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lamiahypnosia · 4 years

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The Outer Worlds Review

When the Outer Worlds was announced I was kind of on my back foot about it. Private Division made a huge deal about how they were the one who made the original Fallout and Fallout New Vegas- you know, that Fallout game that you actually like that wasn’t made by the devil Bethesda.

And as the kids say ‘weird flex but okay’. Every time a new game releases, especially a new intellectual property, people always whisper about how money was being passed around to get good reviews. I don’t know about all that. But I do know this.

The Outer Worlds is not Fallout: New Vegas 2. So sorry.

I posted a meme recently that made the joke that the Outer Worlds was Borderlands New Vegas but that wouldn’t strictly be true . I haven’t actually played Borderlands extensively but yeah a space Western is very much like other space Westerns- there’s an old saying ’ there’s nothing new under the sun.’ People make frequent comparisons to things because they feel familiar. ‘If you like Fallout you’ll like this’ But I’m going to stop comparing it to anything else. Is this the start of a new IP that can stand shoulder to shoulder with other great titles? Let’s find out.

Story The story of The Outer Worlds should be very familiar to any sci fi nerds worth their salt. Earth is uninhabitable because of war and humanity shoots to the stars, so you and a few thousand lucky people get placed on two ships -Groundbreaker and Hope- to fast forward ten years via new technology called skip drive until you get to your new home of Halcyon. Only the Groundbreaker made it and the Hope was lost, adrift until a scientist named Dr. Phineas V. Welles decides to see if anyone on the Hope is still kicking. Without much more explanation other than wanting to wake up the rest of the colonists you’re rudely awakened, dropped onto the planet Terra 2 and told to find a smuggler.

Halcyon is a colony run by corporations- people live for their company, are owned by their company and under certain circumstances dying is a crime. Advertisements race by on robots and are pasted or projected onto every wall all controlled by the mysterious Board. But there’s something rotten under the corporate jargon and mandatory happiness and it might be up to you and Phineas to save the colony- that is, if you, the Unplanned Variable, see fit to do so. All the sci fi tropes are here- a smartass computer AI as your pilot and navigator, alien monsters, corporate greed, weird technology and mad science. The Outer Worlds is a game you can play with your brain turned off as a wacky sci-fi adventure or you can uncover the secrets of Halcyon and the Board and use them to become a hero or simply come out on top with your pockets full or a mixture of it all. Pick your poison. It’s still not a game that takes itself very seriously, at ALL even when a nerve shattering revelation ramps the stakes through the roof. Are you savior or scourge? It’s entirely up to you. Sidequests

There’s plenty to do on every level of immersion on The Outer Worlds. The game doesn’t really reward you for checking every nook and cranny apart from finding random bodies which becomes horrific in hindsight once you reach the endgame and learn what they probably actually died from. But as far as material things you get loot. Poke around a bit can net you some unique weapons such as a hammer that does all the status effect damage, a shrink ray and a cannon that fires slime that suspends its victims up in the air and drops them like a bad habit.

There’s not many ‘collect ten bear butts’ type quests thank the Law but damn near everything is optional and the sheer amount of solutions for quests will have you planning your next play through.

The best side quests are the companion quests which are so good I’m not going to spoil them but they all span the length of the game since they require reaching places that the player will only be able to travel to during certain parts of the story. Presentation The dialogue is excellent as per Obsidian standards.The voice acting is great, fairly natural sounding but when the actors have to perform instead of just reading they almost always do a bang up job. Screams of pain after getting sprayed with venom during combat, the cries of alarm if you or another companion is wounded or the out of breath declarations at the end of combat however are a nice touch. The music is provided by Justin E. Bell, the low key background music with bold brass and mysterious woodwinds, or soft piano and strings but the occasional steel guitar sneaks in to give the smaller towns that run down feel. The various jingles of all the omnipresent corporations will get stuck in your head, however. Among my favorite tracks are Hope, Forever, Phineas Escapes, and the title theme simply titled Hope. The gorgeous moving theme is also a leitmotif throughout the game from the level up sound to the cheery ragtime version. I can’t gush enough about how beautiful the score is.

