Outcast "A New Beginning" Review | The AA Movie-Game Love Child that Needed More Guidance

in 1999 appeal developed and released Outcast a third-person action adventure game that reflected the love of 80s and 90s action Sci-Fi movies and TV shows and using its Paradise engine included voxal technology in places that resulted in a game that while not selling well always seemed to be brought up by some misty-eyed old Adventure gamer telling everybody about how good the good old days really were then in 2010 it was re-released on Gog and by re-released I mean pretty much just the exact same game with all or most of the same bugs basically it worked on newer systems like XP and Windows 7 and the absolutely Stellar Windows Vista then in 2017 it was remade in Outcast second contact because by then hell why not now in 2024 Outcast a new beginning is being released is it a sequel a remake well it's basically a requel a sequel but with a ton of the original content style and feel an attempt to bring new gamers in with the full World building while also letting old players at least feel some familiarity with the story and the characters while it's sequel in a lot of its storytelling it definitely has a huge amount of the original within its DNA what I can tell you is that where Indiana Jones's Goonies for adults Outcast as a mix of Stargate and 80 Sci-Fi Action movies and at times almost sci-fi radio serials for gamers a third-person action shooter in a huge world that's a mix of Hoth Tatooine and indor all into one mystical land and then letting Charlie Sheen from Navy Seals out into the wild to get some done Outcast opens pretty quickly with Cutters Slade and adelfa and quickly diving into the myths and Mysteries of the local populace as they try to fight off an overwhelming technological Force that's mining the world for Rare Minerals and the rest of the story follows you as an attempt to help the locals discover more about why you're there and Jetpack around an amazing looking Planet first while yes many of the story elements in Outcast are a savior type story I do want to say Cutters this salv to normal characters in games does that mean he's always well written and performed well no and I'll get to that but he takes on the world in the same way a player does after maybe their third third person shooter game in a row where it feels like somehow everything and everyone is just a little bit tired cutter mimics that in conversations he has basically putting a stop to some of the long step-by-step ideas with a why don't we just go in there and shoot the dude in the face kind of morality the logic is actually sound and let's be honest at the end of most games many step battle plans it ends up at you just shooting a dude in the face anyway it's a refreshing change of pace and throughout the quests in many ways Outcast is a fast inting game in that style especially if you give it some time the cut to the Chase main protagonist Meed and lore deep enough to be a fraking series of Lord of the Rings books with every item and function in the game explained in the lore in some way intermixing with a huge amount of world exploration just feels a little bit different that doesn't mean there aren't Quests for a guy so quick to say hold up why are we doing all this he does always end up being ready to take on a new job it's about taking out enemies saving friendlies and helping out the villages by dropping off supplies without a quest journal in the way you would normally expect effect and that framework it feels more like big plot points themes and devices that the game actually ends up tracking and there's a large number of enemy Towers to be taken down and different missions for the natives all across the land one second you're watching The Game's version of alien sheep dipping their nuts into a super stinky mud to stop from getting attacked by Predators or you're facing down groups of enemies to find a missing youth who's decided to go traes and into hostile territory to get some fraking berries while much of the dialogue and the systems are built around the bog standard wheel of choice style working through the those discussion points and back and forth between different characters there's one particular element to this game I absolutely want to discuss the glossery system this should be used in every narrative game full stop because Outcast loves its alien terms and if it's not cutter consistently asking someone what something means it's some random native spouting about traditions and nonsense while dropping very high syllable words at an incredibly fast rate hitting a button during those discussions brings up onscreen text that as the characters are talking will explain to you exactly what those terms mean letting conversations flow while having a sort of instant Google translate without the horrible translation errors we see everywhere it's awesome and sure not everybody's going to care about what every word means but if you do and you want to know you can hit that button when they mention it from characters places in the religious hierarchy to Crazy traditional names it works very well to deliver that information to the player in an organic way now as you know I test games on all the difficulties to see where the challenge is or isn't and in many cases alcast doesn't really change much depending on which option you go for many enemies are apparently outfitted with the most current and anti- cutter slay missiles and lasers so getting blasted like an only fans video happens all the time but you can return those favors as well enemies move around and jostle a bit but the real tactical elements are based more around crowd control or making that incoming projectile Miss because again what these enemies lack in mobility and highle strategy they make up for in volume large packs of traveling spider crabs really aren't that hard until the Pyramid of creep behind a ejaculates another swarm out right on top of you as you try to smash it or entering into an enemy base and bringing the shield up to fight off two enemies when the turrets turn on and as you dash out there thinking yeah I got a bad feeling about this Goose you get a