The Outer Worlds Review - Page 4
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See That Tiny Rock? You Probably Can’t Climb It!
On paper, The Outer Worlds has a pretty deep combat system. Every weapon has a good number of secondary stats. There are different damage types that become stronger or weaker depending on who you target. You can specialize in either melee, ranged, or science weapons. You can also modify them in a variety of ways. You can give orders to your companions. You can even slow down time in order to improve your aim and scan your enemies (this is explained away with a single line about cryosleep side effects).
In reality, none of it matters, as you simply have to shoot a stern look at your enemies for them to fall over. The game has no inventive, challenging, or exciting encounters. Just a whole bunch of pointless fights to distract you from how cramped the maps are.
And sure, the scenery outside looks great and has a distinctly alien feel to it. But you don't really get to do any actual exploring there. You will mostly be traveling between settlements, occasionally taking a detour to check out some random point of interest.
But those points are not particularly interesting. They usually consist of some wreck, a building or two, and a few crates with some spare change and a dozen of bullets. There are no caves to explore, no mountains to climb, no hidden nooks to discover. Just pretty trees, invisible walls, and forgettable fights.
This gives The Outer Worlds a certain lifeless, mechanical feel. And to make matters even worse, the game’s NPCs rarely move or really do anything.
And so there you are, jumping between planets and asteroids, and everywhere you go, you see piles of ammo, lockpicks, and unattended currency lying around. You start by diligently picking it all up, but before long, you have thousands of each ammo type, more consumables than you’ll ever be able to use, and nothing worthwhile to spend your hard-stolen money on.
Thankfully, I don’t suffer from that nefarious disease that forces people to pick up absolutely everything in video games, but for someone who does, I can see The Outer Worlds becoming a true nightmare.
Beyond just being tedious, this constant drip of consumables acts as another point against the believability of the game’s world, as what sane society would just have all that stuff out in the open? Why instead not put all those stashes of 5-10 bullets into an armory or storeroom somewhere to both save the player the trouble of endlessly picking things up, and simultaneously present at least some semblance of world-building?
Apart from those sundries, you’ll also be looting guns, armors, and their respective mods. But here’s the thing, with the game’s difficulty being what it is, it doesn’t matter much what you wear, there’s very little difference between the regular guns and their rare unique counterparts, and in general, the game’s weapon variety is quite lacking.
You essentially get a gun type for every occasion, each with three tiers of quality. And then, you just manually tinker with those guns (and armor for that matter), to raise their level and improve their stats. So most of the time, you find a gun you like and then keep using and upgrading it until you find the same gun but of a higher tier and repeat the process. And that’s not exactly exciting.
Now, let’s compare that to another sci-fi RPG shooter - the Borderlands series. Even though I’m not its biggest fan, I have to admit it does a much better job of creating a wacky world and populating it with crazy characters. But also, it has several gun manufacturers, each with their own design principles that are actually represented in the games, not to mention their ties to the games’ stories. It’s like Borderlands does what The Outer Worlds tries to do, but better and without even trying.
The Real The Outer Worlds Starts Now
At this point, you might be wondering, with the base game being what it is, why would anyone inflict more of it on themselves? And the answer is - because the game's two story DLC are actually not half-bad.
Peril on Gorgon, the game’s first DLC, starts with a funny bit, then allows you to do some exploring and discover an alternate route or two before meeting an intriguing character central to the DLC’s plot that revolves around an abandoned research facility and its long-lasting impact on the colony.
