The Outer Worlds - Early Impressions

[TheGM]

There's a lot of clutter items in the form of "aid" that don't get used and don't seem practical.

Sounds like a you problem. I ON THE OTHER HAND get a massive health boost whenever I puff my inhaler in combat and with a higher Medical rating I can slap some more buffs on as well. For the clutter, well say an Item you put in the inhaler gives a total +200 HP boost, the game will cycle all your items that give that bonus in there until you run out.

 

[CT Phipps]

I haven't played it yet, I will a year from now earliest if I'm still interested, but what I've heard is that:
- The character systems look nice, but don't really do anything worthwhile or meaningful (lack of interactivity and impact)
- The world is very linear and boring to explore (lack of interest and interactivity, feeling too deliberately set up)
- A lot of the characters sound like they were written by a bored ideologue, and that they feel copypasted (the afore mentioned "woke humor" for one")
- Loot is bonkers
- For some of the afore mentioned reasons (the skills and loot), it's very easy even on harder difficulties
- The much advertised reactivity turns out to be sorely lacking (Now here I have to say, that I don't completely buy it at face value, since in games like this you notice the larger scale of reactivity only through several playthroughs, like in Fallout...it is understandable that the first run might feel lacking)
- It is a disappointment in what all it lacks considering who made it

How much of that rings true?

I feel like the world is extremely non-linear but I feel like a lot of Obsidian's work went to waste as its only now happening that people are starting to play assholes and [Dumb] which is one of the two major other modes other than "Paragon Goodguy with High Persuasion." As such, the variations on the game are only now starting to be explored.

Spoiler

For example, almost everyone made a decision early in the game to side with a character named Adelaide and put her in charge of the city of Edgewater [Good]. However, if you side with the board [Evil] then this has horrifying consequences.

6:00



You must kill every man, woman, and child in the city to prove your loyalty to the Board (which they won't require otherwise) because you sided with a bunch of Dissidents. Another thing is you can agree to turn over Phineas Welles the Mad Scientist to the Board, however, you can then go to meet Phineas and warn him, allowing him to set a trap.

It's also possible to kill Sophia early (who is the Final Boss) and thus change who is the Boss in the Final.

There's also a secret ending for [Dumb] characters where you kill everyone in a botched hyperspace jump.

One moment I liked is if you gun down a Companion's parents, she freaks out, demands to know why you did that and then leaves. You can also murder another Companion's girlfriend during her date with, again, special dialogue and them abandoning you. A lot changes on who you kill and when really.

As for ideologue, it depends on what you consider an "ideology"? The game says that capitalism shouldn't be put before a survival situation and scientific facts are unchanging regardless of propaganda but I'm not sure those are statements that can be argued. It's like New Vegas, "rape and pillage is wrong as is dressing like a Roman Centurion--but you can if you want, I guess."

 

[joevonzombie]

So, did you guys get your New Vegas successor as ordered?

Yes and no. Its smaller in scale and but they definitely achieved what they set out to do for the most part. A lot my nostalgia of New Vegas came from the feeling that the game was tailor made for me specifically given my personal interests in Westerns, B movies, ancient Rome and Rockabilly. It being a "proper" sequel to Fallout 2 was just icing on the cake. The second I met the Kings, I was in love with that janky piece of shit. TOW doesn't elicit that same feeling which I honestly didn't expect it to, but it does scratch that same itch.

 

[RetrospectiveGaming]

Haven't played it long enough to give a detailed impression but i do want to say this ... I like using the shrink ray to turn enemies into midgets and punch them ...midget punching ...the only sport I can win a gold medal at

 

[CT Phipps]

Haven't played it long enough to give a detailed impression but i do want to say this ... I like using the shrink ray to turn enemies into midgets and punch them ...midget punching ...the only sport I can win a gold medal at

There's a wee bit of Borderlands in this game.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I would like to share some more thoughts I have on The Outer Worlds.

One thing for me that is always important to RPGs I play other than the characters, factions, quests, and writing, is the "hook" or better said; the twist, the one element that grabs you and pulls you inside or makes you really invested in the game.

