Then 2 days later I finished it! 23 hours and 45 of the 68 achievements got.
I ran a melee character for simplicity and on the easiest difficulty and it was fine, a little bit boring a playstyle.
Within minutes of playing it, it reminded me of Fallout 4. Sure enough it's that engine but with the writers of New Vegas.
Within a couple of hours it was clear the writing was way better than Fallout 4. FO4 plays better but Outer Worlds is better written.
Starting out
You are one of a small number of people frozen IN SPACE and are rescued by a mad scientist who wants to free the rest of them for reasons.
It's cool because you can choose the background of your character to an extent, all of the jobs have an influence on what skills you possess. I chose Sous Chef as it directly affected 1 handed weaponry.
Oh YES I saw a resemblance to Sister Sage so I made her hair pink and went from there, only later to find out one of the companions you get looks exactly the same. Oops! Oh well.
Landing on a nearby world your accidentally kill your contact there and thus become de facto captain of the (Un)Reliable. After a bit of a tutorial.
The Unreliable is EXACTLY like the Serenity from Firefly. Well, pretty damn close. I loved that anyway.
Upon becoming a space faring captain you do get impounded at your next destination, the giant ship called the Groundbreaker but after some wrangling you are free to travel around a bit.
Later you unlock more destinations. I kind of liked the semi-linear nature of the game for the first half, then later it becomes more like a run of New Vegas or Skyrim where you fast travel around a lot.
I spent a long time trying to get a particular achievement to pop, killing 50 enemies with a blockball stick or whatever. Turns out I had already unlocked it without me realising and was just beating enemies to death with the equivalent of a metal cricket bat/croquet mallet.
The companions
Parvati - I thought she was cute and a nice addition to the party but painfully awkward. Dragging her around the galaxy to get her date sorted was a chore but rewarding.
Vicar Max - I credit him with making me think this game was worth playing. A holy man with a dark past, I found his 'companion move' one of the coolest. The moment I started to like this game was when I brought him the book he wanted before he joined the party and it's in French and he's furious. I lol'd.
Felix - a kind of forgettable anarchist of sorts, I made sure to do all his quests before I sided with the evil all-powerful Board. His dropkick move is hilarious.
Ellie - a noble pirate doctor. Hell of a combination. Did not use her much but she often quizzed me on my choices, why was I supporting the Board and such. Made me nervous when she did that, thought she would betray me or something.
Nyoka - this total badass was a lot of fun to have around. I did quite enjoy her companion move even if every single time she has to throw down a glass bottle and go AHHHHH. Did a ton of damage though so she was cool.
SAM - I got this dude last and I loved that had A) No companion quest B) no cut in dialogue C) was in some sort of situation with Ada D) fired double ACID launchers E) had a cool special move and F) was very strong and durable in the field.
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There is an achievement for acquiring a companion (almost impossible to miss unless you tell them all to fuck off). There is an achievement for getting all 6 of them. There are achievements for completing one companion's quest line and for completing all of their questlines. Upon doing so for each one you can power them up somewhat.
I generally found the companions superflous but they were fun to have around for a while. Again, story mode difficulty makes companions less necessary but there is probably a sweet spot in the higher difficulty levels. They can be killed forever in the hardest difficulty so who knows.
This game also did a pretty good job of making the companions cut in during dialogue between you and various NPCs. In Fallout 4, they just arbitarily comment 'you tell 'em Blue' or some shite but here they can actually engage important NPCs in unique dialogue, depending on who you bring along. I often had Vicar Max with me who was happy enough with what I was up to. Parvati would nervously wonder if what we were doing was right but that was all.
Music and Maps
I really liked the OST. It starts off suitably grand sci fi and becomes more ominous as you explore the various worlds.
The planets you go to are so pretty.
I probably spent the most time on Monarch.
The mining asteroid world was gorgeous.
You must go back to the Serenity Unreliable in order to travel between worlds but once there (milliseconds) you can fast travel to any region you have found on the planet. Different worlds might have multiple regions with various settlements and points of interest.
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| Oh hi! |
Finishing the game
After fucking around for a bit with various quests, it was time to end it.
On Monarch, Stellar Bay and the Iconoclasts can either go to war or make peace.
I was following a (very light) guide that told me to get all related achievements I should make peace first, then reload and fight my way to the end with one side, then proceed. It did not say which way was better and the chatter online seemed mixed.
I was going to power on with one side wiped out (MSI) but reloaded and makde peace again. I'd rather that than the somewhat boring of Stellar Bay and having one side rule all.
