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

[Yosharian]

I played The Outer Worlds recently, and while it is a good game

 

[jackofshadows]

TemplarGR come, say hello to your new fellow here

 

[Ibn Sina]

Outerworlds is shit. You did not need to write this entire diatribe to say it is shit. It is a shit game made by shit has-been developers who cannot make a good game even if their lives depended on it.

 

[Inconceivable]

Outerworlds is shit. You did not need to write this entire diatribe to say it is shit. It is a shit game made by shit has-been developers who cannot make a good game even if their lives depended on it.

I think what makes a good game or not, largely depends on expectations. Expectations were inflated, due to the many favorable comparisons to Fallout, made by clueless reviewers and game journalists. (Edit: And wishful thinking)

The Outer Worlds is a decent game for trodding along alien landscapes, blasting all life from the map, while getting some slight, intellectual tingles from dystopian NPC conversations along the way. A bit cliché at times, but I found it interesting enough.
And Murder on Eridanos is quite a bit better than the base game.
If your expectations are something along the lines of New Vegas, the game sucks ass, for sure.

Also. "Diatribe!" I learned a new word today. Thanks, random Internet person!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Inconceivable Word of warning. Even our NPCs are not real NPCs when it comes to RPGs. If you're of a different opinion, be ready.

So I'm gonna fire the first shot. Hopefully it won't devolve into me threatening to rape you or something.

You can say The Outer World (TOW) is a decent enough game as a shooter (NO YOU CAN'T!!!!), but that was NEVER how it was marketed as. It was marketed from the start as a game coming from celebrated RPG Creators Tim Cain and Leon Boyarsky. You don't get much more RPG Street Cred than that.

Everybody knew it was gonna be first person. BUT what everyone was hoping for, based on the company, the leads, and yes, interviews and reviews and journo trash, was at least a Deus Ex (DX1) experience, or better yet a FONV / Bloodlines mesh.

What people got instead was a watered down FPS. That's NOT what Obshitian advertised. That's NOT what everyone was led to believe. And on top of it, it's generic shooter and no difficulty.

That's why there's such pushback against this game, and that's why it's such shit in the 'Dex. TOW was advertised as sirloin. Instead, they pinched a loaf on the plate and said bon appetite. And as a result, it's shit.

Edit: Corrected Yosharian

 

[Yosharian]

I think what makes a good game or not, largely depends on expectations. Expectations were inflated, due to the many favorable comparisons to Fallout, made by clueless reviewers and game journalists. (Edit: And wishful thinking)

The Outer Worlds is a decent game for trodding along alien landscapes, blasting all life from the map, while getting some slight, intellectual tingles from dystopian NPC conversations along the way. A bit cliché at times, but I found it interesting enough.
And Murder on Eridanos is quite a bit better than the base game.
If your expectations are something along the lines of New Vegas, the game sucks ass, for sure.

Also. "Diatribe!" I learned a new word today. Thanks, random Internet person!

Yeah my expectations were for it to not be shit, it was shit

 

[Yosharian]

You can say The Outer World (TOW) is a decent enough game as a shooter

But it isn't though. It's a shit shooter.

 

[jackofshadows]

I think what makes a good game or not, largely depends on expectations. Expectations were inflated, due to the many favorable comparisons to Fallout, made by clueless reviewers and game journalists. (Edit: And wishful thinking)

Speaking of first impressions - sure. I was gravely dissapointed, too. But now, after the dust settled it doesn't take much to soberly look at the subj and conclude that it's mediocre at best on its own, whatever expectations or marketing words aside. And I agree with you, even Beshesda's abominations of games like F4 or Skyrim are better. Because TOW has no redeeming qualities, none.

The shooter aspect is shit. Stealth? Shit. The world-building is just as crazy. The dialogues while sterile and well-edited doesn't make much sense most of the times thanks to worldbuilding. Not to mention the honk-honk stuff even. The role-play system is shallow as fuck. The loot is insanely overboard like there's no tomorrow. The game-world itself is cramped unlike in Beth games. Overall difficulty is laughable. Bottomline - it's a mass-appeal game which has absolutely nothing to offer to passionate gamers and lose on a Beth field because of scope, budget and whatever other reasons.

 

[KVVRR]

Outerworlds is shit. You did not need to write this entire diatribe to say it is shit. It is a shit game made by shit has-been developers who cannot make a good game even if their lives depended on it.

I think what makes a good game or not, largely depends on expectations. Expectations were inflated, due to the many favorable comparisons to Fallout, made by clueless reviewers and game journalists. (Edit: And wishful thinking)

The Outer Worlds is a decent game for trodding along alien landscapes, blasting all life from the map, while getting some slight, intellectual tingles from dystopian NPC conversations along the way. A bit cliché at times, but I found it interesting enough.
And Murder on Eridanos is quite a bit better than the base game.
If your expectations are something along the lines of New Vegas, the game sucks ass, for sure.

Also. "Diatribe!" I learned a new word today. Thanks, random Internet person!

