Still playing The Outer Worlds. I feel like I’m closing in on the finale in the next gaming session.
I want to come back and write a full review because the game has been a strange experience for me. It has so many gameplay and quest design choices that are baffling, usually in a negative to mixed way. There is no single issue that is a killer negative, just a death of a thousand papercuts of small issues.
Yet despite what will be laundry list of issues, the setting is so strong that I recommend the game. This is a game I’m happy is getting a sequel because it is exactly something that needs another attempt.
I think there is a wide difference between soulslikes and GTA. The most obvious being that soulslikes are understood to be difficult, while GTA difficulty spikes are almost random and tend to be a result of poor design.
In something like GTA there shouldn’t be a need to skip story critical missions, because those mission should be ironed out. The really frustrating missions either need to be reworked or pushed into optional side missions.
In certain circumstances, I agree. I am currently playing The Outer Worlds RPG. In the game there is a companion quest which culminates in fighting a “Mantinqueen”- a giant monster space bug. There is a ton of build up to it. The monster had previously killed the companion’s entire mercenary group. The lair was spooky and atmospheric.
Problem was, mantiqueens were creatures I’d already fought in the open world. I could demolish one is about a minute with my upgraded weapons. This made the boss fight underwhelming.
I wouldn’t want the solution to be just tacking on more healthpoints, but there are other options to make the boss creature more interesting to fight and the game took none of them.
I learned about it from Civvie11’s video. I have unfortunately not played it yet, although I fully intend to. It’s stuck on a long backlog list. I really admire such an ambitious game that fully commits to a design and aesthetic which the devs surely knew would be obtuse and offputting to a wider audience. Making a game focused on a vision, without compromise is really a great thing.
That is a question where the answer is very complex. You’d have to break down different game design philosophies, think them through, and then apply them to specific games.
In general, I have two gut reactions:
If players are desiring to change the difficulty of the bosses compared to the rest of the game, the devs have to ask if there is a failure of design on their part. An example of this would be Dues Ex Human Revolution, which was an immersive sim that supported many different character builds, except the boss fights which were entirely based on combat. This created a frustrating and unfair situation to players not making a combat built character. The solution was that the boss fights were completely redesigned in the Director’s Cut release to support alternate builds. This is one example, but naturally there are many more. If a game has a “that boss”, the devs should look at it and examine if there is a problem with the design. Is a battle too comparatively difficult? Too tedious? Only suitable for certain builds (in games with builds)? Is the battle too much of a departure from standard gameplay in the rest of the game?
A popular game is going to get mods. If there is a strong desire in the player base, the mod is going to happen regardless of dev stubbornness, so devs may as well just give the people what they want. If a game is praised but has outcry for boss difficulty sliders, either put it in officially or incorporate it into the sequel.
The engine could truly have rooms over rooms, it just couldn’t render them in Dark Forces. Eventually (after Dark Forces) it was updated to make that possible.
You actually could have floors over floors, but the game just wouldn’t render them both at the same time.
As for it holding up, Boomer Shooters are in vogue right now. There is a market for these games existing in an accessible way where the player doesn’t have to do a bunch of tweaks to get it running.
I’ve been playing The Outer Worlds. I restarted with a new character focused on dialog and tech skills after seeing how easy the combat is.
I like the game and really wish the discussion around it stopped simply painting it as “Fallout New Vegas In Space”, because it is not. Thinking of it that way sets misguided expectations.
The writing quality and sensibilities are clearly from many of the same minds behind New Vegas, but the game’s overall design is much guided for the player than New Vegas. In a lot of ways it feels like a classic BioWare RPG. Instead of a giant open world, there are various hubs that have curated content and which are opened up to the player in a quasi linear way.
The setting is very well defined and there is a clear vision for it. So many game settings are generic or uninspired. I haven’t played Starfield, but the footage of it never grabbed me with its kind of generic looking future. The Outer Worlds has a schtick and it leans into it 110%.
The combat is smooth, no surprise on the Unreal 4 engine. It is a hair too easy, but I prefer easy over hard when the enemy AI is so simple. I’m not a fan of bullets sponges or increased mobs of enemies to increase difficulty.
One single and huge complaint I have is the PC controls are not fully rebindable. They are only partially rebindable which is a headache for a left handed IJKL player. The game won’t let me rebind to my preference and I ended up writing my own script in AutoHotkey, which I then have to run whenever playing the game.
I’ve been playing The Outer Worlds for the first time since it released ages ago.
It is a great little roleplaying adventure game. I should do a stand alone post on it, in large part because it is almost always compared to Fallout New Vegas, which does it a disservice by setting up the wrong kinds of expectations.
I do enjoy playing a first person RPG that actually feels like a story rather than the increasingly bloated and unfocused Bethesda games which it is also often compared to.
I haven’t played CS2 yet, but since it’s an update/expansion/molting of CSGO, you’re going to have a rough time with the community until you’re out of “silver hell”. Once you rank up enough that you’ve gotten away from the spamming kiddies and smurfs, it’s a better time. At least until you reach ultra high rank where people start taking the game too seriously, but floating between Gold Nova and Master Guardian 1 ranks is the most fun place to be.
I realized that after my long strategy gaming atrophy, I wasn’t ready to just jump into XCOM2 with War Of The Chosen content.
I decided to take it slow by playing the first Firaxis XCOM, with no DLC. Just plain vanilla.
It’s been a good priming for more complex strategy. Vanilla XCOM is friendly (perhaps too friendly) to stacking overwatch, with missions rarely being time sensitive, and the time sensitive one’s being very generous.
I still lost a few rookies early on, but I’m very close to beating the game. I already have a suitable psionic soldier, I just had to turn off the game on Sunday before I could build the special psionic armor.
I’ve got a squad of colonels with the stronger perks, best weapons and gear, and I’m ready to assault the alien HQ.
I’ll probably replay with Enemy Within DLC, and then move to XCOM 2.