The Outer Worlds - Obsidian's new game, like Borderlands meets Fallout: New Vegas

[Tanner Glass]

I finished it and I'd say it's good, but not very good.

It's a very hard game to compare to other games, but I'd say it's a bargin bin/store brand Fallout, but not in a good way. The futher you go in the game, the more cheap and rushed it feels.

The weapon variety, build variety (skills AND perks), enemy variety, and location variety are all really, really bad. The story and character variety are also really bad and a lot of the characters are unlikable and even the ones that have potential (Parvati/ADA) are generally rushed and/or wasted.

It has some potiental, but I wouldn't really recommend it for $60.

Here's a thing: I haven't played every RPG out there and my memory is pretty crap but I honestly can't remember an instance in which I had a chance to do a quest whose goal was to get one of my party members laid.

It isn't the same thing, but I got Veronica (New Vegas) vibes from Parvati, as they both are kind of naive and gay characters who's personal quest involves getting a fancy dress. Veronica's quest winds up being a bit more than "Parvati falling for the first engineer she meets in space", though.

 

[BOONES]

This game soylent fodder? I've heard its soyboy crap.

 

[Pargon]

This game soylent fodder? I've heard its soyboy crap.

Its anti-capitalist themes are so heavy-handed and goofy at times that it's honestly hard for me to gauge how serious I ought to take the writers, so it's just as hard to answer that question. The first settlement you come to is suffering from a plague and the medicine for it is being rationed on the basis of how productive each settler is.

It goes downhill from there.

The fact that the Head Dicks In Charge of the corporations are depicted less as monsters and more as incompetent ignoramuses feels like an attempt to almost begin to balance the scales, as if they were all RoboHitlers then the writers knew they'd take shit for it. From whom is a matter of debate, but the fact remains that the game takes every opportunity to turn up the absurdity of every logical conclusion to late-stage capitalism to one hundred and eleven.

It's really just a compilation of New Yorker cartoons screaming at you about "WAHEY SURE IS FUCKED UP WHEN PEOPLE LIKE MONEY HUH". There's just the one joke and they keep telling it to you for ~35 hours but then there still has to be a big final boss at the end that you need to insert bullets into until it stops moving.

 

[Slimy Time]

Its anti-capitalist themes are so heavy-handed and goofy at times that it's honestly hard for me to gauge how serious I ought to take the writers, so it's just as hard to answer that question. The first settlement you come to is suffering from a plague and the medicine for it is being rationed on the basis of how productive each settler is.

It goes downhill from there.

The fact that the Head Dicks In Charge of the corporations are depicted less as monsters and more as incompetent ignoramuses feels like an attempt to almost begin to balance the scales, as if they were all RoboHitlers then the writers knew they'd take shit for it. From whom is a matter of debate, but the fact remains that the game takes every opportunity to turn up the absurdity of every logical conclusion to late-stage capitalism to one hundred and eleven.

It's really just a compilation of New Yorker cartoons screaming at you about "WAHEY SURE IS FUCKED UP WHEN PEOPLE LIKE MONEY HUH". There's just the one joke and they keep telling it to you for ~35 hours but then there still has to be a big final boss at the end that you need to insert bullets into until it stops moving.

Pretty much this. The fact that they make the CEOs and managers pants on head autistic and incompetent in how they manage things makes it slightly more interesting than "Capitalism Bad, Socialism Good". The arguably "best way" is to get those incompetent fucks out of there and put in someone who can run that area properly. Best example is the first area when you find the truth behind the plague (It's not a plague, it due to the company sector manager feeding his worker populace only imitation tuna, and them not having a balanced diet with fruit and veg, but he does this out of pure blind product loyalty and sheer lack of knowledge). So by putting someone competent in place, that issue gets resolved, as opposed to the anarchist or corporatist way.

 

[Kyria the Great]

So I finished this game and well it started out fun, but by the end of it I felt like slamming my head against the desk to feel something other than apathy. Time for me to give my review....

Spoiler: The reasons for this

First thing, let me name the good things

1. The starting worldspace of Edgewater is well thought out and attention to detail is well done with both of the company town and deserters having nuance enough in them, though I would have liked that the plague just wasn't from poor diet and that the choice was really hard.
2. The companions at first are decent enough with on Edgewater the introduction to Pavarti and Vicar Max is great where you feel that Pavarti is an autismo who can only understand machinery and Max going about "Who the Fuck still reads French?" is great
3. The method of space travel is a great concept where it is a pre-determined path and need AI navigation to "Skip" to world to world or town to town. The design of the space ships being blocky and more like freighters was a nice touch
4. The world in the beginning has great personality and sense of belonging where the spaceport is a nice hub to buy stuff.The consumables are interesting with each product looking rather funky and a sense this is out of the turn of the 20th century.