Why do you think Murder on Eridanos is better than the base game? It's more or less the same imo, just with an even stupider villain.

 

[Inconceivable]

Outerworlds is shit. You did not need to write this entire diatribe to say it is shit. It is a shit game made by shit has-been developers who cannot make a good game even if their lives depended on it.

I think what makes a good game or not, largely depends on expectations. Expectations were inflated, due to the many favorable comparisons to Fallout, made by clueless reviewers and game journalists. (Edit: And wishful thinking)

The Outer Worlds is a decent game for trodding along alien landscapes, blasting all life from the map, while getting some slight, intellectual tingles from dystopian NPC conversations along the way. A bit cliché at times, but I found it interesting enough.
And Murder on Eridanos is quite a bit better than the base game.
If your expectations are something along the lines of New Vegas, the game sucks ass, for sure.

Also. "Diatribe!" I learned a new word today. Thanks, random Internet person!

Why do you think Murder on Eridanos is better than the base game? It's more or less the same imo, just with an even stupider villain.

I thought the plot was smarter, less cliché and more fun (more in the spirit of Fallout, actually). I liked the new mechanic of searching for clues, and there is much more emphasis on conversations. You can fuck up the ending in several ways if you accuse the wrong person and don't make the right conclusions. The setting was also fun and refreshing, as were some of the new "Science Weapons". Overall, it's less depressing and more fun than the base game, even though the general theme is still that of evil corporations doing unimaginable things, there is a much higher LOL factor to what is going on.

 

[Fedora Master]

I expected nothing and I got nothing, so...

 

[Yosharian]

The only LOL factor here is your posts

 

[Inconceivable]

The only LOL factor here is your posts

People on RPG Codex are so salty.
Remember to drink lots of fresh water, otherwise you will go through life dehydrated.

 

[Yosharian]

The only LOL factor here is your posts

People on RPG Codex are so salty.
Remember to drink lots of fresh water, otherwise you will go through life dehydrated.

This comment is about as inventive and original as TOW

 

[KVVRR]

Outerworlds is shit. You did not need to write this entire diatribe to say it is shit. It is a shit game made by shit has-been developers who cannot make a good game even if their lives depended on it.

I think what makes a good game or not, largely depends on expectations. Expectations were inflated, due to the many favorable comparisons to Fallout, made by clueless reviewers and game journalists. (Edit: And wishful thinking)

The Outer Worlds is a decent game for trodding along alien landscapes, blasting all life from the map, while getting some slight, intellectual tingles from dystopian NPC conversations along the way. A bit cliché at times, but I found it interesting enough.
And Murder on Eridanos is quite a bit better than the base game.
If your expectations are something along the lines of New Vegas, the game sucks ass, for sure.

Also. "Diatribe!" I learned a new word today. Thanks, random Internet person!

Why do you think Murder on Eridanos is better than the base game? It's more or less the same imo, just with an even stupider villain.

I thought the plot was smarter, less cliché and more fun (more in the spirit of Fallout, actually). I liked the new mechanic of searching for clues, and there is much more emphasis on conversations. You can fuck up the ending in several ways if you accuse the wrong person and don't make the right conclusions. The setting was also fun and refreshing, as were some of the new "Science Weapons". Overall, it's less depressing and more fun than the base game, even though the general theme is still that of evil corporations doing unimaginable things, there is a much higher LOL factor to what is going on.

Less cliché? They literally resort to the "it was your contractor the whole time!" and "the victim wasn't actually murdered, it was actually her secret twin sister!". I didn't even know you could fuck up the ending since I accused the person I was speaking to when the game prompted me to choose who the killer was and didn't remember half the names in there, so you can imagine how stupid I thought the whole thing was when it's revealed that it's not only le big bad corpo boogeyman yet again but that they're also controlled by some giant bug, no real reason for the crimes besides that.

And the hell are you talking about, searching for clues? You just walk around the level as you normally do until your gun screams at you HEY DUMBO PAY ATTENTION NOW. I genuinely paid more attention to the last DLC searching the notes about the husband left behind than in this one. The system is as unengaging as it can get and imo how the gun is supposed to work -search for discrepancies in the timeline (????) With a bolted in AI using the brain of the husband of scientist that made it- makes the problem with the main plot of the game even bigger (how the fuck do they have a problem growing food when they can build and invent this kind of tech?).

There are some cool parts like when you first see the smiling trader npc, but overall I found it really, really bland. If you want a game with good writing where the killer is controlled by a weird giant insect, just play

Spoiler

Disco Elysium.

 

[anvi]

I didn't even like New Vegas.

 

[duanth123]

The only LOL factor here is your posts

People on RPG Codex are so salty.
Remember to drink lots of fresh water, otherwise you will go through life dehydrated.

There's a difference between being salty and simply registering a disgust response at your behavior and that of others who like this shitty game.

