Pretty Okay--The Outer Worlds

I recently finished a full playthrough of the space RPG The Outer Worlds.  I love a good RPG and had read many positive comments about it having a few small slices of Mass Effect-like and Fallout-esque elements.  It definitely played off elements in both games, but I found that it fell short of the greatness of both of those franchises.

Marauders are a constant threat in The Outer Worlds.

The character I built was my usual sneaky, stealthy type, but this time I decided to also put a few extra points in dialogue related skills.  If I can have my character talk her way out of bad situations, I would much prefer that to killing everything in sight.  I completed all the sidequests that I found (I doubt I found all of them, because quest givers are not marked) and tried to explore as much of each area as I could.  The Xbox launcher doesn't keep gameplay stats and display them the way that Steam does, but I would estimate that my playthrough clocked in at somewhere between 50-60 hours.

Pros:
+ Vibrant, beautiful worlds to explore.  Many space-themed games can feel very samey, but I felt like the design of the zones were colorful and unique.  The flora in particular is well designed and gives each area a specific vibe.

+ The blend of steampunk/old-timey aesthetic with futuristic space worked surprisingly well.  I particularly enjoyed the many consumable items and their retro look.

+ Cast of unique crewmates to recruit.  This was one of the Mass Effect-like elements and I enjoyed building my crew and learning about their individual stories.  One feature that I really liked was the fact that as you completed crewmate sidequests, the bunk of each would change with items you found (or stole, in my case) that fit their personalities.

+ Choices.  There are multiple ways to solve the many problems that make up the main storyline and many sidequests.  Where there might be a choice that presents itself as a choice between two outcomes, there is usually a compromise option lurking somewhere under the surface.  I particularly like that these choices weren't your stock good choice/bad choice and each generally had some sort of drawback which made choosing that much more difficult.


Cons:
- Main storyline is weirdly paced and oddly uneven.  Your character is rescued from cryogenic containment on a derelict ship and then ends up on a mission to find chemicals that are needed to thaw out the rest of the people who remain frozen on the ship.  That's basically all the background that is given to you for much of the game.  The parts of the story that stand out are more related to the struggles of the individual colonies in the galaxy.  There's no information given about who the people on the derelict ship really are and why this search for chemicals is so dire until you are about 90% of the way through the game!  It's then that you learn about the major crisis facing the many colonies.  Even the ending of the game didn't feel particularly satisfying--you pick a side and then are basically told "now let's get to work to fix this big problem," and then you get an epilogue cutscene based on your choices that explains how the crisis gets fixed (or possibly not fixed, I suppose).  It feels a bit half-baked.

-No detailed character stats for companions.  Each companion has a set of skills and provides a unique skill buff to your character.  The companion detail panel only displays their highest skill and doesn't provide any detail about weapon skills--this was something that bugged the crap out of me.  In a way it is a good thing because it means that you can outfit any companion with any weapon type.  I suppose their overall weapon skill doesn't really matter, but it still bothered me.  I wanted to know which weapons they were skilled with and make choices aligned with those stats.  Maybe I'm being picky, but it bugged me.

- Armor selection is particularly thin.  There are quite a few unique weapons to choose from, but finding good armor is the real challenge.  I kept waiting to find something outstanding and never really came across anything good.

- Companions are a bit bland.  Each companion has their own unique backstory and eventually will request that you aid them on a personal set of sidequests.  I felt like with the exception of Parvati, most of the companions were half-baked.  You can talk to them and get info on their backgrounds, but it feels flimsy.

If I had to give The Outer Worlds  a letter grade, I would opt for a C/C+.  It's nice to see that there are still developers making singleplayer RPG's, but the weird pacing of the story made it feel a bit half-finished--like there could have potentially been another 50 hours of gameplay where you work to solve the major crisis that is presented in the story.  I think most fans of RPG's will be able to find something they enjoy about the game.  It was worth playing on Gamepass, but I wouldn't pay full price for it and am glad that I didn't buy it.  I can't say that I am planning on replaying it.

