Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:07:34 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The Outer Worlds - new RPG from Obsidian

Started by Mobius, October 23, 2019, 04:20:42 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mobius

This comes out tomorrow.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/the-outer-worlds

The Outer Worlds is a new single-player first-person sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment and Private Division. Lost in transit while on a colonist ship bound for the furthest edge of the galaxy, you awake decades later only to find yourself in the midst of a deep conspiracy threatening to destroy the Halcyon colony. As you explore the furthest reaches of space and encounter various factions, all vying for power, the character you decide to become will determine how this player-driven story unfolds. In the corporate equation for the colony, you are the unplanned variable

Looks and sounds pretty good. Borderlands style game from the Fallout New Vegas creators. It's not Open World, but has large areas. Sounds like there's quite a lot of RPG/decent dialogue elements.


Friday, and also available day one on Game Pass if you have that. Pretty big coup for MS given how well it's reviewing. I don't really like the FO games but I've never played NV which is meant to be the best of the bunch. By coincidence, that's also appeared on Game Pass in the last week.

The Culture Bunker

New Vegas is my favourite of the more recent Fallout games, so I am a bit jazzed up for this. Never really been one for FPS type antics, but I gather you can work around a lot of that through other means.

£50 is a lot of cash, though. Half tempted to play NV again while I wait for the price to drop a bit.

I assume you're on PS4 then? A month of Game Pass is only a tenner for XB or PC.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: The Boston Crab on October 23, 2019, 11:05:55 AM
I assume you're on PS4 then? A month of Game Pass is only a tenner for XB or PC.
Aye, PS4 only.

Mister Six

Tempted by this, but also don't know where I'll find the time to play a massive RPG. I wish I was 17 again (but with a PS4). Or just rich enough to not need to work.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: Mister Six on October 23, 2019, 06:55:49 PM
Tempted by this, but also don't know where I'll find the time to play a massive RPG. I wish I was 17 again (but with a PS4). Or just rich enough to not need to work.

It's apparently not that massive, more a collection of large linked areas rather than a massive map filled with side quests.
I find that quite appealing, because while I do love games like that I can often find myself getting bored once I've seen everything, and just wanting to move the story along. That combination of freedom and narrative propulsion makes for some of my favourite games and I'm looking forward to this... assuming it's not been pulled from Game Pass by the time I get home from my half-term holiday.

wooders1978

Preordered on PS4 - fall nv is one of my all time favourite games so I have pretty lofty expectations of this

Mobius

Yeah New Vegas is the best Fallout and one of the best games ever, so I hope this comes somewhat close to recreating that feeling. It's getting good reviews and the creators know what they're doing, so I have no doubt it'll be a solid game at least.

Moribunderast

Loved New Vegas and have been looking forward to this for ages. Lucked into having Friday off work so will have a long weekend to give this a go. Really hope it lives up to my hype - reviews are promising.

brat-sampson

Gonna play it on GamePass and it's been a good while since I put on sth like this, having skipped Fallout 4/76 etc. And I'm sure I'm going to have a good time.

But I distinctly remember Dragon Age: Inquisition coming out around this time in 2014, and also getting pretty good reviews, playing it until I get bored, then seeing The Witcher 3 come out not 6 months later and just shame it into obsolescence.

Can't help but feel that Obsidian are going to be CDPR's next victim.

Timothy

Just got the game. Gonna play it this tonight and this weekend and post my thoughts next week.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: brat-sampson on October 24, 2019, 07:21:13 AMBut I distinctly remember Dragon Age: Inquisition coming out around this time in 2014, and also getting pretty good reviews, playing it until I get bored, then seeing The Witcher 3 come out not 6 months later and just shame it into obsolescence.
Funnily enough, that comparison wouldn't worry me as I enjoyed all the Dragon Age games while Witcher 3... well, I'll say no more, as my views tend to upset some people.

If anyone did get preload this via Game Pass, you can change your XB region to New Zealand and play it now.

brat-sampson

Didn't work on PC Gamepass :(

Moved my account but I'm still too early.


Quote from: The Culture Bunker on October 24, 2019, 10:35:35 AM
Funnily enough, that comparison wouldn't worry me as I enjoyed all the Dragon Age games while Witcher 3... well, I'll say no more, as my views tend to upset some people.

I'd be interested to hear your upsetting views about Witcher 3. I started it yesterday and I'm not very far - only level 7 - but I think I have a solid impression of the game. I agree with the person you were replying to. It's a net improvement on Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls also. It owes a lot to those two series, of course, but it roundly surpasses them. It synthesises the freedom of Elder Scrolls with the story-focused, choice & consequence drama of Bioware product. It ends up beating both of its predecessors at their own game, because it walks the line well enough to deliver something which is narratively engaging without sacrificing any role-playing depth. Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls would always stumble and fall off one side of that tightrope.

Outer Lands will probably be like most Obsidian games - janky and unfinished, but with enough redeeming qualities to keep you going. I'll get it on sale, if only because it will be patched up by that time.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Default to the negative on October 25, 2019, 12:19:03 PM
I'd be interested to hear your upsetting views about Witcher 3.
I thought it was absolute shit, is the basic gist of it. I must have put in about seven or eight hours of absolute tedium before I finally threw the towel in.

