Review: The Outer Worlds (PS4)

I finished my first playthrough of this game a few days ago, playing as a high intellect sniper type of character.

I’ve got to say my expectations were pretty high, and they were met. This is a great sci-fi game, with a range of options in main and side-quests, as well as varying combat playstyles and a lot of freedom (you can kill a lot of characters, maybe everyone, whereas other games in this genre might make them ‘essential’).

Downsides: it is shorter than some comparable games. However, it still clocks in at something like 30-40 hours, and Obsidian were totally up front about this. They never claimed it was a 200 hour game. Textures on an old, fat PS4 can take a second or two to show up. And if you do the vast majority of quests, as I did, you’ll end up feeling overpowered relatively quickly (which suited me as I have the combat skills of tortoise stuck in a bucket).

Dialogue is an area where the excellent character creator (in terms of setting up strengths and weaknesses) really shines. You get special dialogue options for lots of skills, such as Engineer prowess, and the Dumb option if you make your character a little bit dim.

In combat you can go for a melee approach, sniping, guns blazing, and I’d guess full stealth would work too (I have zero experience of the latter, the others all work fine). Be sure to get the tinkering skill (Engineer 20, I think) to improve your weapons/armour, as this’ll help out quite a bit. Enemies come in the form of automechanicals, mischievous people, and rabid creatures (alien apes, dogs, and insects). The variety could be a little better but it works fine.

The world-building is another especial strength, creating a plausible corporate dystopia in which perfectly reasonable people are constrained by the bounds of a hyper-capitalist society. It does a great job of making the inhabitants of the Halcyon system credible, rather than 2D cardboard cut-outs, and nowhere does this work better than with the character of Parvati, who was my ever-present companion in the first campaign.

Genuine moral (and personal) dilemmas are presented, with legitimate choices either way, and often scope to be pretty evil if you want to be (not that I was).

During my first run I didn’t encounter a single serious bug, no hangs, freezes, crashes, or offers to pay $100 a year for a game I’d already bought.

Although not the longest RPG in the world the decisions with consequences plus varying play styles in combat and dialogue means it’s easy to envisage multiple playthroughs (I’ve just started a ‘dumb’ run).

The Outer Worlds a very good game.

Thaddeus

The Outer Worlds – Early Thoughts (PS4)

Yes, yes, pre-ordering games is generally a bad thing. But this game, by Obsidian (makers of Fallout New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity) looked very good indeed. And, so far, I’m not regretting the decision at all.

At the time of writing I’ve played about six or seven hours or so, and have left the starting area.

The Outer Worlds is set in a new alternate reality future, in a distant star system which is run by corporations in a rather dystopian way. You play a chap or lady thawed out from a ship where hundreds of people ended up as popsicles rather than colonists.

There’s a lot I like about the game, and a few minor gripes, so I’ll outline the downsides first. The subtitles are too small. Doesn’t affect me personally but if you rely on them I can see that being frustrating. Textures take a little while to load in. It does make the fat PS4 scream a bit, although this is a console rather than game problem, and the inventory menu helps it to calm down.

The plus side is that all the big stuff, so far, is good. Sometimes very good. The setting, the story, the dialogue, all are great. The combat is fine (this isn’t my area, really, but it’s fine on the standard difficulty setting). The cold, bureaucratic nature of a corporate dystopia contrasts brilliantly with the exotic and vibrant alien worlds. When you leave the office of the first bigwig you meet, having been invited to do him a dubious favour, you can look up and see the dazzling sky of another world.

The whole colony is run by a few major companies (with only one space station excepted), where people are seen as biological components in a corporate machine. But despite this, the members of corporations often come across sympathetically, as decent people stuck in a difficult place (not unlike the real world, where perfectly good people can get lumbered with less than lovely work). This adds depth and plausibility to the world, and is enhanced by the humour. This brings another dose of realism, without being over-egged.

I’ve kept stuff story-light because I don’t want to spoil anything, so all I’ll say is that the early stages are promising. Side quests and main story missions often have varying potential outcomes, and you can screw up tasks entirely (I believe you can kill anyone, but I’m playing as a nice ex-elevator technician so I haven’t tested it myself). The companions seem to be quite diverse in their personality (when it comes to combat you can mould them as you wish, so only personality matters when picking who to take).

In short, it’s really rather good.

Thaddeus