The Outer Worlds hands-on preview – Fallout’s funnier cousin, now with improved V.A.T.S.

cre: The Outer Worlds hands-on preview – Fallout’s funnier cousin, now with improved V.A.T.S.

I just witnessed something absurdly violent and oddly comical in The Outer Worlds. In a weird way, it reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. An X-rated version. It seems like the game wants me to say, “I feel like we’re not in Kansas anymore”?

I will only do this if I have a little yelping dog that follows me everywhere. Can I also order iron man and scarecrow? Even better: the two companions I get during my hands-on time with The Outer Worlds are big game hunter Nyoka and runaway mechanic Parvati. They follow me wherever I go and sometimes discuss the difficulties of living in colonies of exoplanets owned by megacorporations. At some point we find out that Parvati doesn’t even know what a weekend is.

I feel sorry for her but I am quickly distracted by Nyoka’s gigantic minigun. Who needs brains, heart or courage when you have a death cannon? During gunfights, I can press a button to have one of my companions unleash a devastating attack on the enemy I’m targeting. I activate Nyoka’s move and watch her play with her person-sized weapon from a cinematic camera angle. Then she takes a wide stance and screams as she fires jets of searing lasers at her victim. The head and limbs explode so that only a burned torso hits the ground.

Needless to say, I feel pretty untouchable as Marauders clutch their weapons for cover or run straight at me while swinging a sword wildly. Scaly raptidons fare best with their thick bellies and aggressive clefts. Some of them can spit acid at a distance which collects at my feet and eats into my health. Parvati likes to piss in it and scream her pain in my ear. “Aggghhh, oh it’s burning,” she cries. Yeah, no shit. I quickly drown her out with the PTOCK PTOCK of my dead-eye assault rifle as I face the overgrown crocodile charging at us, then use Tactical Time Dilation (TTD) to finish the job with stylish goodness.

TTD is The Outer World’s version of the VATS system in the Fallout games. But it’s better. Consider VATS somewhere between real-time shooting and turn-based combat. Time almost stops so you can cycle through body parts and choose which one to damage. TTD doesn’t slow down time as much and allows you to aim your weapon freely but more accurately. Point your crosshairs at a head for an execution, or go for an eye and you can fire blind, while limbs can be crippled and other body parts mutilated.

My first impression is that TTD feels like a good complement to the first person shooter. You can still move around a bit and even activate it in the air if you want to attempt a hover execution. At one point I go into slow motion, do a quick headshot, then immediately pop out. Compare that to VATS, which sticks you in place and completely disconnects you from the flow of the action. This difference is why TTD should not be used as quickly as VATS. I don’t need to watch a ghoul die in slow motion for the hundredth time, thank you.

With the path cleared of lizards, my destination opens up before me. STELLAR BAY is written in neon in front of a steel colony. It looks more like a factory out of a swamp than a city of the future, but here we are. What strikes me the most when I step inside is that it looks a lot like a town from Fallout. There are no moving crowds, people are sitting or standing, and even though it’s dirty, nothing is visibly flying in the wind. Where is all the debris and trash? I think it’s the silence that reminds me the most of Fallout. Kind of like I’m the star of The Truman Show and everyone’s waiting for me to talk to them. Sinister.

That quickly changes when I strike up a conversation with virtually anyone who has a name over their head, not just the word “resident.” Agnes Needham calls my attention, then despairs as her son Tucker flees to join the Iconoclasts – a separatist group not under the control of the company, led by a man called Graham. She cries about her “little boy” and his failure to understand the dangers behind the city walls. Was it torn apart by a raptidon or devoured by a fierce mantician? No, he’s a 42-year-old man with an overprotective mother. Leave him alone, Agnes.

After finding him, I help Tucker by telling Agnes he’s dead. She doesn’t believe me until I show her the ring he always wears. It was his dad’s. You think it’s hard? I could have just shot him in the head and ended the whole quest if I wanted to. If my persuasive skills had been better, I could have told him to confront his mother himself. Or, if my character was more intimidating, I would have the option of threatening him to beat up his mother just so I could get a reward. To see? My path isn’t so bad after all.