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Same with Edgewater on the first planet. You can decided to keep it safe or destroy it with robots. Keeping it safe was easy for me as I had done all the quests so it was a mere dialogue choice not to destroy it.
But reloading and opting to destroy it was a pain, especially as you then have to go and clear the town of robots anyway?
I reloaded AGAIN and chose via dialogue to keep Edgewater safe. There are good and bad endings for the game and various companions and factions are affected too but it is not that important (ie, no achievements are affected).
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Eventually you acquire the ship full of frozen ubermensch. You can choose to skip it across the galaxy with the help of your AI (advised) or try to do it yourself.
There is a special, unique, auto-fail ending wherein you are too stupid to do it correctly and fly the spaceship directly into the sun. I had made myself average intelligence at the start of the game (3/5) but with drug withdrawals I could get that to below average (2/5). This was NOT enough for the 'Dumb' option however.
So, I was prepared to give up and do that another time but figured out through various Reddit posts and whatnot that if you suffer multiple concussions you can acquire a flaw that reduces your mental stats by 1, getting me to the requisite (1/5).
HOWEVER, I had all 3 Flaws acquired and thus could not get it. BUT I figured out that if you increase the difficulty to Hard, you can acquire more flaws. So I did that then spent a few minutes standing next to explosions and voila. I switched the difficulty back down to nothing and then flew the spaceship into the sun. The things I do for achievements.
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This brings you to the point of no return which is just one big level, some sort of intergalactic prison. I may have ceased to pay attention to the plot at this point. I decided to side with the Board and made the mad scientist the enemy. Bit of an anticlimax boss.
I became ruler of the galaxy and was treated to an ending slideshow, classic Obsidian. Most of the endings seemed to be OK?
20 hours to complete the game (some of that time was reloading to do alternate stuff) and another 3 hours afterward to get various achievements.
Achievement round-up
After completing the game I immediately set about clearing various achievements. Some of them involved me re-speccing my skills for a small fee inside the spaceship. So I abandoned my 100 points in 1 handed weapons for example for more shooty stuff.
I had NEVER used a gun prior to this, even for a second. So as soon as the game ended I fired my first projectile weapon.
On two separate occasions I had to slaughter all of Monarch's settlements. This was enough the second time to get the '3 factions hate you' achievement.
I think the other time was 'kill 100 enemies with plasma damage' which I achieved by a burning sword and flamethrower.
Killing 20 enemies with n-rays was very fun. I just did it to a bunch of villagers and guards.
Killing an enemy affected by all 5 damage types was very hard. I eventually found an enemy tanky enough for it but it was tough.
Kill an enemy with a science weapon was kind of difficult, it was fun trying to find all 5 of these for starters but then simply shot an old lady.
I also never used time dilation or whatever its called during the main quest, it's more important for shooting I think?
'Improve gear 30 times' refused to pop when I was using mods alone but it finally did when I spammed a bunch of 'tinkering' as well. This was not essential in any way on piss easy difficulty but it will be when I eventually do the harder modes.
Kill an enemy under the influence of 4 science weapons - again, very difficult to pull off in a sense but eventually managed it with the help of 2 allies armed with them as well. I ad almost soft-locked myself from getting one of them, it was in a lab full of poisonous gas I may have released.
Kill 30 automechanicals with shock damage - I had been taking care to whack robots with shock weapons but did not seem to do any damage. Maybe the weapons I was using were weak/underlevelled. After finishing the game, a shock gun helped a lot. Plus the city Byzantium had loads of robots for me to kill...
Use medical inhaler 300 times - apparently this counts across multiple runs and I'd probably used mine <50 times BUT I decided to simply buy 100~ from various shops and simply stood and inhaled all 100 or so, then reloaded and did it again until it popped.
Hit 30 enemies in the groin during time dilation - silly but possible in a regular playthrough? I went to my friendly local town guards and shot them all repeatedly in the nuts, while in slow mo.
Next time
The only achievements I have left are:
Kill 50 enemies with sneak attacks (I will run a shooty character next time)
Complete game on Hard difficulty (doable)
Complete game on Supernova difficulty (difficult but doable, the Hard one also unlocks if you get this)
Collect all achievements (need all other achievements first)
19 more achievements that are tied to the DLCs which I don't have yet.
Conclusion
Good game, not brilliant but a nice new addition to my gaming history. I look forward to playing it again sometime next year.
Time to move onto something else!
