The Outer Worlds

[Ed P]

I’m not sure whether I have secured my game playing for the next three months, or made a massive mistake. As I have been a long-time fan of the (single player ONLY) Fallout genre and their developers, I was sorely tempted when I saw the early reviews of The Outer Worlds, so I’ve gone ahead and pre-ordered it from the Epic Store. (It will not get on Steam for another 12 months apparently due to Steam’s taking twice as much from developers)

[Drezha]

Oh, man, I didn’t realise it was on the Epic store. That will mean I delay purchasing it, as it does look really good and chances are I’d be buying it, but I’m not keen on getting the Epic Store due to the their past practises.

How long that’ll hold out, I’m not sure.

In the meantime, I guess I could play Skyrim on the Switch that my wife bought me for Christmas (bought early to keep me amused on the plane to the US!)

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[keith with the teef]

I only buy games at the right price nowerdays. Which means sub £30. I Just finished RAG2 which was V good for a no brainer game. Yes, Very good.

Just started Assassins creed Odysey. The game is OK, never could figure the hyp about these games, they are always like a rough Tombraider game. These guys really do need to get their game play mechanics sorted out.

[Ed P]

Initial reactions are that the Epic Store is not as slick as that of Steam, and leaves you a bit up in the air having purchased a game as to where it is! However, that is just a personal impression having bought a pre-release game, but I expected a bit more positivity.

The Outer Worlds has a strong story line and ‘pretty’ graphics. I’m personally not a fan of using ‘cartooning’ (a 3D tech term for edge highlighting) as I think it gives a slightly HDR unnatural appearance, but I guess it makes it easier for porting to the lower graphics realms of consoles. Game play mechanics are good and what you would expect from these seasoned developers. On the down-side like all newly released games it is prone to crashes, so save often! At this early state of play (and mainly due to the crashes) I’d give it 80%.

[keith with the teef]

Got Me resident Evil 2. Wow, the game uzez style and substance.

Pleased.

[Ed P]

I’ve not managed to crash the game since the initial days, I suspect that Epyx was upgrading either the game or the Store/Launcher.

I’m taking it slowly at the moment by taking the time to discover the game mechanics i.e which weapon to use/when, and how to mod/repair it. Also how to influence companion behaviour. The lack of a manual is holding me back somewhat and I’m not sure why the game does not have one..

[The Duke]

Is there not a wiki for the game being built up?

[keith with the teef]

Yeah. Strange alot of games do not come with manuals. For the most part have to pay attention to the prompts as the game is laoding.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Yeh I hate that bit. Games used to come with a manual that explained the weapons and armour you could get and what it might be useful for. Now finding that out for yourself is ment to enhance your gaming experience. Well I disagree and I will go online to find that info before I even start playing, or even buy the game in some cases.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Crysis was especially bad for that, I had more or less given up trying to play the game before I found a site that explained the various suits and add on’s you could get.

[Drezha]

Have discovered that it’s on the Microsoft Store, so I can purchase it without having to support Epic’s store so I can still stand by my morals! However, as I’m away from my home during the week until the house sale, I’ve not got a PC to play it, so it may have to wait anyhow.

I’ve also noticed that it’s on Xbox Live Pass for PC, access for which during the Beta appears to be £1 a month… Or at least the first month for £1, then £4 afterwards, then perhaps £8 after the Beta, but I can’t confirm that.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Ed P]

I have now nearly completed the first world, or ‘chapter’. My views at this early stage are very positive. The storyline puts quite a lot of emphasis on the moral compass of the player, and presents a number of moral and logical challenges. Unusually it also mixes in an element of ‘Management’, not so much in the game mechanics (which are good), but management in terms of inter-personal skills with your companion(s). It will be interesting to see how that develops.

In a sentence it mixes together, fighting, crafting, and tactics with a smidgeon of inter-personal skills. At this early stage of the game, strategy is pretty much non-existent if you run with the story line. However I guess it may allow a player to ignore this at some point and develop a world apart. If so, some of the monsters present a horrendous challenge to even the most skilled game player – not only are they tough, with hard to counter abilities, they also have a good AI fighting/flocking/retreating algorithm that adapts their responses to your tactics.

I’m still not a fan of the graphics which are in the style of a console-based ‘No Man’s Sky’, but the style does not get in the way of game play and certainly looks other worldly. That is of course just my personal view which has not been reflected afaik in other reviews. The graphical elements of buildings, furniture, human detritus, terrain, vegetation etc are all detailed, original and very well developed.

Incidentally I have had no other crashes and no reason, so far, to dislike any antics from the Epyx Store.

[Drezha]

Ed P wrote:

Incidentally I have had no other crashes and no reason, so far, to dislike any antics from the Epyx Store.

https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/5/18295833/epic-games-store-controversy-explained

The developers are also making quite a saving over Steam, but aren’t passing any of that on.

On the other hand, Steam was a bit of a monopoly, so it’s about time that others tried to improve on things!

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Ed P]

I’m with the developers on the Steam vs Epyx/others confrontation.

The cost of modern games is now up in the league of a fairly major movie development. The value-added by Steam did not warrant their fee for hosting and selling a single person game on a nearly risk-free basis. It certainly does not hold any comparison with retail margins as retail stores have to carry an inventory risk.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I just hate Steam in general and avoid it if I can. Steam forgets my password if i don’t use it for a while, runs on start up if it gets the slightest chance, won’t let me run the games I own if I am not connected to Steam and insists on a lengthy update to its self every time I do use it.

A straight download from the publisher is all I want.

[Ed P]

Just had my second crash in which the Epyx Cloud Save and local Saves got out of sync so I lost all my recent saves, including the current one! Not very clever on the part of Epyx. I might then have had a third crash except I caught a small alert saying ‘updating’. I suspect that the developers will be unfairly blamed for Epyx screw-ups if this carries on.

[Drezha]

I put aside my issues with Epic and purcashed it. I tried to buy it on the Windows store, but Windows refused to update to the latest Windows version and therefore wouldn’t let me download it, so I purchased it from Epic instead.

Have spent most of yesterday playing – wife is Ireland and I had to wait in for a parcel and for a chap to service our alarm (who never turned up!).

Impressed so far. It’s got hints of Bioshock and Borderlands in to my mind – perhaps a bit more so than Fallout, but it seems to take all three and throw them in a pot together to spit this out. Enjoying it, so money well spent at the minute.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Ed P]

Drehza, I’d recommend going into settings and making sure you do not have BOTH local and cloud saves. They have/had a habit of getting out of sync causing data loss. I turned off Cloud saves as I could not see their point on a single player game.

[Drezha]

Ed P wrote:

Drehza, I’d recommend going into settings and making sure you do not have BOTH local and cloud saves. They have/had a habit of getting out of sync causing data loss. I turned off Cloud saves as I could not see their point on a single player game.

Noted – I hadn’t seen that, so I’ll make sure that’s enabled. I can only see its worth if you game on other PC’s (I only have one that will run it!) and you want to backup the saves (which, depending on where the local ones are saved, may be covered by my backup regime anyhow), so I totally agree on that point.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Drezha]

They weren’t covered in my backup location – they’re saved in your Saved Game folder in your user profile folder of Windows. Moving them in to the My Games folder in my documents folder and creating a directory junction back to where they came from has solved that issue (it’s only the third game I’ve ever seen use that folder – both of the others are old! One of the Red Alert games (3 I think) and Star Wars: Empire at War!)

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Author]

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