Outcast - Second Contact

It starts. It runs. Gameplay too outdated for me to enjoy. Costed virtually nothing so... whatever.

I'd been promising myself a playthrough of this game ever since I saw a video of it on a demo disc back in the '90s. Never managed to get my hands on it at the time because PC/gaming shops were few and far between where I live and were still finding their feet at the time. It wasn't until that other digital games platform re-released it, you know, the one that specialises in older games - well, I finally got the 1.1 version there are played it a bit. Then the Second Contact version came to Steam and I grabbed that, I would also poke at it every once in a while but never sat down to fully get into it. And then a really nice sequel, A New Beginning, came out, which I was not expecting - I bought that too and gave it a quick look, but decided to play through the first game first. And then I left both games in my library until the other day, when I just decided on a whim to finally do it. So what do I think after 20-something years finally playing it? Well, I'd imagine it was very impressive at the time, the size of the world, the numerous quests, the sometimes-challenging combat. Honestly, most of the quests are of the fetch/talk variety, but there are some where you have to solve a puzzle, escort someone or even engage in some platforming. What makes the game quite impressive is the very solid, tangible feeling of the world, as simple as it was. For example, if you were looking for a specific person, you could stop and ask anyone, "Hey, can you help me find Mr X?" and they'd say things like, "I last saw him far east of here" or "that's him over there". It helped you refine your search and also gave a feeling that these characters lived in the world and knew its layout and denizens. The combat is... servicable. I'm almost certain the projectiles from your pistol fly faster than in the original, which makes it easier to hit enemies. The rest of the weapons are kind of a mixed bag. The most useful is the Uzi, rapid-fire, hit-scan (at least I think it is) with decently-available ammo. The sleep dart sniper rifle is superbly powerful, but very situational. The grenade launcher is finnicky because you can't change the arc, which shoots the shell miles away - but if you can actually get it to land in the middle of a group of enemies or a large creature, it takes care of business like nothing else. The Hawk thing - not sure what it shoots, a plasma ball or something - isn't quite as powerful as it looks and takes three fully-charged shots to bring down most normal enemies... If it did splash damage it would be justifiable, but it only seems to damage enemies it his, despite the explosive-looking effect. My opinions on these weapons are based on all their fully-upgraded variants, just in case you were wondering. But on the whole, there's something intensely rewarding about clearing up the smaller quests, medium quests and main quests in each region - figuring out what you need to do and how to do it by talking to the various interesting characters around. It's a standard technologically-advanced-being-mistaken-for-a-prophesied-messiah-by-primitive-beings kind of sci-fi story - but they did some solid world-building and writing that will pull you in if you let it. One warning though, the game does have some bugs that persist from its original release apparently. I ran into one where I was unable to finish a lighthouse-fixing quest because the guy in the mining area wouldn't move to do the thing he had to no, no matter what - how many times I saved or loaded, re-entered the area, scared everyone by firing my gun... nothing worked, no fan fix I could find online. So I had to complete the game with an outstanding quest. Annoying, but not game-breaking. If you can set your expectations to what must have seemed like a massive adventure back in 1999, then you will probably have a good time with this.

let me tell you what, i played this game, gosh danged.

Nice remake but like the original it has some bugs. Nice to see this universe in better visuals. If you're a fan of the original, you will like this.

Almayın

Well done remake of the original game of 1999. Typical game plot with 1990s action hero and vibes of those times, now old-fashioned but in a positive way. Relatively open world subdivided in different but always awesome sections, simple, linear and repetitive but also interesting and motivating classic "walking" quest design (find hidden item, kill sb, speak with sb; push button aso). Pure nostalgica for players who witnessed the 1990s and 2000s. I like it.