Remind me of this meme, but it's the inside of your head:

With the implication being that you didn't to just "happen" to like this game as some mindless entertainment; rather, your personality, intellectual priorities have been totally fried in some way that co aligns with and facilitates the steady degradation in quality of RPGs and, more specifically, Obsidian

 

[Inconceivable]

People on this forum truly have the highest of exquisite standards in the sort of entertainment they consume. Anything less than the pinnacle of storytelling and writing, with deep and thoughtfully implemented RPG mechanics with multiple endings and choices that matter, full character customization down to dick and boob size, carefully orchestrated inventory management and masterfully crafted, multi-generational backstory, anything less than that is shit. There's this elitist gamer attitude thing going on here... it's exaggerated. Guess it's the other side of the coin of being among a hardcore gamer crowd. And I guess the more you shit on unworthy games, the higher your level of eliteness and of belonging.

I don't expect every book I pick up to be from the feather of GRR Martin. Sometimes I may pick up a batman comic and enjoy it for what it is.

The Outer Worlds is not a perfect game by any means. But it has several redeeming qualities. If its lack of perfect accomplishment is below your standards, it's probably a problem, not with the game, but with your inflated expectations. Which of course can be the fault of the developer, if they marketed it wrong. But that's why you never preorder a game. I bought it at a discount, I think for less than 15 bucks. Got my money's worth.

 

[Yosharian]

I went into it simply hoping for some fun, not 'exquisite standards' of RPG storytelling or whatever. It was not fun. It was tedious and boring. It was badly-written. It made zero sense. It was stupid.

That said it's ok for us to disagree, you don't have to keep defending your viewpoint.

 

[thesheeep]

The Outer Worlds is not a perfect game by any means. But it has several redeeming qualities.

It really doesn't, though.

The best parts of it are mediocre (gameplay). You can say that they "work okay".
The worst parts are just utter trash (story, writing, worldbuilding). Nothing makes any sense in this game, once you stop for a second to think about it.
The grand criticism of capitalism is completely hollow as none of the setting's problems are actually caused by capitalism, but by stupidity so unbelievable it breaks any immersion.
The only reason I enjoyed the game for a while was the writing was SO bad, it's failures SO obvious (e.g. "Ah, this is a self insert", "Okay, this is supposed be 'inclusive'", "Mh-hm, here they tried to go for grey morality") - picking it all apart provided some entertainment to me for a while.
You honestly have to be completely oblivious to anything regarding writing to not immediately be taken aback by so much of it.

This has nothing to do with expectations. I expected a game that was mediocre and was STILL blown away by the bad parts. Often enough, I am actually positively surprised by titles I didn't expect much from.
OW is objectively worse than even mediocre titles of the genre. Its only reasons for success are the complete lack of newer titles of the same kind when it released, and of course the fact that most people got it for "free".

All of that said, I'd still be checking out a second part.
Because all it takes to make the game bearable would be less horrible writing and worldbuilding - which, in theory, is possible. If they learned from their mistakes in the first round.
Of course, they might just think the success means they did everything right and do even lazier writing.

 

[KVVRR]

People on this forum truly have the highest of exquisite standards in the sort of entertainment they consume. Anything less than the pinnacle of storytelling and writing, with deep and thoughtfully implemented RPG mechanics with multiple endings and choices that matter, full character customization down to dick and boob size, carefully orchestrated inventory management and masterfully crafted, multi-generational backstory, anything less than that is shit. There's this elitist gamer attitude thing going on here... it's exaggerated. Guess it's the other side of the coin of being among a hardcore gamer crowd. And I guess the more you shit on unworthy games, the higher your level of eliteness and of belonging.

I don't expect every book I pick up to be from the feather of GRR Martin. Sometimes I may pick up a batman comic and enjoy it for what it is.

The Outer Worlds is not a perfect game by any means. But it has several redeeming qualities. If its lack of perfect accomplishment is below your standards, it's probably a problem, not with the game, but with your inflated expectations. Which of course can be the fault of the developer, if they marketed it wrong. But that's why you never preorder a game. I bought it at a discount, I think for less than 15 bucks. Got my money's worth.

is it really that much to ask for a good story, worldbuilding OR characters with good c&c in an rpg? I don't even care about the gameplay itself, most of the genre plays like shit either way

 

[KyivAfter12am]

People on this forum truly have the highest of exquisite standards in the sort of entertainment they consume.

You don't expect every book to come from Martin, you shouldn't expect every forum to have the same tastes.

Also, try reading some better books.

 

[Valdetiosi]

I guess The Outer World is Inconceivable's first RPG, so he hasn't gotten any experience from other RPGs. Wouldn't see other way he holds it in this high pedal.

 

[Delterius]

the Outer Worlds is a great game

 

[Inconceivable]

Well, The Outer Worlds has a 85% "Very Positive" rating on Steam.
It probably means that the vast majority of people on Steam are idiots, much unlike the gaming connoisseurs in this thread, that can tell an exquisite, perfect game, from a fucking terrible shit game without any redeeming qualities, as The Outer Worlds obviously is.

No stuck-up elitism at all. Nope. Idiots, all the rest of 'em Steamboyz.