The Outer Worlds & Peril On Gorgon DLC REVIEW

Reviews of The Outer Worlds and the Peril of Gorgon DLC.

[rada]

The Outer Worlds as always been something very specific to me: A well written radio drama portrayed with cardboard cutouts on popsicle sticks.

[barachiel]

Yeah, I never understood the "its the spiritual successor to New Vegas" hype. After playing it, my only thought was "that wasn't New Vegas in Space, it was KOTOR for Firefly fans."

[philipfisch]

Gopher about NPCs in the Outer Worlds: "They just didn't have a life..."
Half the internet thinking: "Hell, Obsidian, why are you making us play in our reality?!=(..."

[Kravik]

Personally, I think the reason New Vegas is as good as it is, is that it is Obsidian storytelling in a Bethesda Open world. The Outer Worlds environments just feel flat and staged to me whereas BGS worlds feel more alive and "mersive". I did thoroughly enjoy it though I would recommend getting Xbox Game Pass for a month and playing it there.

[synthiandrakon]

I'll be honest watching the playthough of the outer worlds I found myself often skipping over the fighting parts because it was just so uninteresting to watch. But I loved the dialogue and exploring parts

[CssHDmonster]

i think i have a similar issue with wasteland 3, people are praising it to high heaven but i was expecting fallout 2 quality writing but im getting slighly better than wasteland 2 writing

[TheGreatBenjie]

Is it fair to say that calling it "Fallout in Space" was just hype when that's exactly how it was marketed?

I remember one of the first trailers plastered "MADE BY THE DEVELOPERS OF FALLOUT NEW VEGAS" and "MADE BY THE ORIGINAL CREATORS OF FALLOUT" which I don't think helped much...

[aaronchapin]

Lol, you've hit the nail on the head as usual Gopher
Edit: Obsidian does the dark humor so well, and I wish they'd pushed the envelope in the base game a bit more (vis a vis Phineas' backstory). Sounds like I'll have something to look forward to in the DLC

[oldoneeye]

First rule of consuming entertainment: *Never ever* listen to the hype. It pretty much always lies, it pretty much always leads to disappointment.
Second rule of consuming entertainment: *Never ever* have the expectation that this new piece of entertainment will revive the exact feelings you had with another piece of of entertainment. This will be wrong 100% sure.
Thir rule of consuming entertainment: *Never ever* believe people who use superlatives when describing entertainment. "The best" lies completely in the eye of the beholder. One mans treasure is another mans trash.
If you stick to these rules, much disapointment and hatred will be avoided.

[tramrant]

That hype and assumptions are on the fans themselves, cause in interviews developers actually even warned that it's not gonna be like a New Vegas game and that's this is it's own thing, that they wanted to make something like this for a long time and now they did, but it's not gonna be New Vegas in space.

[willheisdarkrock]

Your comments remind me of Tyranny (which is one of the greatest games I played). There is one ending (the Rebellion, siding with the Bronze Brotherhood as one of your chosen factions) that the writers clearly didn't flesh out and expect you to take. Makes sense, as the Rebellion quest-line is effectively hidden, but goes to your point of some decisions having more flavor than others.

[feeler]

I have just started the game. It feels enjoyable. But it gets to my Eyes. cannot play more than 1-2 hours. Then have to stop.

[monsterurby]

I never fast travel in open world or even hub based RPGs because I love to discover things, witness dynamic events and have random encounters. This is where The Outer Worlds fell completely flat for me. There just isn't enough going on in any of the locations you go to. More often it seems that you go to areas AFTER the major events have transpired, leaving nothing but abandoned buildings and corpses to loot.

Compared to other open world games, or even hub based games, everything just felt so static, like an MMO where everything is laid out for the player to walk into and interact with. Nothing will surprise you in this game, because it has not been built in a way for that to happen.

[okonkwojones]

I agree with a lot of this very thoughtful review, and I really appreciate your emphasis and separation on not doing hype/expectations of the reporting/ fan reactions.
And I just wanted to contribute an incisive observation you said in your pre-Gorgon, CPT. Chaos LP, that you forgot to mention in this review but really struck a cord with me: the level design.
You said something along the lines of it being very confining, and physically funneling the player (this could also potentially be a criticism of New Vegas although I felt like that was done in such a way that worked narratively—tracking Benny and routes being closed down due to the world events that worked from an in-universe perspective) to in a linear path (esp the world with the raptadon musk quest) where the play area is very restrictive and with not a lot of non-quest related, incidental story areas to add flavor.
Some of this is a product of having multiple worlds, which by its nature necessitated less content probably due to just having to efficiently spread development time across different zones-developing a full-sized open world for every single planet seems infeasible-but it is notable.
And I super agree with your problems with leveled loot. It seems just adding a better variety of weapons instead of recycling guns and melee weapons with “yeah but this one’s numbers are higher would have been a better way to tackle that.
But I will quibble (only slightly) with your character development point: I agree that *as executed* its rather simplistic perks are too mundane certain weapon thresholds are hohum, but it has good concepts in there, like how you initially level groups of skills and then have to start focusing on individual ones past a certain skill threshold. I likethat you can level your companions (although that suffers from bland perks as well) and I think the flaws system is a really great idea that just needed more variety and and adjustments of the values of malice, plus more non-combat effects (the screaming dialogue option everytime you speak to SAM is a good example of this done right.)
But again, despite these minor things, a very well presented and thought out review!
Love your stuff and thank you!

[TheRuinsfate]

Having listened to your comments, I pretty much agree. Great dialogue mostly well delivered by sometimes unblinking automatons (and no I don't mean the actual robots), with serviceable but unexciting gear and easily broken combat.

I don't mind levelled gear so much, most of the Fallout games had it (most CRPGs do really), but the higher 'tiers' of items were better guns, not the same gun Mk II.

Also I'm going to assume you weren't too fond of the general lack of really unique interesting armour, Gopher? I get the corporate colours thing, it did fit, but it was kinda boring how 90% of the armour you'd find was the same 3 guard types. The Iconoclast stuff looked awesome at least.

[MeatyOwlLegs]

'The New Vegas with Farting' might be the Dark Souls of Game Reviews.

[mark]

Thanks for not buying into the hype. I feel that hype really did hurt this game.

[Mysterialic]

I found the game pretty solid but it's definitely a product of too much hype & unmet expectations. Those talks of it being a Fallout killer didn't help at all.

[geraltgrey-mane]

Still waiting for that bloody steam relase.... Haha

[Sterling]

This review is spot-on, the things that bothered me the most that you mentioned was leveled loot and the way the Board is presented if you side with them. The World didn't really bother me, I liked it but I don't really mind if my npcs aren't wondering around even if they should have a life haha.