Though now on to the bad...

1. The combat is really lackluster to bleah with most guns not having any weight to them at all. You think since this is a shooter RPG that the gunplay would be satisfying and that bigger guns would have more weight to their feeling, but nope.
2. The perks system is really just bad with most not having any sense of real weight to what type of character you want to build and make them really stand out. You're only real choice is either a melee or gun build. Stealth builds aren't really that impressive and speech is so overpowered, you might as well play the game on super-duper easy mode.
3. The weapons and armor in this game all looks so generic and bland I about wanted to kill myself with how bland it all was. The only unique weapons are the science weapons and that only goes so far. The unique "armor" in the game is mostly just hats and there isn't any clothing or armor piece that looks like you would want ot go on a quest for or save money for
4. The main quest is just rather downright boring with it feels like that there isn't really any stakes for what you are doing, just beside what you are supposed to do. As you go on, it isn't like people are commenting on what you did either good or ill or no sense what you accomplish is changing the world in any sense so that was a massive waste of potential there.
5. The side quests aren't anything to write home about. Most are painfully dull with just being simple fetch quests without any sense of exploring anything that would make you care. There isn't any missions that are rather heartfelt, sad, action packed, or even funny to give you those memorable experiences like in New Vegas where you are going to get a sexbot for some pervert, nothing.
6. The Companions are once you get more than 5 seconds of time with them mostly one note characters with Felix just being the rebel who is down with the corporations, Ellie just being the outlaw whose that way because her parents are just rich assholes for the sake of being rich assholes, SAM just being a corporate robot with nothing else, and Njami just being a drunkard brawler without the charm of Cass. Their missions are mostly all rather boring, short, or don't have any real impact at all. You would think you would give more or as much time to a man going on a religious journey of self-discovery that you would just some hum-drum lesbian date that the two has as much chemistry as a gender studies department, but that is too much to ask. The other companions have quests that are even shorter and more insulting than that.
7. The world space is small, which isn't a problem of itself but it is very sparce and boring with almost everyplace not having any locations, landmarks, or places that stand out, give the world more character, or a sense of you wanting to care. If you go small, you better make it dense and with complete life. The locations also repeat themselves which I can somewhat forgive since the homes are all corporate make and uniform, but certainly there would be other designs or something to make them stand out.
8. The world really doesn't have too much character or how it is to be here other than, it sucks and is failing. There isn't any radio station to give life, there is mention of a sport, but no way to watch or match or participate in one, no gambling or games like that, even though there are card games and other sorts littered about the map. There is mention of a religion that is supposed to be mainstream on Halcyon, but nothing in the world is there to show how much impact it has on the world, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, perhaps it is just hokum or genuine belief, nothing.
9. The factions are all generic, bland and a snoozefest. Nothing of these factions do anything that would make you want to care about their ethos, their lore, well being, destruction, etc as they are all just mostly carbon copies with corporate factions being "bad" the rebels being "Good" or just plain destructive. Like why put a reputation meter with the game if you aren't going to put any effort in why I want to be for or against these factions?

I would say more, but honestly it makes me angry when people say,"Bethesda should be scared of Outer Worlds," or it is something they can learn from. The only thing they can learn from the game though is how to make a "complete" experience as Outer worlds isn't one and to make their game stable at launch. All and all this game is a 5/10 with me and it angers me to say this as there really is elements of a fantastic and in depth space rpg there, but it just meh and lack of feeling to the point you just want to crush your cock with a rock to feel something by the end of it.

Wait till the game is $30 dollars or less or when DLC comes out, or a complete edition.

 

[Keroruma]

I don't get why everyone loves Parvati so much. Sure, in comparison to most TOW companions she's tolerable (Nyoka, amirite?), but I felt like she's the blandest piece of water-soaked wheat toast I've seen. Her character traits are "female" and "mechanic", and the game is weirding me out by treating "gives names to machines" as some insane oddity. When my parents bought a Roomba knock-off they named him immediately because he's a good boy who keeps the house cleaner. People just give names to things they frequently work with. That's a thing normal people do. But it seems like whenever I read a discussion about TOW everyone's gushing about Parvati uWu smol asexual lesbian babey uWu.
Also Parvati is voiced by Chloe Price and that makes me want to shoot her.
Also also, holy crap her relationship with Junlei moves fast. Meeting 1 - heavy flirting. And by the time we get back to the ship Junlei is already writing romantic poems to Parvati.

Out of TOW companions, the ranking easily goes: SAM -> Vicar Max ->->->->->->->->-> Ellie -> Parvati -> Felix -> Nyoka -> ADA.

 

[knightlautrec]

The factions are all generic, bland and a snoozefest.

