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PaperclipPerfector
3mo ago
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
General video game thread time once again.
Has anyone here played Outward? Holy shit it's so fun. I've been playing with my fiance and I've got to say, I haven't been this excited about a game in a looooooong while.
It's a standard medieval fantasy RPG, but more 'realistic' so to speak. You have to carefully prep your food, water, and really read all the tips and plan your routes to get places. In the beginning you will get your ass beat by hyenas if you aren't careful and strategic about fighting. It's also built for co-op, so there's online and couch co-op right out of the gate.
Good God I wish more RPGs had couch co-op!
There's no fast travel, no detailed quest log, you can't even see where you are when you open the map. You have to plan for the weather or slowly get diseases and die of cold and/or heat stroke; then again you could just get a disease from a hyena bite that will kill you as well.
The game has magic, but it's locked behind a tough dungeon in the beginning, and you have to sacrifice health and stamina to get it. You don't just get to pick mage at the beginning and get some cool magic missile or whatever.
But what's most impressive about the game is that the world feels alive. The characters have realistic motivations, there are serious, major consequences for bad decisions right off the bat. There are very few elements of the world that are just taken for granted. I think the difficulty and all the planning/weather/food stuff adds to this as well, by having to take care of survival needs you really get into the mindset of "Okay I'm here, I'm planning a trip here, what exactly do I need?" instead of just clicking a button and porting to another city.
I haven't played too far into it so please don't spoil anything, but damn I love this game. If anyone else has played it and liked it, I'm curious! And if you haven't, well it frequently goes on sale for $6 or so, so I'd recommend checking it out.
I’ve played outward!
The first time, I had no idea what I was doing. I was going to eschew magic and put together a greatsword paladin. I trekked across the great swamp and joined the crusade, learning recipes, scraping together cash, and trying to stay alive. This led me to giant anthills and a lich’s tower. I spent a lot of time being thrashed by dogs and constructs. It was very cool.
I certainly remember, after gathering gear and a couple skills, planning a triumphant trip back to Cierzo. I’m sure you know what I found.
Much more recently, I started a new run to co-op with my girlfriend. We struggled even in the tutorial, but started to collect gear and money. Once we got to the forest city, though, things got out of hand. Even scripted story missions spawned overwhelming enemies. We left town to do normal missions and ran into a terrifying bandit chief. Apparently, this was the next step in a poorly explained mission, but we’d followed his road by accident. I wasn’t sure if it was worse to get respawned next to him (with a good chance to be put back under before even drinking water), or in a “neighboring” cave (adding a five minute walk, followed by the same trip to dreamland). It was vicious.
There are so many things I liked about Outward. Temporary health damage. The role of consumables. Mages as devastating casters if and only if they have the time and resources to set up. Building your own class out of skills. Backpacks. More games could use things like these!
On the other hand, I found a lot of things that were just dated. Big, empty levels with impassable terrain and packs of idle enemies. Illegible animations. Lifeless NPCs. Clumsy stealth and melee and archery and—you get the idea. It was 2019, and lots of games had done one or another of these things better.
It’s an obvious pipe dream. I want the beautiful, traversable terrain of Breath of the Wild populated by dynamic, threatening enemies. I want it as lively as an Elder Scrolls game, but of course, without giving up the real time consequences. I want diegetic user interfaces that keep me immersed. I want to move through a dungeon with stealth mechanics worthy of MGSV, and when that fails, resort to brutal melee combat that’s as tightly controlled as Dark Souls.
Outward gestures at a surprising number of these wants! There are just too many places where it falls back on outdated mechanics. The overall effect was asking me “what could have been?”
Lately I’ve been playing STALKER: Anomaly, a fanmade entry in a Chernobyl survival series. It does remarkably well on the lively world, on the general combat, and on atmosphere. Map design is evocative and foreboding. You’ll equip yourself with clean water and radioactive food, and you’ll get excited when you find medical supplies or a repair kit, let alone some undaunted gear. A trip to the next camp is a tense and foreboding affair.
The game also has quicksave, and console commands, and lots of ways to cheese enemies. In a polished and curated product, I’d say these are unnecessary, or even distract from the experience. But STALKER is neither of these. Quest NPCs are going to die to random dogs. You’re going to walk into nigh-invisible hazards and end up burning on the floor. Tools that make the game easier also mitigate the frustrations that come from this chaos.
Give it a try, I guess. You might get something out of it.
And then you spend half an hour cleaning your guns part by part.
And then it's all set in the grimy, depressing zone.
And then your character is hungry again for the tenth time within one hour and he has a 36 hour sleep cycle so you can't even sleep at night.
Anomaly is my favorite STALKER game and the modders have done an excellent job, but I'd still rather just not play it.
I still have mixed feelings on the weapon repair/cleaning. Why does it cost a repair kit use to swap in an undamaged part? I might as well have the smith do it for me, since I’ve got to pay him to even use the vice.
Crafting is more trouble than it’s worth, too. Found a recipe? Hope you’ve got enough scrap metal. But also held on to the two specific items you need for the recipe. And paid for the vice.
And don’t get me started on cooking. Worst value for money, let alone carry weight.
When I complete the main story I may start another run using GAMMA and see if it gives any reason to deal with that nonsense. Until then, I’m going to stick with high reliability gear and paying techs for their services, lol.
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