Using the Fallout series as an example as I have the most connection with that one was initially exploring the post apocalyptic wasteland and meeting the various societies and factions that had arisen in it, but the moment I was really grabbed was when I was told that there was an unusual large number of mutants that seemed to be created in a lab by someone. Then as I started to investigate I learned about the Master, the Super Mutants, and the Unity, and the plan of the Master to save the human species by making everyone a mutant that is better suited for the conditions in this new world, sterilizing those that can not be transformed.

In Fallout 2 it was when I learned about the Enclave (I know they were not the most well developed antagonist, rather very jingoistic militaristic authoritarian xenophobes) who was working behind the scenes throughout the region and who were planning to reclaim the US mainland for "pure humanity" by gassing all the "mutants".

In Fallout New Vegas the state of the world was a bit more clear including what the final endgame would be about as the conflict between the NCR and the Legion played the leading role in the game with House and the player being wild cards in this situation. I have to say that I was initially a little disappointed as I kept hoping for an unexpected development.
Then when Lonesome Road came out which I know some people here found rather average I really wished that this had been part of the endgame of FNV.
The main issue or situation or plotline would still be the second battle between the NCR and the Legion that would decide the fate of the region but behind it all the player would have to confront Ulysses and his plan to reset the West, the East or the entire South West in the hope a better society would emerge from it than the current ones, and that the decisions the player made in the Mojave would have more of an impact on this.

I did talk with someone else about it who felt that it would be rather difficult to merge the plotline of FNV and Lonesome Road in the endgame of FNV. I still would like to think it would have only added more... excitement and personal involvement.

My main issue with the main campaign of TOW is that it is rather straight forwards; we have the Board/corporations who are mismanaging the Halcyon colony with a food shortage crisis imminent but who want to continue their luxurious lifestyles, and the people who oppose them such as MSI, the Iconoloclasts, locals, and Dr Welles who wants to awaken the colonists of the Hope who include some of the best and brightest with the idea that they can solve all of Halcyon's problems.
For me there felt there was no "twist" in this game. From the start we know about the food shortage crisis is imminent and I decided to spoil myself by reading up the entire storyline of TOW and plot elements such as the Board's Employee Lifetime Employment program (putting everyone except for the rich and the most essential personnel in hibernation) and that contact with Earth had been lost does not really change anything.
We already know that the corporations are basically evil and that they care little about their employees and that Earth will not get involved.

I kept hoping for an unexpected development; a hidden third party that is working behind the scenes and is planning to take over the Halcyon colony (Earth secretly sent an expedition to Halcyon, the expedition finds Halcyon is in such a mess that they are planning a military take over to put it back in order), or that Dr Welles' solution involved a bit more than just awakening the colonists, expecting the "Smartypants" to solve everything (Dr Welles has his own solution to the problem, he figured out a way of terraforming the planets to make them more suitable for Earth lifeforms. Thing is the process will kill everyone on the colony. Seeing as the Board is already pushing the colony to destruction Welles believes it might as well start over with the colonists from the Hope building a new and better one)

It doesn't need to be "Suddenly the Reapers arrive" but something that raises the stakes a bit more, drawing in the player.

It is easy for someone to tell from the sidelines what someone else should do but this is kind of what I expected from Obsidian and not just being Welles or the Board's errand boy who goes around the colony doing jobs.

What the Codex mentioned in the TOW thread, almost all the NPCs in the game are so disconnected from the world/are so insane that they don't take much noticed of the crisis their colony is in, so why should we the player care?

 

[Korin]

Sounds like a you problem. I ON THE OTHER HAND get a massive health boost whenever I puff my inhaler in combat and with a higher Medical rating I can slap some more buffs on as well. For the clutter, well say an Item you put in the inhaler gives a total +200 HP boost, the game will cycle all your items that give that bonus in there until you run out.

This is probably part of my problem because I never actually need to use the inhaler. I didn't know it would auto-cycle items with the same stats, that's good to know. I must have 100 inhaler charges by now. Talking to a couple guys at work they're having the same issue and end up selling all of their aid items. I didn't want to waste adrena puffing the inhaler but since I'm never using it anyway I might as well use it for a quick stat boost. I don't think you can unequip adrena but since I never use it I suppose it will just be wasted.