Visually the game is stunning, from the stifling cold marble walls of Byzantium where the men in power dwell in their ivory towers to the long stretches of frontier on alien worlds populated by bizarre creatures and filled with strange and sometimes deadly plants, sulfur pools and giant mushrooms The Outer Worlds really is a feast for the eyes, polished, clean and bright. The darker areas might drive you bonkers but thankfully nothing you really need is going to be in the super dark anyway. If only the character models were as good but with an AA game budget, what are you gonna do? You could have cutscenes with finger puppets as long as they still keep their great dialogue. Seriously, I don’t remember laughing out loud at a game’s dialog or with such frequency probably since Dragon Age:Origin. Derivative humor is fun every now and then- I ran across a weapon, a hammer for sale called Maxwell where the flavor text mentioned ‘you think it should be silver’ in reference to the Beatles’ tune Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, or a dialog selection where you can tell the quest giver ‘Aliens’ to which she relies ‘I’m saying it was aliens’ so some music nerds and internet meme lords are thrown a bone but most of the humor is good old fashioned timing and even a few visual gags such as in the opening where Phineas has trouble opening the door. While rated M it’s pretty tame- I’d feel okay playing this in front of my Mormon in-laws because apart from the frequent swearing the humor is mostly clean. From my very first play through I counted five dirty jokes which you could easily miss and when you loot human bodies they stay clothed. The companions -your crew on the Unreliable- are spread out through the game and are met under circumstances ranging from a suggestion to hire them through Phineas or simply strays picked up for kicks and giggles. There are six companions in total- Parvati Holcomb, a sweet gal from the starting town who knows her way around an engine, Vicar Maximilian DeSoto, a priest of the Order of Scientific Inquiry, Dr. Ellie Fenhill, a surgeon turned pirate (who is featured in the trailers!) Felix Millstone, a rebel without a cause or a clue who romanticizes all your adventures, Nyoka Ramnarim-Wentworth III, a hard drinking hunter and wilderness guide, and SAM, a sanitation and maintenance robot who spouts only company slogans. The companions can be customized to suit your playstyle from their unique perks to armor, weapons and fighting preference but most players end up with a favorite team though there are perks you can take if you’re the kind who likes to fly solo. While the companions all have their own clear cut reasons for joining your crew, treat them right and they become close to the player character and each other. Aww. They all have something to say in just about every situation and like in many modern RPGs will bicker and banter with the player character and each other. Listening to the characters play off one another is ten kinds of fun. My biggest gripe is how there’s no new one on one dialog with them at certain points in the game apart from new banter or a comment about goings on before going right into the same dang old dropbox of questions. Oh well. Some players get their hackles up about there not being romance but I don’t feel a lack. If you want extensive babblings with your minions go play a Bioware game. What’s wrong with a good old fashioned tale of true companions?

Final thoughts

I admit after going through the first three hours or so of the game I was going to slap a ‘standard sci fi’ label on The Outer Worlds and hang it up for a while. Thank the Law I didn’t.

The main quest coming in at a lukewarm thirty hours, The Outer Worlds is crying out for DLC and the way things go we’ll probably get more than one. Overall it’s fun- it’s a fun ride with crazy weapons, colorful characters, plenty of laughs and it just might tug at your heartstrings.

When you take away the wishing, complaining and comparisons The Outer Worlds is a breath of fresh air amid the reforgings and refunds. I joke a lot about how I’m drinking the tears of New Vegas stans for getting heckin’ bamboozled but good on them for having standards. I’ve been hiding my extreme disappointment in Fallout 76 for a long time- full disclosure, it legit makes me sad and angry between Bethesda and Blizzard caring more about money than making fans happy and the table scraps we get in place of enjoyable content.

I haven’t been happy with a new release since World of Warcraft: Legion. That’s been four agonizing years in a wasteland of mediocrity that I’ve slogged through in the vain hope of something renewing my faith in the industry. Maybe The Outer Worlds is just standard sci fi goofs but it does stand out among all the moody gritty art pieces most modern games have become. I’m not sure what the future holds but I’ll be cautiously hopeful, adrift in lower orbit waiting for the next adventure.

#the outer worlds #review #amateur review #actually blogging on my blog what sorcery is this #Don't worry there are no spoilers #spoiler free #tow #tow stuff #no spoilers

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ang3leyes · 6 years

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Gonna Take a Lot

Summary: They stood there for the duration of the song, let the chorus sit between them, and suddenly, finally, Eddie was smiling, was thinking that maybe everything would be okay, maybe he wasn’t delicate, or sick, he was loved and good and most of all, most importantly, he was Richie’s.

But then, when everything came crashing down, Eddie almost felt like he knew it was coming.

Words: 2,792

Warnings: A lil bit of internalized homophobia if you squint, though its not a big part of the story, swearing.

