The Outer Worlds | A Pale Horse - Part 2/2

The Outer Worlds

Sections:
0:00:00 - Skill Checks
0:09:21 - Byzantium
0:32:08 - Peril on Gorgon
0:47:17 - Murder on Eridanos
0:59:59 - Credits

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[mcbadrobotvoice]

You know a game is lacking for content if the patricianTV reviews only add up to 2 hours

[alexanderthemagnifcent]

I killed ever last person on the rich people planet and was very disappointed the ending slides didn’t acknowledge that.

[Rextraordinaire]

This game is the equivalent of going to a store and finding a new flavor of something you really like and after taking the first sip/bite, you decide you'll finish this one but never get it again

[CirclMastr]

When I did my Board playthrough, I didn't have to destroy Edgewater. I think it's because I did the sidequests for all the people at the botanical garden before forcing them back. Akande had a line about being surprised the cannery was meeting quotas, and then it moved on.

[GoblinKnightLeo]

I never bought into the food thing at all. If the nutrition really was that much of a problem, how have children grown into full-sized, seemingly healthy adults?

[glennhengist]

I'm a film people
When you shoot in grayscale, you create harsher and more distinct shadows which helps make subjects come off as more defined. Tonal contrast in black and white gives the impression of a more distinct image that comes across as more detailed; this is of course also possible with color photography but you have to either do a lot work with on set lighting or do a decent amount of work in post, but shooting in black and white naturally does a lot of the work for you.
Basically it boils down to lighting, and as you know lighting + modern video game dev that doesn't understand the ins and outs of their engine = muddy garbage most of the time.

[MannyNamiro]

I had the exact same experience with the hunger twist. It was supposed to be such an earth-shattering reveal, but all I could think was "Huh, just like that lady in that one side quest said."

[magmos]

Fun fact: Way back when, a bunch of mystery writers got together and made a list of rules to avoid when writing a murder mystery. One of those rules was no Secret Twin Siblings unless the audience has been duly prepared for them. After this, and Glass Onion, I'm inclined to agree on that note.

[saidordep]

To me one of the main problems with this game was both the level and graphic design of it all.

It seems they didn't know what they wanted the game to be, but knew they wanted it to be BOLD. So you get this mish-mash of 50's sci-fi serials, mixed with art-nouveau décor, industrial revolution themes and architecture, snarky post-modern characters with a pink Skrillex haircut, and monsters that look like they were put together by an outsourced studio. Guess what, none of these elements go well together.

It constantly pulls you out of your immersion as well. People give New Vegas shit for it being brown and depressing to look at, but at least its aesthetics re-enforce how harsh survival in a post-nuclear desert is. Are you telling me people in the outer colonies are severely malnourished and poverty-stricken but they have the means to buy moustache wax, hair dye, makeup and maintain state-of-the-art weaponry?

Also, why does the loot you get in a Marauder camp is the exact same thing you can expect from a town or a high-class manor in Byzantium? It makes 0 sense for a corporate overlord in the metropole to stack shitty pistols, ammo and grenades when the whole city is packed with police and borderline unreachable to most people in the colony. It's such a basic oversight from a studio with tons of experience making immersive RPGs it just boggles my mind

[ericc]

I thought Byzantium was a pretty on the nose jab at "byzantine bureaucracy" which is shorthand for needlessly complex and obtuse government or other organizational structure. With a bit of "byzantine politics" thrown in, which connotes backstabbing and conniving court politics that would fit in with the Board.

[gobomania]

Think the way games misunderstand skill-based speech checks are that they don't make them a knock-out for a dialogue exchange.
Like take the scenario, you are (role)playing as an engineer-type and you have taken skills accordingly to such, in this case (MECHANICS).
You then get into a situation where a guard refuses you to enter a back area of a ship.
Instead of frontloading the (MECHANICS) option, there should be a set-up dialogue of "hey, I was called in here to check the engine in the back" and then when the guards response with "oh we had a check-up days ago" you can then choose the (MECHANICS) dialogue to say something like "oh yeah, but the filtration filter is a Wehrncraft model series 600zx, requiring some very specific backup parts we had to order, which just arrived today" or if you don't have the (MECHANICS) skill for that, you can (BLUFF) "oh yeah, but you know how it is with the management, if it ain't done 100% according to proceedure, we have to do it over again and Tim, you know Tim right? yeah he ofc fucked it all up, so now I'm here on my off day, trying to undo all of that mess!".
These two choices have the same starting point, but different flavour of what you wanna roleplay.
Moreso, it gives the choice to try playing into the character you are trying to convince, maybe a non-sense persona would still refuse the bluff, but the mechanics check comes for place of authority and professionalism.

[Darkflo]

I really think that the best way to play this game is a full genocide run, it was pretty interresting to see the game restructure itself after each quest giver death, and will probably be the only thing i remember about it in detail in a few year.

[roxbox]

Woah woah woah, not even a premiere?!?!

[michaelpsellos]

Your speel about how stupid the starvation plot is really highlighted how decadent both the developers and detached really are. They have no actual idea of what actual starvation looks like and couldn't be arsed to check. So they just assume a toothpaste that stops your tummy aches would actually be enough to mask it.

Ironically the reason they can't write an evil detached decadent city is because they have no self reflection.

