LogFAQs > #941930452

Lokarin posted...

Outer Worlds Vs. Greedfall

Both were disappointing.

Greedfall feels like it should be a much better game than it is, with a ton of potential and sort of moving into the niche Bioware used to fill, before Bioware transformed into hot liquid shit. But for all the hype it's essentially bordering on being an indie game, which means it kind of looks like shit and it was never going to be all that elaborate or deep because the studio couldn't afford to work that hard on it.

The dialogue trees - which people sort of latched onto as a huge deal beforehand - basically boil down to "Do you want to know more?" and "Do you want to accept this sidequest?", with almost no meaningful choice or ability to really affect the world in any way. It's a mediocre RPG telling the story it wants to tell, and while I enjoyed it to some degree (and 100%ed it), it's not a game I would ever feel compelled to go back to ever again.

Meanwhile, everyone went in to Outer Worlds expecting New Vegas IN SPACE, but we all forgot that Obsidian has been spiraling the edge of bankruptcy for years now, so they were going to be producing content more like an indie studio than they were the Obsidian of old. The end result is a game that feels unfinished - it's an interesting enough setting and a workable starting concept, but the companions all seem pointless and bland as fuck, the story is paper-thin and barely bothers to give you a reason to give a fuck about anything other than "Do this because the game wants you to", the plot is very much "Point A to Point B to Point C" railroading with your only real choice being whether or not you feel like doing sidequests. You can see the New Vegas mentality/sense of humor/flavor, but it comes across more like someone trying to do a mediocre rip-off of New Vegas than something made by the same team with the same level of ability and skill.

Again, while I've played New Vegas almost a dozen times (and felt like I was playing a very different character with very different backstories and adventures each time), I have zero interest in ever playing Outer Worlds ever again (I couldn't even be bothered to 100% it the way I did GreedFall). The only thing Outer Worlds really makes me feel is "I wonder if this would be a better game if they'd had twice as much time and ten times as much money to make it".

Ironically, both games kind of lean so hard into their respective underlying themes/morals and in such blatant, ham-fisted ways that it starts to feel preachy more than insightful, and thus kind of annoying. Yes yes, we get it, capitalism bad, grr. White people are the devil, Europe bad, etc etc. Now say something CLEVER about it. Outer Worlds is especially bad about this, as it feels like they have one joke that they just keep telling over and over and over and over again and the punchline is "CAPITALISM IS BAD!", but GreedFall doesn't really put much effort or complexity into its viewpoint either.

Neither game is terrible, and both can be enjoyable if you turn your brain off and have zero expectations or prior experience with RPGs in general, but they're both kind of disappointing if you've played much better games before, or expected more from them from all the pre-release hype or reviews that made them sound way better than they actually are.



Lokarin posted...

What's your biggie of the year?

If I was a hipster, I'd probably say something like "Disco Elysium".

But in my opinion 2019 was a blasted wasteland of terrible game releases. When you ignore ports, rereleases, remasters, and remakes, there's almost NOTHING of value that came out in 2019.

RDR2 might have to win by default due to lack of anything resembling competition. And I don't even LIKE RDR2 that much, because I feel like it went waaay too deep into simulation and railroady storytelling that keeps me from really enjoying the story or characters the way I did with RDR1. But it was still better than pretty much everything else.

I feel like I spent most of 2019 playing games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and games I had left over from 2018 or earlier because there was nothing coming out that I cared about at all.
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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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