Prompt: “Africa by Toto and reddie, could that be a prompt?”

A/N: For the anon with this wonderful prompt. This turned into an actual story tho?? It ran away from me, whoops. I’m sorry if it’s confusing, enjoy!

“I hear the drums echoing tonight”

Eddie groaned as the familiar notes began to drift through his headphones, strangely out of sync with the beat created underfoot by the crunching of leaves. His hands, which were buried deep in his pockets in an attempt to block out the cold, struggled to free themselves from the thin wool gloves Eddie had pulled on the moment he had left his dorm room. Quickly, he pressed the skip button.

“Stupid,” he muttered, angry more than anything. The song used to be one of his favorites, as cheesy as it was, but now it twisted up his stomach into so many knots he felt he could barely stand straight, filled him with a quaking, simmering sort of anger. Even the opening chords of his once-favorite song were enough to put him in a bad mood, and by the time he reached his first class, Eddie was scowling at everything from the stupid scrape of chairs on the floor to the stupid way the skin on the back of his hands was dry. It was safe to say that that day’s lecture had consisted of little ways Eddie found to release his anger on, the ripping of the corners of his notebook paper, the way he pressed his hands into his temples with just a bit too much force, and that Eddie hardly took in a word. This, if anything, made Eddie even angrier. The class was on international relations, an introductory course, but interesting nonetheless, and the fact that he hadn’t learned a single thing was definitely Richie’s fault

No, Eddie thought immediately. That name had to be censored even within Eddie’s mind, (activity spaces vary by age, and the extent of people’s mental maps depends on their ages. Mental maps include terra incognita, unknown lands that are off limits)-

”But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation“

The girl next to Eddie was humming under her breathe, jolting Eddie from his self pity. Her hair was short and curling around her ears, red and vibrant. Her name was Beverly, and Eddie considered her a possible friend. Their tentative smiles had turned into conversations when Eddie had told Bev to go home just last week. She had stumbled into the class with swollen eyes and curls that were messier than usual, and Eddie had all but pushed her out the door with promises on his lips to take extra-detailed notes and send them to her over the weekend.

They had been growing closer ever since, and Eddie genuinely enjoyed everything about her company. He knew that if he wasn’t gay (and with whispers in the back of his head of sick and dirty, sometimes he wished he wasn’t) she would be exactly the kind of girl he would fall in love with. Now though, Eddie felt within him fire rising up.

“She’s coming in 12:30 flight” Bev’s voice was soft, so soft Eddie was likely the only one to hear it.

“Can you stop singing that?” Eddie whispered, his voice tight. Bev ducked her head and mumbled a “sorry” under her breath, though her face was stony. Eddie felt bad immediately. The rest of the period was spent not only feeling like shit, but feeling like guilty shit.

After the class blessedly came to an end, Eddie caught up to Bev, who was walking away out the door.

“Bev!” She slowed her pace, but Eddie still had to nearly jog to catch up to her long strides.

“Hiya, Eddie.” Thankfully, she didn’t seem too upset.

“I’m really sorry for snapping in class today,” Eddie brought a hand up to push a curl behind his ear. “You have a really pretty voice.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bev said, her smile righting itself and returning to its full brightness. “My roommate’s been learning Africa on his guitar, so it’s permanently stuck up here,” she knocked her hand against her head. Eddie laughed, relieved.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “Great song.”

And it was, or truly would be, if Eddie hadn’t royally fucked up to it. But really, he had loved the song.

Without his consent, he was back in that moment, back in–his dorm kitchen, a record playing even though his phone was sitting on the counter, swaying between Richie’s legs, the boy himself seated up on the table, his hands lazily draped across Eddie’s shoulders. The boys were wearing easy smiles, and God, how Eddie would give anything to stop reliving this. The song, he knew, had turned with the whirring of the needle to a familiar melody, and Richie had pulled him close. At the action, Eddie’s heart had sat sunken into his chest, so full to the brim he thought love might have overflowed. Maybe it was here he had made his mistake, but Richie had wrapped his arms around Eddie and his legs around his calves, had nestled his face in Eddie’s hair, has stroked circles along Eddie’s back as if he had never wanted to let go, and Eddie’s mouth had opened before he could stop it–Bev’s hand in front of his face stopped the scene, screeched across the memory, disturbing it like a record scratch, and for this he was so grateful he thought he might cry.

“You alright there?” She asked, her voice soft again. Eddie shook himself.

“Yeah,” his voice quivered, betraying him. “Yeah sorry, guess I’m just tired.”