A shame tbh. New Vegas' factions at least made you feel something. When you met the Legion you got a healthy dose of disgust at what they're doing but on the other hand, they've managed to keep order amongst themselves. A brutal order but one nonetheless.

I'm not sure what it is about modern RPGs that are failing on writing in general these days but I'm noticing it more and more. Like, it's so surface level and lacking in true depth in any meaningful way. I'm afraid we'll never have another Planescape.

 

[BOONES]

So it's basically just a glorified socialism propaganda ad? The whole game?

 

[Ruin]

So it's basically just a glorified socialism propaganda ad? The whole game?

Not really, the problem is less that and more that the whole game is a reddit tier "capitalism lmao" joke that gets old in the first five minutes.

Now imagine how annoying that's going to get stretched over a 10-15 hour campaign.

 

[Otis Boi]

I'm not sure what it is about modern RPGs that are failing on writing in general these days but I'm noticing it more and more. Like, it's so surface level and lacking in true depth in any meaningful way. I'm afraid we'll never have another Planescape.

I was having this discussion with a friend earlier. I think the biggest issue why modern RPGs writing is so lacking is because a lot of the time it has to be edited for for voice actors/bringing read aloud. I think alot of the time they can't afford to have an actor read a paragraph of dialogue or if they can who ever is listening eyes would glaze over especially if it is mostly exposition. I think a large majority of these writers dont know how to make the dialogue work so it ends up shallow and basic. That are all the good writers quit and we are stuck with ones trying to infinitely emulate some else which never works out.

 

[Keroruma]

We already have another Planescape: Torment and it's called Disco Elysium.
But I don't think the writing got worse in games. I think it failed to get better. Most games still have the children's cartoon writing that they had back when Baldur's Gate became a thing. The medium did not become adult. The breakout hits like Pathologic 2 and Disco Elysium are a rarity, and most of the time games that have mature writing fail to have interesting game mechanics.

 

[Pargon]

I was having this discussion with a friend earlier. I think the biggest issue why modern RPGs writing is so lacking is because a lot of the time it has to be edited for for voice actors/bringing read aloud. I think alot of the time they can't afford to have an actor read a paragraph of dialogue or if they can who ever is listening eyes would glaze over especially if it is mostly exposition. I think a large majority of these writers dont know how to make the dialogue work so it ends up shallow and basic.

I noticed something similar while I was playing. TOW has dialogue response options closer to older PC RPGs like Planescape than more modern ones like Fallout 4. The issue here is that all dialogue is voiced, and so if the player chooses to exhaust every question and response (and why wouldn't you, especially on a first playthrough) then you can be stuck in a conversation with a ho-hum NPC you'll never need to talk to again for something close to ten minutes. That's in comparison to those older RPGs in which a whole response can be presented to the player at once in written format to be read, versus one line at a time as spoken by a VA.

This gets boring as fuck after a while because, as mentioned elsewhere, ~90% of the people you're talking to have no personality or character and are really just information/plot/quest relay points.

You can have fairly intricate, lengthy conversation and have it be consistently entertaining, or you can keep it short but shallow. You can't have long-but-shallow without making your players want to mash through every dialogue.

 

[Slimy Time]

Going back through this a second time, I'm inclined to believe that FO4 may be a better game. Here me out. The dialogue and storyline is shit tier garbage, but the gameplay and the environmental and faction design is better.
>You have far more weapon variety, even if some of it is reskinned, your modifications have a visual difference, not just a stat boost or element effect slapped on.
>You get far more legendary drops, even if most of them are not that useful. Here you have the 5 science weapons. >Combat feels weighty, a swing from a sledge hammer feels like a swing from a sledge hammer. Firing a mini gun feels like you are turning things into cheese.
>You have grenades, as opposed to one weapon with a grenade like effect.
>Perks actually do have a noticeable impact on gameplay. Stealth allows you to actually stealth a whole area, Vats or luck allows you to bank and pop more criticals by using Vats a lot more.
>Landmarks and environments are distinct, while here the planets are distinct, the environments themselves are not. Just follow the lights on the ground to your next location.
>Factions are visually and noticably different. You have your Colonial LARPers, Ripoff Space Marines, Stealth hippies and Clean underground scientists. The main bases are also distinct in their appearance.

Surely I cannot be the only one who thinks this, and let's not even think about FONV

 

[Tor Lugosi]

You forgot the most important point: FO4 has decent waifus.