The wealth of options in the dialogue – as long as you’ve leveled up your skills enough – means you can avoid much of the combat in the game, especially if you choose to sneak past patrols and wild animals. You can even open up new dialogue options by playing as a dumb character: people will recognize how stupid you are and realize that they can manipulate you. It’s not always to your disadvantage. Pick this type of game and you should find much of the nonsensical pun and sillier humor The Outer Worlds has to unravel before you, like a clown pulling endless scarves from his ass.

The “Dumb” dialogue is something that has been missing in Fallout games since the second one. He appears here as the couple of the show’s original creators, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, are the frontrunners of The Outer Worlds. Their team of writers injects the game with comedy that darkly deals with serious topics like production quotas, exploitative labor laws, and rapid industrialization. And these aren’t just jokes on their own – they’re integrated into the location and the characters. These jokes have configurations and take into account the surrounding context. It’s a masterful blend of sci-fi parody, sight gags, and workplace satire that’s close to Futurama’s sheen.

I quickly learn that every quest is worth pursuing. It could be solving puzzles like choosing to side with deserters or the larger corporate community they fled. Or for a silly joke about the flashy titles business people give to their projects – like THUNDERDAWG and DANGERBURN. Other times the game gets downright tragic, like when I run into Winslow, who tells me he got a 5% discount on Zero Gee Brew after getting injured on the job. Now he gets drunk so the only pain he feels is emotional. Sing it with me, everyone! Somewhere over the rainbow, way up…

One of my favorite moments is when I chat with Celia Robbins, a gifted corporate assistant, who is trying to seduce a man named Sebastian. He sells fresh animal parts for a living, so his method of getting close to him is to buy nails, flesh, and wings from him. She puts them away in her apartment but it starts to stink and her neighbors complain. It’s 100% wicked, but haven’t we all been there, doing shitty things in the name of romance? Alright, maybe not that bad.

This girl needs help, and it’s not like I can romance Sebastian myself (or anyone else in this game). The closest I can get is setting other people up on dates, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I approach the gentle-looking biker and strike up a conversation. Parvati helps by perfectly explaining Celia’s feelings towards Sebastian: “She’s in love with you. You hit her. Struck ? Smooth ? You know, all Parvati does is help me. Isn’t she so useful? I wish she would stop. At least the date is set. I don’t think he deserves Celia because he doesn’t seem that bothered by the whole ordeal. At least he’s cute.

Back at Celia, I instead turn my attention to her boss. I find in this man, the head of Monarch Stellar Industries, the embodiment of everything The Outer Worlds is. Especially when he describes my arrival as “the latest in a long series of professional, erotic and sporting disappointments”. Well done buddy. His name is Sanjar Nandi and he is a terrible manager. He immediately approves the advance payments Celia requests. He tends to complete his work rather than delegate it. And he’s so into statistics that he wonders how the cost savings aren’t watering everyone’s kidneys.

Wait, doesn’t that sound so bad (well, aside from the part about his kidneys)? Yes, you would be right, but in The Outer Worlds, being helpful and caring to those below you in the corporate structure is despicable. This halted Sanjar’s career and forced the totalitarian governing body The Board to oust his company from its financial and legal protection. He gave them everything he could to stop her, including his left kidney, but it wasn’t good.

I decide to help Sanjar by fetching a gun called BOLT-52 which I guess is a bad gun. Turns out it’s a data cartridge that excites him a lot. “I’m going to stay up all night with this,” he said. “All those blanks waiting to be filled in, boxes waiting to be checked…” Apparently the only way to do anything here is through bureaucratic micromanagement. The condition my weapon left the raptidons just outside of town says otherwise.

But come to think of it, I like watching the numbers roll by and picking perks as I level up. And it definitely benefits my damage output. So maybe micromanaging is the best way forward after all. But is it because I grew up under hypercapitalism? I’ve been trained hard to love seeing the numbers go up as a direct result of my work. Oh my god, I’m one of them. Alright, enough of that, let’s just say The Outer Worlds is Fallout’s funniest cousin. It’s clever, hilarious, and I think I fell in love with the clickable reload animation of the Deadeye Rifle. Now how is it going? I click my heels and say ‘There’s no place like home’. I get it.

The Outer Worlds is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25. It’s also coming to Nintendo Switch, but there’s no release date yet. Get yourself a plate of wild boar while you wait (don’t read this if you’re eating).

source: gameplaytrick.com -

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