Tired of Richie’s bullshit, maybe.

The two walked in silence for a bit, but at a glance, Eddie could see there was something nagging Bev in the way her teeth were snagging the corners of her lips.

“What’s up?” he ventured, grateful their dorms seemed to be in the same direction as they exited the building and started up the leaf-strewn path.

“It’s just,” Bev started, her cadence jolted. She let out a sigh, as if convincing herself to continue. “Do you wanna come over?” Eddie’s brow furrowed, but he smiled nonetheless.

“Uh, sure?” Eddie still felt bad about snapping in class, and besides, he had an hour until his next class, and his therapist had been telling him to take more risks. If this could help get him out of his own head, what did he have to lose refusing?

They walked in a comfortable silence. Over the course of the class the air had become slightly more pleasant, and was now permeable without gloves. There was rustling coming from a cluster of birds up in a tree ahead, and Eddie made a mental note to tell Stan about this particular part of the campus–

“The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me to salvation.”

“I love you.” Richie’s fingers stilled against his back, and Eddie tensed up, fearful. His heart was beating so fast it brought moisture to his eyes that he desperately forced away. Slowly, thankfully, Richie began to move again, bent his head to press a gentle kiss against Eddie’s forehead. They stood there for the duration of the song, let the chorus sit between them, and suddenly, finally, Eddie was smiling, was thinking that maybe everything would be okay, maybe he wasn’t delicate or sick, he was loved and good and most of all, most importantly, he was Richie’s.

But then, when everything came crashing down, Eddie almost felt like he knew it was coming.

Richie had slipped out from around Eddie as soon as the needle went back to pulling silence from the record, and he was out the door before Eddie could call out to him, beg him to stay, and Eddie was crying because this time, it actually was his fault. He had fucked up, this wasn’t something he could blame on his mother or on Henry Bowers and walk away from, this was completely him. It was his fault he had spoken, his fault he had gotten his own hopes up, his own damn fault that no one would ever want him like that, to hold as more than a friend or to fuck as more than an occasional hookup–

Eddie hadn’t heard from Richie since. It had been three days, and while at first he had been inclined to blame himself, he knew, at least, that Richie was being a complete and utter dick.

“Here we are!” chirped Bev’s voice, once again startling Eddie from his trance. He looked around at the dorm hallway, nearly identical to his own, (though something about it seemed familiar) and he regretted in the back of his mind spacing out during the walk there. She seemed slightly off as they walked up to the door of her dorm, but Eddie paid it no mind. Before he knew what was happening, the door was swinging open, and he was hit with those sickening, sickening chords once again, and just as he was about to turn around, walk away or maybe snap at Bev, he caught sight of what was in front of him.

“Sorry Eddie,” Bev said as Eddie’s eyes latched onto the figure in front of him, whose eyes were blown wide and who looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “He’s been driving me crazy. There’s only so many times someone can describe ‘their Eds’ in great depth before a gal goes insane.”

There, sitting on the dorm bed that was far too small for his sprawling stature, was Richie Tozier, his mouth hanging open dumbly, a guitar perched on his lap, and something glinting (almost like tears) in his eyes.

“Eddie,” Richie breathed. Eddie felt his throat close up, felt the rage and the heartbreak clogging there.

“I’ll leave the two of you to it,” Bev said, though Eddie could barely hear her. There was a ringing in his ears, one that muted the closing of the door and the chatter from outside. All he could think was, here, look, here’s the boy who lead you on, here’s the boy who doesn’t love you, look, here’s your mistake.

“I’m leaving,” Eddie announced finally, after a minute of staring. His voice was quiet, quivering, it was a strange combination of angry and broken, and Richie recoiled at the use of it as if it had hurt him.

“No, Eds, Eddie, hold up,” Richie swung the guitar over his side awkwardly so he could reach his hand out desperately and latch onto Eddie’s retreating wrist. “Let me explain, please.”

Eddie let the rage simmer up, let it consume him because God, anything was better than the empty acceptance.

“What?” he snapped, pulling his hand away and spinning to face Richie, his face pulled up into a mocking sneer. “Explain how you fucking walked out on me and ignored me for half a fucking week?” Eddie stepped closer, his voice raising in decibels, the anger churning into something that made him feel powerful. “Explain how you don’t fucking love me back, how much of a dick move that was?” Richie opened his mouth, but Eddie wasn’t done. “What, lemme guess, you wanna explain how fucking unloveable I am? God Rich, I thought you were at least my friend, do you want to explain how I’m not even that to you anymore?”