I didn't like the Skyrim either, for pretty much the same reasons. Indeed, the whole medieval setting really doesn't do much for me and I only tried Witcher 3 because numerous people made it to me it was this grand apex of the gaming experience. Strangely, when I conveyed my feelings back, the general response was that I was "wrong" and needed to play it properly or some such nonsense.

I can't quite explain what it was about the Dragon Age series that made it buck the trend in that respect. I guess the story just "worked" for me a lot better, I was keen to see what would happen next and find out more about the other characters, a feeling I never got close to getting from Witcher.

Zetetic

Quote from: Default to the negative on October 25, 2019, 12:19:03 PMIt synthesises the freedom of Elder Scrolls
Not really - you can dress Geralt up in various hideous costumes and do various sidequests but he's still Geralt. It sacrifices the freedom of the Elder Scrolls games (while Bethesda has tended to sacrifice consequence).

I say 'do various sidequests' but the levelling mechanic is so broken in Witcher 3 that you're weirdly (and pointlessly) funnelled into particular quests at particular times - a central mechanic that works against the themes and stories of the game. There's some interesting hints in subsequent interviews at how completely disconnected bits of the story, gameplay and art development were (perhaps inevitably to get it done in a reasonable timescale) - in lots of ways that's hidden quite well (and sometimes solved by an awful lot of crunch-y iteration close to the end of development).

It's particularly odd because I can't see any downside to ripping the levelling mechanics out, having played the game having done this via a mod. It's almost like it was a cargo-cultish import from utterly different RPGs.

Quote from: Zetetic on October 25, 2019, 01:37:34 PM
Not really - you can dress Geralt up in various hideous costumes and do various sidequests but he's still Geralt.

You could say that about Skyrim. Pick any race you want but you are always the Dragonborn. You can join the Nord-supremacist Stormcloaks as an Altmer, their hated racial enemy, and it just gets hand-waved. At least when you are playing Geralt the inevitabilities make sense.

Timothy

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on October 25, 2019, 01:31:56 PM
I thought it was absolute shit, is the basic gist of it. I must have put in about seven or eight hours of absolute tedium before I finally threw the towel in.

After seven to eight hours you are still at the absolute beginning of the game and you haven't scratched the surface yet.
I didn't really like the game upon the Baron, which was approx 20 hours in. After that it clicked and it became one of the best games I ever played.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Timothy on October 25, 2019, 02:09:59 PM
After seven to eight hours you are still at the absolute beginning of the game and you haven't scratched the surface yet.
To be honest, if a game needs over eight hours to engage my interest, I seriously doubt it's going to change if I put another ten or so in. Perhaps I'm not quite expressing how utterly tedious I found that time.

I get that a lot of people loved it, but it really wasn't for me.

Zetetic

#23
Quote from: Default to the negative on October 25, 2019, 01:58:46 PM
You can join the Nord-supremacist Stormcloaks as an Altmer, their hated racial enemy, and it just gets hand-waved.
I think the difference is that this reflects a philosophy of being whoever you want, even if it doesn't make sense - that's what I mean by Bethesda sacrificing consequence. They don't want the player to feel truly constrained at any point - which is in marked contrast to being along for the ride with Geralt.

I'm not arguing that one is better than the other (and I note that I have the tedious opinion that Skyrim and Fallout 4 are much more boring games because of Bethesda's commitment to this philosophy) but they're very different approaches.

(This also feeds into the problems with Witcher 3's adoption of levelling mechanics. In Skyrim, they're there to marry exploration with a sense of burgeoning potency - because those games are trying to be power-fantasies as much as anything else. In Witcher 3 the mechanic only undermines what the game is about.)

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on October 25, 2019, 02:17:26 PM
Perhaps I'm not quite expressing how utterly tedious I found that time.

But you didn't find the Deep Roads or The Fade tedious?

For me, that was an own-goal by Bioware. They had the whole 'origins' thing to encourage replaying as different characters, but they then filled the game with exhausting grind tunnels that put you off ever playing it to completion again.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Default to the negative on October 25, 2019, 02:38:31 PM
But you didn't find the Deep Roads or The Fade tedious?
Again, the storyline (the main reason I play an RPG type game) was what kept me going through the more ropey gameplay aspects. Yer man in the Witcher, I just couldn't find myself giving a toss about him.

Though as I've played all three Dragon Age games at least twice, I guess I didn't find it that boring.

Quote from: Zetetic on October 25, 2019, 02:35:10 PM
(This also feeds into the problems with Witcher 3's adoption of levelling mechanics. In Skyrim, they're there to marry exploration with a sense of burgeoning potency - because those games are trying to be power-fantasies as much as anything else. In Witcher 3 the mechanic only undermines what the game is about.)

I suppose we have different hopes for this genre. You want a free sandbox - you want to 'muck about' at the captain's table - whereas I prefer something with more direction and structure. A role-playing game should require you to commit to one role, to the exclusion of all others. After all, a game is not a game if it doesn't have rules. Witcher's levelling system does a good job of forcing you down specific paths, which is something I agree with.

But I'm saying this as a low-level player. Maybe you can unlock everything later in the game.

The Culture Bunker


Outer Worlds seems basically like a more curated, better polished Fallout but without the sense of scale or freedom to me. I don't like this retro Futurism pastiche shit though so this isn't really for me.

Yeah, you already said you don't like Fallout and haven't played NV. Go and play Fortnite with your X-bros.