was the fact that Obsidian outdid Spiders in mediocrity. Outstanding.

 

[thesecret1]

TOW puzzles me to this day, because I just cannot pinpoint just what EXACTLY made it bad.

I have a rather fuzzy memory of it – I remember crashlanding somewhere after talking with Rick from Rick & Morty who wanted something about a space ship full of cryo pods or some shit. Then meeting some brain-damaged retard that only spoke in slogans. Then visiting a city where I was to perform a coup of some sort for reasons I don't remember, after which I uninstalled the thing. What stood out to me the most (and really, perhaps the only thing that stood out to me) was that I was intensely, extremely bored. As if the game was actively trying to make me drowsy and disinterested. Which is strange because on paper, it has all the things that I love in an RPG – it SHOULD be New Vegas in space, but somehow isn't, somehow it's a massive snooze fest, and I'm not certain why.

 

[Roguey]

It's pretty keen how New Vegas's reception only improved with age but here we are years after the release of The Outer Worlds and the mood is generally "Fuck Tim and fuck Leonard." Bugs can be fixed, poor design is forever.

 

[Duraframe300]

When looking at a scale between one and ten, one is an absolutely terrible game while ten is a fantastic game. Since five is in the middle,

You might want to recheck that math. 5 is not the middle between 1 and 10. 5.5 is.

Rating systems in general are skewed upwards from 50% for a variety of (good) reasons, an average performance being around 6 in most cases (On a scale of 10).

So, 3/10 sounds harsh to a lot of people. (Though honestly, depending on your viewpoint of Outer Worlds an argument can be made)

You do you of course and its your own personal rating system anyway so who gives a shit?

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

"Look we made the visuals better!"

Yeah, I don't consider chromatic aberration, an orange filter, and fewer details thanks to borked lighting better. Guess I'm going to have eternal regret I didn't buy the original unfucked version when it was on sale.

I promise you that if you never play this game then you are doing yourself a massive favour

This was such an incredibly bland game.

I finished it but at no point I was thinking "I can't wait to see what happens next." that I experienced with other action-adventure games.

 

[BlackheartXIII]

the mood is generally "Fuck Tim and fuck Leonard." Bugs can be fixed, poor design is forever.

In the defense for Tim Cian, he does pointed out in The House of Dev interview the lack of trust from Obsidian leadership:

I miss being able to make a game without so much advanced planning and of constant oversight. "It weird and I hope I don't depress anyone who want to get in the game industry, but even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do, "are you sure you want to put that in?", "are you sure that make sense for this setting"

Also Cain commented about an argument with one of TOW creatives about the characteristic of the setting:

I had somebody tell me that our factories in outer world shouldn't have smoke stacks on them, because smoke stacks are not sci-fi, and I was like, have you seen the beginning of Blade Runner movie?, have you seen city of lost children?."

I think that the poor streamline design might be a result of Obsidian leadership inclination for a "safe" simplified design, might be also vouched from low level designers and QA (gamedev cultural shift).

vacuous zoomer retard female writers who one pictures being on their smartphones 24/7

Wrong observation, most of TOW narrative team assembled from millennials YA writers in their 30's (maybe is the main reason that writing isn't and/or unintentionally aimed for adult), which explains the simplistic juvenile worldviews and sallow exploration of various themes, self-insert, self deprecating humor, profound inability to handle subject matter of any seriousness.

 

[Kev Inkline]

I've written it elsewhere, but I think the positives were the music and the ship design, that's it pretty much.

Also, in my mind it the grades from 0 to 5 don't quite translate literally into 0-100 scale (although mathematically they should, as it's just a linear transformation), so 2/5 and 60/100 feel pretty much sameyish for me. Which is also how I'd grade TOW.
I think this is partly because the computer mags back in the 80s and the 90s I read scored things out of 100, and if something got less than 70, it was considered pretty damn bad.

 

[Lemming42]

Interesting to see Cain complain about the restrictive experience of making the game. I saw a video of him giving a talk about the making of Fallout a while ago and iirc he was literally the only person working on Fo1 for the first several months, and people would join the project by coming over to his office after-hours to eat pizza and enthuse about their ideas for the game, with everyone there being there entirely by choice (at times even unpaid). Must have been an unpleasant shock to go from an atmosphere of such passion and creativity to what sounds like a very corporate, boring, soulless environment at Obsidian.

This is probably why a lot of modern games (and other media) in general suck ass - it's not due to lack of talent on the developers' part, but just a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, and management likely wanting to play it safe in a way that means any unique or fresh ideas are quickly stamped out. There's also the fact that back in 1997, everyone on the project had one area they were working on - writer, programmer, artist, sound design, whatever. I'm not actually sure how Obsidian work but I imagine it's the usual case of half a trillion writers, fifty thousand graphic designers, six hundred and twelve sound designers, etc.