The silence sat between them in a way similar to music, only this time, instead of soft promise, there was dead space. Eddie could see sickness in this silence, he thought. Maybe if he looked close enough, he could see a corpse too, that of what he and Richie could have been, Eddie’s love covered in maggots and swarming with flies–

And then it was gone.

Richie was looking down, down at his guitar, down to where the silence had been cut off from. He was strumming the chords to the song that had been following Eddie from the moment he woke up, and Eddie knew he should leave, knew he needed to leave, but his feet were rooted to the ground. A small part of him, the part of him that was growing larger, the part of him that knew it wasn’t really Richie’s fault his love was unrequited, the part of him that knew he was angry at the universe more than he was at Richie, paused, entranced. Even when he was being a dick, Richie still looked so beautiful, his curls falling over his face as his long fingers switched from chord to chord.

“It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you,” Richie started from the chorus, his voice soft and raspy, and Eddie was frozen, confused beyond belief, angry to his very core, and so very in love that it hurt to think about it.

“There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do,” Eddie tried not to think about what this meant, tried not to get his hopes up, but then Richie was raising his head, looking at Eddie with shiny eyes and a soft smile, and Eddie couldn’t help but step closer.

“I bless the rains down in Africa,” Richie was swaying a little now, shifting to the side to make space on the too-small bed. Eddie couldn’t do anything but walk closer, couldn’t help but sit down cross legged on the bed in front of Richie, and God, he was still angry, so angry, only, he needed to be closer. He needed to see Richie’s fingers, each one up close, holding down the particular strings in a particular order, needed to see his face, furrowed in confusion, but open and gentle, because Eddie loved Richie. God help him.

“Gonna take some time to do the things we never had,” Richie crooned, his strumming slowing down. The silence returned slowly, only now it was unreadable.

“I wanted to find a way to tell you,” Richie said, his face downturned once more. “I wanted it to be special, and I fucked up so bad, I’m so sorry Eds.”

Eddie couldn’t breathe, and he was still angry, but now he was smiling too, gasping out, “Tell me what ‘Chee?”

Richie’s breath hitched at the nickname, moisture spilling out over his bottom eyelids that he quickly moved to wipe away.

“I love you too, Eddie. Eddie, baby, you’re the one for me. Of course I love you, of course I do.” Richie looked up, their eyes meeting as Eddie felt the tension inside of his chest breaking.

“You do?” he squeaked before he could stop himself. Richie laughed, but instead of mirth, all Eddie found in the chuckle was bittersweet adoration.

“I learned how to play a song just so you would always remember how I professed my love to you,” Richie leaned over an inch, slightly into Eddie’s space, but cautious in his approach. “I wanted to make it special for you Eds,” Richie said, his voice thick. “I didn’t really think it through, but I love you, so much, and I’m sorry, so sorry Eds,” the tears were there again, but this time Eddie was the one to reach over and wipe them away. Slowly, carefully, he moved the guitar from Richie’s grasp with reverence, and at the same pace, he wrapped his arms around Richie, carefully folding the lanky boy into his chest. He wasn’t angry anymore, not really, though he knew he should have been.

“Why’re you cryin’ Rich?” Eddie mumbled, his voice soft and his arms comforting.

“Just thinkin’ about how I’m gonna have to break the news to your mom.” It wasn’t Richie’s best, but Eddie laughed anyway, the emptiness where the anger had left him filling up with soft adoration.

“You’re so stupid, ‘Chee.” It was that same soft tone, the one Richie was speaking in, it was melodic just as Richie’s voice or his busted up guitar was, and it filled up all the spaces between Eddie and Richie on the bed until they were connected by this, all pulled together as if with string.

“Yeah,” Richie agreed, and he was laughing now too as he pulled Eddie onto his lap, keeping Eddie’s arms around him as he shifted their embrace. Richie craned his neck and pressed a soft kiss to the top of Eddie’s head, before pulling him in tighter.

“I love you, you fuckface,” Eddie mumbled.

And yeah, Eddie was still a little pissed, and he knew he and Richie were going to have a long talk about communication in the morning. But in that moment, with Richie wrapped around him and with Africa resting at the back of his head and up in a hum in his throat, Eddie knew that there was nothing a hundred men (or more) could ever do to take the moment (the beautiful, problematic boy who was stupid and so very bad at talking about his feelings but was so very lovely) away from him.

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