 

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

Agreed, and it's a cruel irony that the Vault Boy, once a mascot for a company that was all kinds of evil, is now a major face of Bethesda, itself a tentacle of the even more evil Zenimax.

I really wish that the devs added a faction that is a not too subtle jab at Bethesda where their products are broken and buggy but their company motto is "It just works!". Would have been nice to see them throw some shade Bethesda's way after the bullshit they pulled with the Cabot House and Kid In A Fridge quest lines in Fallout 4 which was just a giant middle finger to New Vegas and its fans.

There's actually a term for this phenomenon. It's called the culture industry where the status quo is able to assimilate new influences in order to actually keep the core tenants of mass media still going. All while removing anything that might be too radical or alien from these new influences.



So this guy ends up explaining the simple gests of it hoe it works systematically. Through the intermediate of pop culture of course lol

 

[TheGM]

This is probably part of my problem because I never actually need to use the inhaler. I didn't know it would auto-cycle items with the same stats, that's good to know. I must have 100 inhaler charges by now. Talking to a couple guys at work they're having the same issue and end up selling all of their aid items. I didn't want to waste adrena puffing the inhaler but since I'm never using it anyway I might as well use it for a quick stat boost. I don't think you can unequip adrena but since I never use it I suppose it will just be wasted.

The fact you can use the inhaler in Time Dilation with out it effecting the meter opens up a bunch of options. You spec it so you take a massive combat buff puff in slow motion and unleash all kinds of hell while it all plays out like its a scene from Dredd. You don't really have to worry about running out of health items, I'm tripping over them left and right and even left like 50 of them on this ship since I was being weighed down by them.

 

[joevonzombie]

 

[CT Phipps]

 

[AgentBJ09]

 

[Korin]

I feel like the world is extremely non-linear but I feel like a lot of Obsidian's work went to waste as its only now happening that people are starting to play assholes and [Dumb] which is one of the two major other modes other than "Paragon Goodguy with High Persuasion." As such, the variations on the game are only now starting to be explored.

SPOILERS:

For example, almost everyone made a decision early in the game to side with a character named Adelaide and put her in charge of the city of Edgewater [Good]. However, if you side with the board [Evil] then this has horrifying consequences.

6:00



You must kill every man, woman, and child in the city to prove your loyalty to the Board (which they won't require otherwise) because you sided with a bunch of Dissidents. Another thing is you can agree to turn over Phineas Welles the Mad Scientist to the Board, however, you can then go to meet Phineas and warn him, allowing him to set a trap.

It's also possible to kill Sophia early (who is the Final Boss) and thus change who is the Boss in the Final.

There's also a secret ending for [Dumb] characters where you kill everyone in a botched hyperspace jump.

One moment I liked is if you gun down a Companion's parents, she freaks out, demands to know why you did that and then leaves. You can also murder another Companion's girlfriend during her date with, again, special dialogue and them abandoning you. A lot changes on who you kill and when really.

END SPOILERS

As for ideologue, it depends on what you consider an "ideology"? The game says that capitalism shouldn't be put before a survival situation and scientific facts are unchanging regardless of propaganda but I'm not sure those are statements that can be argued. It's like New Vegas, "rape and pillage is wrong as is dressing like a Roman Centurion--but you can if you want, I guess."

Use the spoiler tag please

 

[CT Phipps]

Anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[Chud]

Good start, but the next game will need to be more robust and allow for easier access early on to the other major hubs. Improved enemy AI so that they will attack and follow, instead of remain within a room, and allow nearby enemies to head over if within earshot. Add explosives and the ability to use mines/grenades/missiles and disarm mines. A wider range of perks that add a layer of flavor to role playing instead of just static boosts. If the game world/quests increases in the future, reduce the XP given from quests to slow the rate of leveling up. A better way to organize gear and consumables. A wider arrange of ammo types and weapons, and the ability to use fists. A good number of the quests played it safe, in that we've seen them before (A cannibal family, The terrible secret is that people are being killed), and in the future should take more hard lefts to unusual and unique places quest/story-wise.

