I've honed in on quite a few reviews in recent days. The truth is, my review backlog fills up just like everyone's gaming backlog does. Sometimes a game will dominate hours on end of my time and then a block of weeks will go by without a single word written about it, then a string of short games will come along and I have to do a half-dozen in a row. In spite of what everyone's complaints were about the original Outer Worlds being too short, the Spacer's Choice Edition does not fall anywhere near that category now.
The Outer Worlds clocked in at just over sixty hours from start to finish for me with all the DLC included. As a game, it blends the perfect amount of science fiction, fantasy, adventure, and comedy into a package that tells a compelling tale without ever taking itself too seriously. We start as a solo colonist plucked from the Hope, a colony ship carrying tens of thousands meant to populate the far-flung system of Halcyon. Our protagonist's awakening is a rude one, sparked by a scientist hell-bent on fixing the wrongs caused by the capitalist corporations driving the Halcyon colony into oblivion as they focus on profit margins instead of people's lives. From planet to planet, and asteroid to asteroid, problems will be aplenty and the solutions presented are just as numerous. It is up to you, dear "Stranger," to either work on increasing those profits to aid CEOs in getting their big bonuses or stick it to the man by rebelling against the powers that be.
The Good
I think for the first time ever I'm going to put personality into a review here. And I'm placing it firmly into The Good.
The Outer Worlds has a unique personality as a game that separates it from virtually any other game that's come out in the last ten years. The best comparison I can make to it would probably require a bit wider of a range to look at than just one decade. It would have to be Fallout: New Vegas, which, go figure... that's another Obsidian title. Obsidian has always had its own flavor. And this is something that I noticed even twenty years back when I played Knights of the Old Republic II for the first time. It wasn't quite what BioWare had set up with the original, but it wasn't too far off either. The same could be said for New Vegas when that came out. It wasn't quite Fallout 3, but it was close to the same feel in all the right ways. The biggest difference was probably a lean into humor. Fallout has always had its comical moments, but New Vegas takes the cake. The Outer Worlds is the spiritual sequel to New Vegas that we never knew we needed.
Visually, the game is not breaking any barriers. That said, everything in the environment looks decently polished and also given that broken feel that Obsidian is going for. Another thing that could be said for the graphics has to do with faces. Faces, and the expressions they possess, are a definite plus in the Spacer's Choice Edition. There are so many games that came out around the same time, Call of Cthulhu I'm lookin' at you, where there are essentially three generic faces that the gaming companies hoped people wouldn't notice were the same. Hey, if we just put some mutton chops on Joe, we have Bob and he looks like a completely different man... right? Cutscenes are another piece of visual spice that The Outer Worlds does right. For a company hot off the heels of Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, they threw all that capital behind making Halcyon as livable and breathable as possible.
Sound is another plus for the game. Voice acting is solid, with no one coming across like they just phoned in their performance. Everyone seems to be fully engaged in their roles, and that's all you could really ask for in a game like this. It's not The Last of Us where people are necessarily going for awards here, as that would take away from some of that humorous flavor I already spoke about. Sticking to the Sound department, effects hit the mark, too. Perhaps the best part of The Outer Worlds's audio, however, would be in the score. Everything from the song during character creation through the western-motif of strolling around Edgewater is done perfectly. Justin Bell nailed it.
The narrative of the game is the real diamond. Obsidian mixed comedy and adventure perfectly to create a western-style romp that puts us in the space boots of a newcomer to an already-established-yet-broken system. Those boots were originally tromped around in by the initial owner of the Unreliable, the ship that carts you and your companions around the Halcyon colony. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for Captain Hawthorne, he gets squished by the colony pod in the introduction of the game so we get a badass ship for free. That level of quirky and crazy runs through the entire game, and it always works. The Outer Worlds main story is the true core of it all, and certainly takes the cake, but that does not diminish what's added by the DLCs Peril on Gorgon and Murder on Eridanos. Peril takes us across the system to discover a cover-up of a systemic issue that can actually be seen within the first few minutes of the game. Right after Hawthorne's unfortunate, yet hilarious, demise. Murder is about another conspiracy, of a little less gargantuan of proportions, that helps to boost our level while also fleshing out the lore of various corporations.
The Bad
Most of the game is absolutely great, but there are a couple challenges that I ran into. The main one to speak on is unfortunately gameplay.
To put it bluntly, the gameplay is a bit dated and clunky. Some of the first-person shooter aspects can be a little odd and take a bit of getting used to. Even looting certain things doesn't necessarily flow as easily as other games. Looking directly at a chest doesn't necessarily mean that you're able to loot it, but moving around will eventually find that magic spot that lets it happen. That's not to say that all of the gameplay is wonky. Time dilation is a fun addition to gameplay, and reminds me a lot of the VATS system in Fallout. But... it doesn't make up for the clunkiness. The Outer Worlds just plays a little more dated than it truly is. Now, admittedly, this could be exacerbated by the fact that I'd just come from the gameplay glory that is Cyberpunk 2077. However... I still think a bit more polish would have gone a long way.
You've Tried the Best... Now Try the Rest
While I love Spacer's Choice's company motto, it by no means covers how Epic the game really is. Is it the best? No, not quite. As I've said before, the gameplay can be clunky. The visuals could be better. But the narrative and everything in between is just so great. I couldn't be more excited to start The Outer Worlds 2 because I can only imagine how much Obsidian has improved upon an already-amazing formula.
9/10
Epic
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