[harperna]

They make it way more complicated than it needs to be, but, basically, the crisis breaks down like this:

Due to mistakes made during the initial terraforming process (presumably because, without support from the Hope's geoengineers, the Board lacked the expertise needed to properly terraform the system), the GMOs used to seed Halcyon mutated into Halcyonic equivalents of their earth counterparts. The divergence was initially insignificant, but 70 successive generations of divergent evolution among the imported crops has caused a collapse in the bioavailability of essential vitamins and nutrients as far as humans are concerned. The nutritional profile of animals native to Halcyon are similarly incompatible with human physiology. In other cases, like in Emerald Vale, the local ecology is outright incapable of supporting earthborn crops. Although humans' caloric needs are still being met by-and-large, they are suffering from pervasive malnutrition; this malnutrition will get worse with further divergent evolution, to the point where most colonists will outright starve due to severe nutritional deficits.

Board scientists only noticed the impending collapse 15 to 20 years ago, which is when Chimerists like Chartrand were tasked with solving the problem (in her case, by adapting humans for Halycon's ecology). Why they can't just genetically engineer another batch of compatible crops is not adequately explained; this is a glaring omission in the context of Halcyon importing food from other colonies with what seem to be perfectly compatible crops. That said, I doubt that the Board possesses either the means or the resolve to undertake the extensive geoengineering necessary to suppress Halcyonic crops, protect imported crops, and prevent further divergence among these imported crops all without causing a full-blown ecological collapse. They certainly wouldn't do that when other, cheaper options like the L.E.P. avail themselves to the Board.

Regarding synthetic food/vitamins, even conventional vitamins struggle to compete with natural/organic options wrt the bioavailability of their essential nutrients. This is also why vegan diets, even when bolstered by synthetic vitamin supplements, are generally unsustainable in the long run. Most synthetic vitamins are derived from existing flora, fauna, and microfauna. In Halcyon's case, those options are already compromised.

The Board also started stockpiling food from other systems around this time, which is where Byzantium's rations came from. Due to collapsing productivity within Halcyon, however, and a declining galaxy-wide economy in the wake of the Earth Directorate's disappearance, the Board cannot afford to import enough food to keep even Byzantium afloat in the wake of a systems collapse. This would also inevitably doom Adelaide's greenhouse--the plants she grows there will still experience a bioavailability collapse, assuming they haven't already. For the time being, they're better than whatever Edgewater has been feeding into its cannery, but Edgewater is literally surviving off of sprats, sawdust, and local mushrooms.

The Board has undertaken an extensive coverup as the full scope of the crisis has made itself more apparent. In an effort to facilitate this coverup, appetite suppressants like the one on Roseway were developed. This is why settlements like Edgewater seem unaware of why they suffer from such frequent "plague" outbreaks. The widespread availability of appetite suppressants and filler ingredients (combined with a deliberately under-educated populace) has made it difficult for laborers to notice their own malnutrition, as food still appears to satiate them.

The Lifetime Employment Program is an extreme attempt to postpone the collapse for as long as possible. By limiting the laboring populace only to those who are essential for the continued operation of Byzantium and its assorted research centers, the Board hopes that it can find a sustainable solution before a full-blown, obvious famine and the unrest that would accompany it can set in.

Welles himself is aware of the impending famine. He is not aware, however, of the actual underlying reason (the divergent, incompatible evolution of Halcyon's foodstuffs) and the Board's plan to "fix" the problem (the L.E.P.). He also is not aware that Earth has gone dark. As to why the Board is pivoting to the L.E.P. instead of just "aggressive" population control, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive. If the L.E.P. fails, the Board can just commit cryogenocide instead. If the L.E.P. works, though, the Board will have a much greater margin of error when it comes to managing their remaining workers. Those surviving workers will also have considerably less leverage than they would if they were the sole surviving laborers, given that the board could easily threaten to have them iced or killed so another batch of popsicles can take their place.

It's...almost internally consistent? Especially considering the events of Peril on Gorgon and how Spacer's Choice info-blackout mirror's the Board's (at the behest of Spacer's Choice parent company UDL, no less) own coverup. Max explicitly points this out when you learn Gorgon's big marauder secret if you've helped him reach enlightenment. Even so, the whole plot ultimately rests on the entire colony of Halcyon being founded around a giant idiot ball due to the dereliction of the Hope. This draws your attention back to an even weaker, dumber, and more fundamental plot point: why the fuck are the colony ships segregated by profession and expertise? Like, why would you make one boat for laborers and managers and one boat for scientists instead of just making two boats that are each capable of founding a sustainable, feature-complete colony on their own?

[muffinboi]

I always look at the fashion in rpg’s and the lack of armor variety was such a bummer especially looking at what they had in new vegas.

[JohnThems]

After watching all these videos about The Outer Worlds, I think I can safely say the only way The Outer Worlds 2 could ever improve on the series is to just scrap the entire fucking setting.

[babyatemydingo]

My understanding of the design philosophy for this game is all summed up in the smart-ass finger-guns in the ad campaign and that's it.

[connorhobson]

Black and White cinematography enhances contrast. The highs and lows are so sharply pitted against eachother that it creates a very clear divide. You're also not limited (as much) by color choice and your mind can fill in the blanks without the game having to do the heavy lifting.

[chengong]

It just occurred to me this game has extremely weak designs. Everything in the game from characters to props to buildings and weapons, if you didn’t know about the story, these designs don’t tell any story either, at least not the same story as the actual story of the game. Just look like some mashup of stuff from some other game.