So this week, I finished my first play-through for Outer Worlds. My takeaway at this point is: It’s such an odd game. I can’t decide how much I like it. There are things I love about it, and things I don’t. But overall, I’m not sure what I think of it yet.
We’re going to break this down into gameplay & story. The gameplay I’m unsure on, and the story is like a love-hate for me.
Outer Worlds Gameplay
I tried to do a 1-handed melee-based build while going into the game totally blind. No guides, no advice, I didn’t even see a trailer for the game really. Basically, I went into this on just my brother’s recommendation & the fact that I found a used copy cheap at my local used game store.
I don’t think I really enjoy the melee in this game. Not saying it doesn’t work, but I found myself using my guns more often than melee because I just didn’t feel like closing the gap. Maybe I’m just far too spoiled by how VATS in Fallout 4 makes closing the gap a non-issue. Plus the guns I found did more damage (yes I did change the setting for character stats about that). At times double the DPS. So idk if the game doesn’t support melee as well as I’m used to, or if I just didn’t know what I was doing when I build my character. Probably that last one.
To make up my mind about the gameplay, I’ve started a second play-through focused on light guns for damage. We’ll see how that goes, or if I start over with some other type of build.
Outer Worlds Story
The story for Outer Worlds was over the top from the beginning. Without going into spoilers, honestly, the later parts of the story are tame compared to the beginning. Or maybe I just adjust my definition of “tame” after getting through all the stuff earlier in this game. I’m not sure. Overall, I like the main story. But the side quests…
A number of times, certain quests tried my patience by making me choose between things that made me want to bang my head on a table & never come back. And yet, I always did to see what fresh hell the game was going to pull next. It’s a strange form of entertainment. I think I recommend it.
An Example Quest
Probably the simplest example of this was the first town on the first planet. The game told me to go in my ship, but I decided to explore around first before leaving. So I went to the town instead. The guy running the canary? It’s like can you get less heartless about people? He didn’t care about his workers and asked me to cut power from this illegal greenhouse. So then I went to go see the greenhouse lady. Frankly, she was no better. Her response was to tell me to simply cut the power to him instead.
You are no better than your enemy if you tell me to do to them the same terrible thing they are proposing I do to you.
At that point, I said f it. They can just share the power. Or fight with each other about it. I’m out of here. This isn’t my problem. So I get on the ship for the first time. Only to find that I have to choose who gets to keep their power before I can fly away. Unless you know, I want to never make it off this rock and effectively soft-lock the game.
So who to choose?
I take some time to think it over, and choose to give power to the greenhouse lady because she said she would take people in, and at least her people weren’t so sick. I figure she seems to have more medicine, and that maybe by having everyone live there, at least fewer of them will die of illness.
After it was done, I went to check on her only for her to be all like “well, I can’t take in everyone, just some, the rest will starve.” And I’m just like that’s it: I am never coming back here. I think they both are self-centered and both suck. Neither wants to help an entire town’s worth of people despite being in a leadership position. They both lack compassion and empathy.
I did look it up later on and found there is a hidden third option that doesn’t suck quite as much as the two obvious choices, but the game doesn’t tell you about it. You have to know where to look.
Take Away
The game has other choices, but thankfully none of them are quite as harsh after that one, at least not after you’ve made that one. Tired of simple choices? Or only choosing between superman-style good vs cartoon villain evil? Then this is the game for you. “Easy choices” doesn’t seem to be in this game’s vocabulary.
Outer Worlds: Fun Pictures
Anyway, here are some moments I found funny or weird or strange along my misadventures. Some of them are a little spoiler-ish for 1 companion’s quest (it doesn’t give that much away), but none of them are main story spoilers.
