Outcast – Second Contact

No "re-imagining", "tailoring it to the current audience" or "adding a few new artistic ideas" bs.
Just an already perfect game updated with better graphics.
Now if someone could remake Gothic II and VtM Bloodlines the same way, my life will be complete.

Disclaimer
I finished the original's 1.1 re-release and then I finished this shortly after for a good comparison.
TL;DR
It does some things better, some things worse. While the original felt sloppy in an oldschool way - this remake feels like a typical sloppy low-budget modern game.
It still has the same basic structure as the original and as such is still a good game at it's core. Most problems come from modern graphics making it difficult to see items and some issues with controls.
If you played the original, this should feel familiar, but it's difficult to say if you'll like it more. If you never played the original - this remake may be a better place to start.
Description
Look to my review of 1.1 for a description:
The differences in terms of general design and gameplay in this remake are pretty small. Obviously game looks more modern and is not voxel-based anymore. UI has been redesigned and some areas got minor changes. Movement is also a bit different.
Overall there's nothing to mention in the description part, so let me just go straight to pros and cons. I will only focus on the things that are/could have been better from the original, please read my original review if you want my opinion on the general game.
Pros:
+ Higher detail
Appreciated. Game looks alright even today, despite being released years ago. Has this late PS3 era style, with typical modern lighting FX I like it. It looks like a charming budget title.
Loss of voxels is sad, but honestly understandable. They would need a custom engine to have voxel terrain in higher quality and it would take far more resources than reasonable to achieve this.
+ Some movement improvements
Jumping/climbing feels a bit better and now you can sprint short distances if you move in straight line. Animations are also better. You can jump up things you couldn't do in the original if you spam run+jump, which doesn't break sequence (I think) but it does help with getting around some areas.
+ Progress bars
You have a new menu with quest/sidequest progress and quality of enemy strength/weapons/morale clearly visible. It takes away some of the immersion (in original you could only vaguely learn the status by speaking to NPCs) but it lets someone who is familiar with the game understand what impact different actions have on the enemy forces.
+ Faster combat
Combat feels less methodical and cheesy, more quick-paced and action-based. Also more floaty, but that's in cons section...
+ Getting out of water
Feels genuinely more reliable than in the original where it often times worked iffy.
+ New inventory GUI
Better readability, you get more information without the need to select each item, very functional. I like it a lot more than the original.
Cons:
- Floaty controls
Game simulates momentum and real turning. In combat it makes controls feel a bit sloppy. You can get stuck in turning animations if you try to strafe in different directions quickly. Aligning yourself properly for a jump is also a bit fiddly.
- Journal GUI
Old one had lists separated into menus for each of the game's zones. New one crams it all in a single screen that you can scroll left-right for different zones and up-down for lists of quests. At any given time you can see just a few quests on the list because of the font and lack of space.
- Some triggers don't work?
At some point in the original first zone you encounter a dying NPC which you talk to. In the remake he just dies in front of you and you have no dialogue.
Some quests won't trigger or will not progress despite you having everything needed. Worst one I experienced was quest with sleep-herbs-induced booze that I couldn't give to an NPC to continue the quest of putting guards to sleep.
The original was apparently also buggy in that respect, but the remake should have taken opportunity to be better.
- Items hard to spot
Because remake has a lot more detail and color in textures and different clutter like grass straws and rocks, etc. - items tend to be much harder to spot. Especially enemy drops, which are still appearing in a delayed fashion as in the original - are difficult to find. Having bodies move when you walk over them doesn't help as now you can easily lose track of where item drops could be. The item highlight function of the visor doesn't work well either, in original it was more reliable. Here it tends to have a huge delay before it chooses to highlight an item.
I can see it could prove to be an issue if I didn't know where all important items are by having played the original lately.
- Sound design
Still using same stock sounds? Should have taken opportunity to have better sound FX in this remake...
Lowdown
As someone already familiar with original and having it fresh in my mind I had a good time with the remake. I'm not sure about a new player's experience - you may be forced to use a guide if you find yourself stuck because you couldn't find a key item or something.
I'd give Outcast - Second Contact a
6/10
Same score as the original, because this one doesn't do enough better and does some things worse. Outcast is very much worth experiencing as one of the first 3d open-world gaming experiences ever created.
I won't be completing it because that requires finishing all main and sidequests and for some reason even though I completed everything I knew of save for 2 sidequests (one due to bug, other due to not doing it fast enough) I only got 95% main quest completion and 73% sidequest. Weird.