I Gave in to Gamepass

Shortly after I was feeling very good about my ability to control my impulses and just play one of the numerous games in my vast library, I caved and signed up for XBox Gamepass for PC.  I'm viewing it as a bit of an experiment since I haven't used a gaming subscription service before.  One nice aspect of the service is that you can cancel it at any time.  Plus, the PC version of the service is currently in Beta, so there's a special where the first three months are only $1.  In order to use the service you (of course) have to download another launcher (and, most likely, agree to allow Microsoft to monitor all your actions...I mean, not like that isn't already happening, right?).

I decided to start my Gamepass adventures with The Outer Worlds.  I've had my eye on it for awhile and wanted to play it, but it didn't really feel like a game that I would pay $59.99 for.  I kept seeing people post that it has some Mass Effect and, of course, Fallout vibes (being that Obsidian was involved with New Vegas that is not at all surprising).  There are definitely hints of both--the Mass Effect vibe can be felt in the fact that you do have your own ship and crew of diverse companions.  Your companions do banter with each other while you're out and about exploring and they also have their own sidequests that revolve around their background stories.

The Fallout feeling comes from the skill and dialogue system and also combat.  The featured combat ability is something called "tactical time dilation" and feels like a miniaturized version of VATS (it's not a total pause of combat the way VATS is, but like VATS, you can line up a shot aimed at a specific body part to yield a debilitating debuff).  There's also a ton of stuff to loot, which feels very much like Fallout.

Like both Fallout and Mass Effect, there are serious choices to be made about the varying factions in the game world.  The Outer Worlds is based in a galaxy of colony worlds that are run by a group of powerful corporations.  The corporations rule with an iron-fist of ridiculous corporate-overlordiness--everything is regulated, workers are treated like disposable cogs in a giant machine, and the people in the colonies are completely beholden to the corporations for their very lives.  On the surface, the whole system seems rotten, but the corporations also bring security and stability to the dangerous worlds where the colonies are based.  Without the support of the corporations, these colonies would fall victim to bands of roving marauders or dangerous native wildlife in the snap of your fingers.  At the same time, many of the residents of the colonies chafe at the restrictions placed on them by the corporations and yearn to live freely away from corporate control...even despite the many dangers.

Overall, I'm feeling fairly ambivalent about The Outer Worlds.  Yes, it's Mass Effect-like in the fact that you have companions, but so far, those companions are nowhere near as well-written or interesting as the ME crew(s).  The combat feels so familiar to Fallout that it's not unique at all.  I've messed around quite a bit with sidequests, but so far the main storyline hasn't captured my attention at all--I am supposed to be seeking out a person who can help my character locate some special chemicals that a somewhat-sketchy, mad scientist needs to thaw out the rest of the people stuck in cryogenic containment on the Hope.  Why should I even care about the rest of the people left frozen on the Hope?  There hasn't been any explanation about who they are--are they the family of the character you play?  Friends?  I'm finding that I don't really care and that I would rather solve the problems on the many planets that I am exploring.

I'm not feeling completely negative about The Outer Worlds and there are parts of it that I do like.  I an really enjoying the spacey feeling of the colony planets--they are vibrantly colored, have a beautiful array of funky looking space flora, and each one has its own vibe.  I also like the mashup of the sort of old-timey advertisements and products with the futuristic space flavor.  I'm also enjoying the fact that the major choices that you are forced to make are difficult and don't really seem to have an ideal outcome.

The first major choice I had to make was on the colony world of Terra-2.  The colony of Edgewater is a struggling Spacer's Choice town that has been barely limping along due to a variety of factors--illness seems to spread easily throughout the colony (the colonists call it the "plague," but my character had enough medical skill to puzzle out that it seems like the flu) and many people have succumbed to the illness.  The worst part is that Spacer's Choice won't supply enough "plague" medicine for the colonists and instead only sends enough for workers who are deemed "valuable."  Even worse, the economy in the colony is barely squeaking by and if things don't get better, there's a chance that Spacer's Choice could decide to pull out and leave the colonists hanging.