What I'm getting at is this game is fine with its limitations due to being a shorter game, but the sequel needs to really flesh things out. The Outer Worlds is short not just due to budget/time constraints but as an easily digestible starting point for bigger and grander games. The world is fertile and new, and given care and time will build in complexity and quality.

 

[joevonzombie]

Finally finished this thing. Game had major balance issues and was entirely too easy, but I enjoyed my time with it. I think the main quest is honestly the weakest part of it. But still a solid 7 out of 10.

 

[drawnacrol]

The more I play it the less I'm enjoying it. It has many of the things I didn't like about Pillars of Eternity. Apart from being a first person RPG with guns I'm not really seeing any similarities to Fallout, even New Vegas.

 

[CT Phipps]

The more I play it the less I'm enjoying it. It has many of the things I didn't like about Pillars of Eternity. Apart from being a first person RPG with guns I'm not really seeing any similarities to Fallout, even New Vegas.

What is absent in your opinion? Because on my end it's a Raider and mutant filled wasteland where you scavenge a great deal while dealing with various factions in a humorous fashion.

 

[Chud]

I think I know what drawbcrol is getting at. There's not enough branching choices and different quest-lines to follow. There's only small variations with a few quests swapped out for others. To play the game as an evil player will lead to the same endgame area and a very similar confrontation. I'm honestly disappointed the game doesn't branch off more differently depending on whom the player sides with. When I went to sellout Welles, I figured I could do it very early on in the game, but then I still had to do a bunch of content before I received my reward money, which when I did finally get it wasn't that much. A few standout quests do allow for a nice variety of methods of tackling and have fun conclusions, especially if playing as a psychopath. But then much of the early quests don't allow for enough variation and the dialogue options ended up feeling more like flavor text than something that's impacting the world.

The main issues is that the game is too brief and not fleshed out enough. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed the game, nor that I haven't had some excellent moments of roleplaying (I just finished a corporate assassin that went to some pretty dark places, and a jokey dumb playthrough), but after a few times through there's not that much left I haven't already done. The Outer Worlds just doesn't have the replayabilty of New Vegas in its current form.

 

[Millim]

Well, just completed it.
So, it took me about 17 hours (which I know is kind of short, but there was a lot I didn't actually do, plus New Vegas took me 17 hours to finish the first time around so it's not like I have a lot of problems there).

Overall, I felt it was a very enjoyable game. It's the closest to Fallout we're going to get for the time being so the comparisons aren't exactly lost there.
The game hasn't got the depth of Fallout, there was a clear good and bad choice in the main quest (even if the side content does grey it up a bit). The environments are pretty nice, and the writing did leave me laughing at points.

The game is unbalanced as hell, it starts off having aspects of a chalky, but by the end of the game, I was able to shoot anyone down in just a few hits.

The companions are great. But once I got Ellie, I pretty just saw fit to have her and SAM.

Now onto the bad stuff.
The length of it being about 20-30 hours isn't bad (I said I got through mine in 17 hours, but even I admit it isn't exactly a short game).
However, I feel the main story is a bit unfocused. Up until the 3rd act, there really wasn't much reason for me to stick to the main quest outside of a marker.
That being said, there were some fun parts that I felt best suited to my build (the whole breaking into areas and lying your way through was something I heavily appreciated).

The last part itself was pretty fun for all of that, although there was one point where I made a mistake and it led me to shoot a few guys (otherwise I did it all just talking my way through).

I wouldn't say it reaches the same heights as New Vegas, but that's a tall order to reach to. I'm happy with what we got so far and maybe the DLC can improve on some things. It's a good basis for a universe and a pretty good RPG, which is what we needed seeing as how good RPGs are starting to make a bit of a comeback. If anything, it'll be a good gateway for People who are disappointed in what Bethesda are shitting out and open them up to the World of RPGs.

I doubt this game will get the same retrospective recognition as New Vegas has, but it means that a Sequel has a lot to live up to.

Rating wise, I'd give it a 7.5-8.00/10.
It's flawed, but I do find it very fun.
It scratches that itch that I haven't felt since New Vegas, it's just not New Vegas.