 

[Ruin]

Going back through this a second time, I'm inclined to believe that FO4 may be a better game. Here me out. The dialogue and storyline is shit tier garbage, but the gameplay and the environmental and faction design is better.
>You have far more weapon variety, even if some of it is reskinned, your modifications have a visual difference, not just a stat boost or element effect slapped on.
>You get far more legendary drops, even if most of them are not that useful. Here you have the 5 science weapons. >Combat feels weighty, a swing from a sledge hammer feels like a swing from a sledge hammer. Firing a mini gun feels like you are turning things into cheese.
>You have grenades, as opposed to one weapon with a grenade like effect.
>Perks actually do have a noticeable impact on gameplay. Stealth allows you to actually stealth a whole area, Vats or luck allows you to bank and pop more criticals by using Vats a lot more.
>Landmarks and environments are distinct, while here the planets are distinct, the environments themselves are not. Just follow the lights on the ground to your next location.
>Factions are visually and noticably different. You have your Colonial LARPers, Ripoff Space Marines, Stealth hippies and Clean underground scientists. The main bases are also distinct in their appearance.

Surely I cannot be the only one who thinks this, and let's not even think about FONV

Nope, I agree. As much as I absolutely despise Bethesda I'd play Fallout 4 over Outer Worlds again.

 

[Vault Boy]

Going back through this a second time, I'm inclined to believe that FO4 may be a better game. Here me out. The dialogue and storyline is shit tier garbage, but the gameplay and the environmental and faction design is better.
>You have far more weapon variety, even if some of it is reskinned, your modifications have a visual difference, not just a stat boost or element effect slapped on.
>You get far more legendary drops, even if most of them are not that useful. Here you have the 5 science weapons. >Combat feels weighty, a swing from a sledge hammer feels like a swing from a sledge hammer. Firing a mini gun feels like you are turning things into cheese.
>You have grenades, as opposed to one weapon with a grenade like effect.
>Perks actually do have a noticeable impact on gameplay. Stealth allows you to actually stealth a whole area, Vats or luck allows you to bank and pop more criticals by using Vats a lot more.
>Landmarks and environments are distinct, while here the planets are distinct, the environments themselves are not. Just follow the lights on the ground to your next location.
>Factions are visually and noticably different. You have your Colonial LARPers, Ripoff Space Marines, Stealth hippies and Clean underground scientists. The main bases are also distinct in their appearance.

Surely I cannot be the only one who thinks this, and let's not even think about FONV

Shit, even the quests feel more compelling aside from the Radiant ones. Over half way through the game, and I haven't found a single quest that was as interesting or fun as The Silver Shroud, The Last Voyage of the USS Constitution, The Battle of Bunker Hill, the couple involving the Cabbot family, that one with the Chinese sub, or even the faction questlines aside from the Minutemen's. This is coming from a game the Fallout fanbase considers having weaker quests than previous games, so what does that say about this one?

Seriously, you'd think having a smaller game would lead to tighter quests, but all I've seen so far are either too short, too straight forward, uninteresting, have too much fetching, or all the above. Too many times, I've found myself thinking "That's it?" when I complete these quests.

My ass Bethesda needs to learn from this game besides QA. If Obsidian doesn't shape up, Starfield's gonna blindside them.

 

[Billy "the Bot" Bobson]

A Western RPG can only be good if the creators go in with a very cynical mindset. With a very cynical eye, no character is allowed to be "likable for the sake of likability" and no faction is allowed to really be the good guy. Lose the cynicism and you get really bland and boring stories.

 

[Kyria the Great]

A Western RPG can only be good if the creators go in with a very cynical mindset. With a very cynical eye, no character is allowed to be "likable for the sake of likability" and no faction is allowed to really be the good guy. Lose the cynicism and you get really bland and boring stories.

I don't say that for sure. You can have an rpg with a clear good and evil and still have a right impact, it just happens you need tight writing and make the people be likable for their merits and/or flaws.

 

[Slimy Time]

I don't say that for sure. You can have an rpg with a clear good and evil and still have a right impact, it just happens you need tight writing and make the people be likable for their merits and/or flaws.

Yeah, I can kinda agree with that. Problem I have with TOW story is that the main antagonists, The Board so far isn't really tight or likeable. Oh, they aren't actually evil, just greedy and very incompetent, but don't worry, you can make them not as incompetent by putting the right people in. Well that isn't very compelling for me if I want an evil playthrough. IDK, maybe it's me, but I would rather have stereotypically competent corrupt corporations than ones run by smoothbrains.

 

[HeyYou]

and faction design is better

Hmm. I'm not sure I agree with this. Fallout 4's factions where just as one-note or gimmicky as this game, outside of Far Harbor. Really, Fallout 4 had a lot of the same problems this game did, it just had a huge open world that satisfies that exploration itch that makes Bethesda games fun. We're just used to Obsidian not having these issues and instead a good amount of other issues.

the couple involving the Cabbot family

Cabbot questline

Interesting or fun

Take that shit back right now.