thousand shots into your back by the drones that they launched combat does have a specific feel luckily you have different levels of auto aim you can turn on if you're somebody who wants to use that and you can also see that there's a good amount of actual recoil something that helps in the game it does make it feel a little more visceral as you're playing and then there's the jetpack which comes into all parts of this game basically a jetpack glider combination or get out of hell free card and get over there quick cheat code all into one smashing the button launch the Slade into the air quadruple jumping away from enemies or hitting another button let you go soaring off with an electric gridlike flying squirrel set of wings under your arms and you can also just use the jetpack to float around enemies puttering like some mechanical fly that also has high-powered weapons and re Death from Above on them you you can mix all this together using the jetpack to dodge away from enemies double jump out of the way hover then shoot them to get behind the enemies you turn it into the glider you power off switch around and take out the remaining bad guys and despite the combat not always feeling elegant and despite Cutters relative stodgy movement these are the best times in Outcast absolutely a blast well the game isn't chock full of weapons and it does have some upgrades and the ability to upgrade the upgrades cuz if cutter slate is anything he's pragmatic there's no real reason to have eight weapons when you can have two that do four things that's his thought process but this is more like 25 things a piece from seeking projectiles to weapons that use energy to fire to basically dropping bombs on bad guys like a World War II bomber you can switch between them all at any time leaping into the inventory removing and moving the upgrades as combat and your needed efficiencies continue to evolve depending on the enemies that you end up fighting I do wish you could do this in sort of sets or templates but that didn't seem to exist in this game requiring you to get into the inventory which is not as easy as it may sound and I'll talk about that in a moment now it helps that the world is massive so no matter what you're doing yes it's a bit of a truncate at the fair with forests Fading Into deserts or at least huge sand dunes and beaches faster than probably realistic and at the same time it can be said that the snowy areas and other locations where maybe there's a mountain pass and you think to yourself Christ if the enemies are right over here why don't they just strap on some boots and a Cabella's backpack and take out the natives right now those moments are going to happen but it's a joy to fly around anyway and it's still quite a big world but it really isn't going to matter if that world loads in in chunks and pieces and Outcast strength is that it almost always knows exactly what it can show and do it any one time without breaking itself over on the programming a worldview that's absolutely gorgeous from flying along the planes blasting over a hill in a jetpack reminds me of movies like explorers or perhaps Return of the Jedi with speeder bikes minus the Mind rending danger hitting a twig at 90 mph the same design goes into the build of the cities and Villages the inhabitants of Adela each this Unique Style creaking old water Mills churning away in a river in the center of one town and then the massive vertical spires of the main city on an island separated by a vast body of water in the next locations are set up to feel like a part of a spreadout organism connected but still unique no matter what tower Lighthouse ouse or bird keeper house you end up at while enemy design as I said earlier isn't exactly spectacular it's a mix of expected humanoid types and they assorted robots and drones the animals of the planet run the gamut from giant groundw worms to Terri find flying grubs and chittering spiders the size of dogs and that's just a few the planet's a fully fleshed out world with each Lagoon or Mountain offering some form of active or passive life forms cutter though still animates like your dad chasing you when you were scoring your first peeee football touchdown stoved up and chunky it's a military hump kind of movement unhurried but efficient even if it looks like he's genuinely just unimpressed with where he's going or in debilitating pain getting there in battle and jetpacking around it's much better and more easy to take in like the small TFT of ankle save and Jet burst as you hit the ground after a thousand foot drop or the very special moves cutter can learn later feels like a moment from Star Wars if everyone was a really tired Mandalorian with crappier equipment but it does have some issues the first is that the menus especially when you go into the main one has a stutter and leg that shows up in particular there's also some ones when you're entering or exiting that main character screen but also an atrocious one that pops up when you're using the mouse and keyboard and you're looking at different skills they basically each load to small movie as we've seen in the past but it can cause your mouse to jump all over the placees it pauses for just a brief second like it's sticky over the top of a skill and then Pops to the next one Shadows sometimes also suffer from an odd pattern-- like effect that becomes obvious the more pronounced you turn down the sample set so you go into the options you turn that on low it's going to be more noticeable luckily speaking of the options there are a good number for you to go in and of course there is dlss there for you to adjust and get yourself a couple frames back if you need to another thing can be noticeable is the Popp in it's not necessarily egregious at times you'll be talking to a different character and popping back and forth between them in the cut scenes and behind them like flipping up gun range targets will be foliage it's just something that sort of happens it's a good-look game the presentation actually makes the atmosphere more engaging and the sense of mystery growing consistently as you Trot over a hill just to see what's on the other side that continues even