As you explore and learn more about Edgewater, you find out that there are many reasons for the woes of this small colony.  The colony's economy is built around a saltuna (it's like it sounds, a fish product) cannery that is barely functioning.  Upon investigating the cannery and meeting the manager, you learn that a large group of people have deserted the colony and are living independently.  These are valuable workers who the manager wants brought back into the fold so that the saltuna cannery can start working more efficiently.  Your first major task is to convince these workers to return to Edgewater and their lives under the thumb of Spacer's Choice.  This "convincing" is a bit shady--the manager wants you to cut off the power supply to the deserters so that they will be forced to return.

So, I headed out to meet up with the deserters and hear their side of the story.  Upon meeting them they very convincingly explained that they were tired of their lives as faceless tools in the corporate machine.  They are led by a brilliant botanist/scientist named Abigail who has managed to figure out how to successfully grow food on Terra-2...something that the colony of Edgewater hasn't figured out.  All they really want is freedom and they are happy even though their lives are decidedly more dangerous outside of Edgewater.  Rather than cut off the power to the deserter's base, Abigail wants you to cut off the power to Edgewater--this would leave the city high and dry and force its residents to join the deserters.

There's a bunch of fighting to be done in a geothermal power plant and plenty of time to think about who to support.  The deserters just want their freedom, which is very understandable given the oppressive nature of the corporations.  On the other hand, the people living in the cities will be left completely defenseless and be forced to leave Edgewater to live in the dangerous wilds with the deserters--those people didn't ask for that!  They might not be happy with their lives, but at least they are safe.  It's a very tough decision.

I decided to shut off the power to the deserter camp and force them to go back.  Why?  Well...even though their camp had food and shelter, it really seemed like they were struggling to survive in the wilds.  The main guard at the camp, Grace, felt like she was constantly fending off attacks from marauders or wild canids.  Adding even more people into the mix seemed like a bad idea.  The mission has you head back to the deserter camp after you've shut the power off...and it feels bad.  Abigail is very unhappy and refuses to leave--the rest of the camp is willing to go back and sees no other option, but they don't want to leave Abigail.  You have to convince her to return to Edgewater.  She tells you that she will only return if you get rid of the current manager at the saltuna cannery.  ("Get rid of" gives you many options...some violent, and some not.)  She also informs you that she knows how to grow food and produce medicine and could definitely do that if she converted the saltuna factory into an agricultural plot.

There's no other option but to head back into Edgewater and confront Reed Tobson, the manager of the saltuna cannery.  Of course, he doesn't want to leave!  I didn't really want to kill him (he hadn't really done anything wrong--yes, the treatment of the people in the colony was bad, but he was following the will of his corporate overlords) so I looked for an alternative--I did feel like he needed to go because Edgewater seemed extremely mismanaged.  The "saltuna" cannery was built on a planet that doesn't even have fish and the "saltuna" it was producing was actually being made out of sprats (a native creature) flavored to taste like actual saltuna.  Maybe it wasn't Reed's fault that the corporation built the cannery in a horrible location, but it felt like Abigail would be a better choice to lead the colony.  Fortunately, my character had enough persuasion skills to convince Reed to leave (even that felt bad, because Reed states that he doesn't know what to do or where to go and indicates that he would probably wander into the wilds and die).

In the end, the entire Edgewater decision felt like a lose-win type of situation.  The deserters lost their newly found freedom and were forced back into a corporate system that they despise, but the colony of Edgewater would now be able to produce its own crops (*it's probably worth mentioning here that Abigail reveals that she is able to grow crops due to her "special" fertilizer...which is made with human corpses.  There seems to be a surplus of available corpses due to the "plague" and dead marauders, but what happens when the corpse supply grows thin?) and medicine.   Life under Abigail should be better for the colonists....hopefully.