You can actually see the outline of someone's good ideas in TOW, but absolutely none of them come to fruition in any satisfying way. There's a huge blandness running through the game, and it's probably deliberate on the part of management - New Vegas can often be the same way, but the core ideas are so much stronger than TOW's that it gets away with the fact that 98% of all NPCs are utterly devoid of character.

 

[Wesp5]

In the defense for Tim Cian, he does pointed out in The House of Dev interview the lack of trust from Obsidian leadership:

I miss being able to make a game without so much advanced planning and of constant oversight. "It weird and I hope I don't depress anyone who want to get in the game industry, but even now, after 41 years, I have people second-guessing everything I do, "are you sure you want to put that in?", "are you sure that make sense for this setting"

That's very interesting! It might explain the bad itemisation which makes it possible for every build to finish the game without problems and also the general all-women-are-great-and-all-men-are-idiots atmosphere.

 

[Konjad]

Wow, people actually discuss this turd on 'dex! For over 300 pages!

 

[MajorMace]

Wow people talk about this turd on the 'Dex for over 300 pages !

We're usually pretty resilient in the face of shit games, are we not ?

 

[Konjad]

Good job, shillfinitron.

Not so sure about that considering what is being said about it.

Thought so the same, so removed it, but you were too quick

 

[MajorMace]

No idea what you mean, pal.

 

[thesecret1]

Good job, shillfinitron.

Not so sure about that considering what is being said about it.

Thought so the same, so removed it, but you were too quick

It's because it's by Obsidian, else the thread would be much shorter

 

[ItsChon]

Mediocre means, something is of moderate quality. I would not seek out a mediocre restaurant, but if I had to eat at one, I would not be upset and would enjoy the food. Similarly, I wouldn't seek out a mediocre game, but if I was to be locked in a room an hour with nothing else to do, I would play it. If I was locked in a room with TOW, I would rather do anything else than play it. I would literally rather close my eyes and take a nap, or do some push ups. The game is not good!

You might want to recheck that math. 5 is not the middle between 1 and 10. 5.5 is.

Rating systems in general are skewed upwards from 50% for a variety of (good) reasons, an average performance being around 6 in most cases (On a scale of 10).

So, 3/10 sounds harsh to a lot of people. (Though honestly, depending on your viewpoint of Outer Worlds an argument can be made)

You do you of course and its your own personal rating system anyway so who gives a shit?

If you made the scale between zero and ten it would functionally be the same, but thank you for the correction. Personally I like having 0.5's in a scale, as it allows for further specificity and gives games a +/- wiggle room of one point which accounts for differing personal tastes in reviewers. I digress though.

As for rating systems being skewed upwards from 50%, I know this is common and I guess it was disingenuous of me to pretend like it doesn't exist when drafting my post, I just think it's retarded. Unless you're moving by 0.1 increments, you will never be able to consistently rate a games quality, and while you will be more accurate using this type of a rating system, your precision will be close to zero. I think it's a byproduct of reviewers being lazy, and people generally being stupid, and I refuse to participate in it.

Also, the sheer amount of decline in this thread. I will say this now.

FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS IS A 5/10 GAME AT BEST. IT IS NOT GOOD!

If you enjoyed that game, you have poor taste, and I'm not surprised you consider TOW to be "mediocre". KC:D is better than both FO:NV and TOW, and even then it is only a 6-6.5/10.

 

[Duraframe300]

As for rating systems being skewed upwards from 50%, I know this is common and I guess it was disingenuous of me to pretend like it doesn't exist when drafting my post, I just think it's retarded. Unless you're moving by 0.1 increments, you will never be able to consistently rate a games quality, and while you will be more accurate using this type of a rating system, your precision will be close to zero. I think it's a byproduct of reviewers being lazy, and people generally being stupid, and I refuse to participate in it.

What?

0.1 incremenets is implied here already. I don't know what that has to do with a rating system naturally being skewed up above 50%. I'm not saying to move in whole numbers.

If you reviewed a range of products *SUPER PROFESSIONALLY* with a list of fair and specific criteria when you average the whole thing out it probably will be at 60+ because at some point nearly every game will tick some random checkbox and get points for it. It's why an average/mediocre product for me isn't 50% (Which is a fail) because the product has to at least some additional positive value to it to be mediocre compared to the whole of the market or even just to be useful to me.

Reviews are shit because they're bloated and game reviewers are super unprofessionally (I doubt anyone of them actually keeps a consistent list of criteria) and corrupt, not because of specific interpretations of a rating system.

Anyway doesn't matter, again your rating system is perfectly fine. It does not apply to your scale (Your lowest is terrible, not non functioning so value is already implied) and you've stated how its to be interpreted. There's really nothing else necessary.

 

[Delterius]

I think TOW's mediocrity transcends scoring systems. The game fills the entire checklist for a 3/5, the problem is how it does so. As others have said there isn't anything that stands out in the game. So it goes from serviceable and entertaining enough - which is what mediocrity should be - to not worth thinking about. It's like if you made sauce with decent tomatoes and olive oil only to forget adding salt and seasoning. You're never doing that again.