when you quickly unlock the ability to teleport to many of the main cities and spots in the game the original Outcast was known for incredible amount of amazing music and some very unique alien voices now when talking about the voices one reason to me why voice is so important in RPGs is that they not only impart the information for quests World lore and character building by the very sound and inflection they can also give off or allow for an alien or familiar feel to the atmosphere take cotor for instance the first time you hear one of the aliens there and their scratchy croaking voices you won't ever really think of them as anything else but when you heard jar jar the first time well you get my idea an outcast first some of the voices and effects are very well done some of the inhabitants have some warbling alien almost multi- timbered voice box sound to them a lot like the original did and I like that but my god do they Hammer the tropes hard in this game in one city it's possible to hear an English Irish Southern and Northern accent all at once and while the village may be a bit of a Melting Pot that seems to continue pretty much everywhere in the game this is universally difficult for developers who've discussed how hard it is to create access in games that sound good not like some freakish amalgamation of ripped off rolling RS but hanging out with some of the villagers who keep sounding like he's going to go play a banjo from the movie Deliverance doesn't really work that well luckily it's not all the time but it's going to be noticed so I'm warning you up front to expect some Oddities when it comes to Accents and the voices while something like this wasn't as noticeable perhaps when the original game came out with the push for game vocals and the advancement in the game's market and technology in the past two decades it does come off oddly when the music doesn't because Lenny Moore soundtrack is really still one of the best in gaming despite changes to it for the Remake this mix of ethereal and then all of a sudden it sounds like the soaring beginning to a Blockbuster movie and switches over to something else just a little bit later his compositions blend vocals with expansive operatic moments and classical Arrangements enhanced by nearly two decades of advancements and musical technology so they can change and adjust with the gameplay and be more Dynamic this allow him to pretty skillfully weave the themes from the original game into new ones creating a score that stands out as equally memorable seriously this is listenable pretty much anywhere in the game sitting in the title screen or hanging out on your own if you just like these kind of soundtracks I loved it originally and I like this one even more when it comes to the sound it's not bad I do wish there were more environmental samples especially as busy of a world as this is with the native and passive creatures just moving around everywhere they're still present however there's a number and rate that I just was hoping would be a little bit higher because some of the locations can feel a bit Barren when it comes to these alien Landscapes I hope for a ton of overlapping audio to really make you feel like you're there and offer you some sense of atmosphere regardless if you're gaming and adventuring and shooting or if you're talking to a character or if you're just hanging out when it comes to the weapons explosions and otherwise they sound good for a Sci-Fi game the effects the changing depending on the modules you can use in upgrades with each weapon alter each sound of the guns I think those worked really well speaking of what works well is well does the game as it comes together as a third person action adventure shooter is this enjoyable is Outcast worth it is the fun there for me Outcast nails pretty much exactly what they were going for despite some clumsiness there are times where playing the game it's a series of deja vu flashbacks of other games including itself if you had ever played it feels like some of the ideas from the first one were sort of copied over into this one even though they say it's a sequel so it's an odd one they even remov the sequel number from the end of this game's title but oddly enough that sort of sense of indecision fits perfectly it feels almost silly as a game and like a goddamn godson compared to many other serious games or those with characters and stories that are always needing to drive you with their long drawn out narratives the mix of the goofy languages the odd backwards way everyone thinks and acts and Cutter's own attitude in the free form movement and exploration feels like a breath of fresh air may not do all these elements better better than the biggest hitters in the genre but it feels fun doing it and for the most part looks fantastic while it is no matter if you're in a temple talking about the end of life ceremonies with some bigheaded alien who seems to be weirdly excited about that or hanging out on the beach shooting creepy sand crabs coming out of what looks like a mini volcano except the platforming parkour sections I'm sorry those suck they're in the game you don't necessarily need to do them all but you do sort of need to do a couple of them whenever you're doing something that doesn't involve the free form movement of Outcast it actually feels like a real deficit while Outcast combat isn't as smooth as some other bigger budget games it's damned workable and that main lead just cracks me up it's just one of those times where the character in the main story is saying pretty much what I want to do or what I want to say whenever I'm talking to a character who's given me a quest in a game and that's just hurry it up pretty much just like what I'm saying right now for this review peace out talans so who are you the name's Slade Commander cutter SL back Finger monster or by the Ys I'll make a trophy out of your deformed hands okay no handshakes I meant it as a friendly gesture listen that word you just said it's like echoing in my head Finger monster no the other one [Music] ukai is

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Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2024