Remaster of an old game. Little janky, but overall decent fun, it has a heart, and I could finally play it properly - as a kid I couldn't really read English, so I had no idea what to do, but the game had a certain appeal to me. Now, with some updated graphics I could enjoy it properly.

EXCELLENT remake of a classic game from the 90's. This is a top-tier remake/reproduction - and it "feels" like I'm playing the original version for the first time. This is how I remember it in all of it's originality and ground-breaking gameplay. If you loved the original OUTCAST or are just Outcast-curious - you can't go wrong here. It does have a few old school drawbacks - mainly no fast travel or one button quicksave - but the gaamsaav system is updated and words just fine for modern needs. Deep story - deep lore - satisfying quests. Kind of a proto-Avatar.

Amazing graphical update. Matches so closely with how I'd always imagined it was meant to look when I played the original version.

One of the most advanced games of its time which is still unreached today in some parts got finally the remaster it needed. I was also one of the backers which was sadly unsuccessful, so I'm happy af that it still worked. I bought the game instantly twice also on Xbox but it needed some years until I felt: Now it's the time before we finally get Outcast 2 after the cancelation (honestly I finished the old game 10 times, so I had to feel it).
Tbh I would love if Outcast would even get a real remake with a modern engine, to have a more smoother gameplay but it's still fine overall even in it's dated state.
But still I played it in 1999 and was blown away and you can see all these impressive details even the big million games from Bethesda still can't do. Like simple things: Hey do you know where this Thalan is? "Yeah Ulukai it's that one" and he just points his finger to him like you would do it in your real life. Up until today I have never seen this simple feature again. Rather they say: He is at the market....when he stands next to him.
Also different worlds with completely different feel, puzzles, quests, creative ideas. A system to weaken the enemy all guns you need, third AND first person, mounts, a paragon system, etc.
The game was so far ahead of it's time. If you would remake it with like UE5 or Cryengine (yeah Open Outcast you failed us) it would be still one of the most complete games of today's time.
I hope we get exactly this experience in Outcast 2, especially these small details. PLEASE

I'd never heard of Outcast until I saw 'A New Beginning' pop up in my steam store feed, I thought it looked like it could be a good game, has a decent price tag and I'm a sucker for open world experiences (as long as we aren't talking Assassins Creed stupidity levels of size that ask for too much of your time). Then I took note of the fact that it said its a sequel and quickly took back to the store to see if it was on steam...lo and behold there it was, or at least two versions...the original, or 1.1, and then this, Second Contact. Naturally I went for this version as I would with any and picked it up for what I could only describe as day light robbery....I made off like a bandit with only a few pennies out of my pocket and jumped in.

What a treat.

Yes the game is extremely janky and not too intuitive when it comes to movement especially. I was battling the mobility aspect for most of the game but it didn't actually bother me as much as I thought it would, and that's probably because I was too distracted by how freakin' good the world is to really care. Combat is basic but it works, plenty of guns to try out with upgrades you can pick up, music is bangin' especially the desert region, by ALLAH you better believe I was humming the music the entire time I was there (This better be in the sequel!) One of my favourite aspects of the game though had to be the humour and satire, as well as a number of loose references or items like the GAAMSAVV, which kinda makes you go "...really...." but you quickly smile and laugh at it.

Ultimately this is a 10/10 game for me, immersion is done so well, back when games were just games and made with love despite any limitations, and knowing that the sequel is made by the same team makes me VERY confident it'll be an absolute blast.

It doesn't affect the overall rating for me but the only little annoying thing was getting 40/41 achievements due to what I can only assume is some limitation with quest design that ultimately made me fall short of completing all sub-missions and getting the achievement. I don't really chase achievements which again is why I ain't bothered, but if you plan on getting a full one shot run then look up a guide because it can be pretty easy to miss even the smallest step that will instantly lock you out of getting 100%