Outcast – Second Contact
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Outcast – Second Contact is the complete remake of the cult title Outcast, the first 3D open-world game in video game history and pioneer in the modern action-adventure genre. Take the role of Cutter Slade, a tried and tested elite soldier, sent on a last-resort mission to an alien planet. Explore a magnificent world mixing science and magic, discover exotic indigenous cities, face fierce enemies and attempt to learn the secrets of an advanced civilization. Make the right choices in this living world and its ecosystem, because the destiny of these two universes depends on your success.
Steam User 30
Ah yes, another game starring Gene Rick McDudeface.
Man this is a blast from the past. I remember loving this game back in the day. One of the lost/hidden gems of gaming. When it came out, it used the revolutionary then voxel render technology, using software instead of hardware to "draw" the world and characters. Not to mention they got the Moscow Symphonic Orchestra to do the soundtrack for the game.
This game is one of the most "organic" game that ever was, in every sense of the word: its landscape is bizarre, full of small and not-so-small elevations; it does provide a map but without many pointers, so when you need to find someone, you ask any NPC on the map who then proceeds to point the general direction of the person; there's no precise guideline for fighting enemies: you can fight them, starve them, avoid them completely; you sometimes "stumble" on items more than you discover them voluntarily...
It's an awesome and weird game, and it does a great job of getting you in an alien world, more than any game I've played since I think. Story is interesting, really weird but if you remember it's a remake of a game on the PS1 and you know how the dialogue was back then, then it's fairly palatable. Just get used to "hey shorty", Cutter Slates favorite line when getting an npcs attention.
I didn't realize how much I enjoy replaying older games like this. I guess there is just some sort of charm they have. Most games with a story like this nowadays are so realistic, but this is like going back to my youth and playing a game that has enough world building and framework to juice up one's imagination.
I'd say it’s is worth it on a sale, specially if you’re feeling nostalgic like I did. It’s not like the best game ever, but if you like exploring/puzzles, that sort of thing, you’ll like it.
Steam User 2
Aight
Steam User 2
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.
Steam User 3
I didn't play the original Outcast. Knowing that the game is old I still had fun.
+ Beautiful textures
+ Nice and tidy story
+ Well crafted world
- Clunky controls
- Sounds and voice acting
Steam User 1
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.
Steam User 1
What an absolutely brilliant remake of a stunning game back from the early days of 3D. Of course, the million dollar question is: Is it still a good game?
The funny thing is that, back in the 90s this felt like a ground-breaking technical tour-de-force on the PC. Now, it feels more like a really solid Nintendo 3DS , or a great, but budget Switch game. If it sounds like I'm being harsh, I'm not. It's still a brilliant game, but it's not a brilliant AAA game in 2023, it's a brilliant 3DS game.
You may ask "why?".. Well,like most 'open world' games on mobile, this one has large, but obviously bounded areas linked by teleporters which act as a way for the engine to swap maps in and out. Most new AAA games have streaming loaders that provide a seamless experience which is trickier on SD-card based media.
Also, the game is very tight. It has some side-quests, but it's not "every farmer needs a chicken caught/rat killed / wolf skewered / etc like in modern AAA open world games. This feels more Zelda-ey, where a dedicated few citizens have specific quests which are all scripted and somehow tangentially world-build through story and example.
I absolutely LOVED playing it the first time around. I bought the boxed version when it first came out and was stunned by how good it was. This remake is even better. The graphics are so much better, the levels are just stunning and the music / VO is brilliant too. The animations are very reminiscent of the original. Unlike modern facial-capture high-res mocap this one uses far a far more animated style that's wonderfully nostalgic.
Like the original, the remake is studded with bugs. Your trained creature can vanish, you can get stuck inside the scenery, some people don't speak their lines, they just stare at you until the speech will have finished playing, objects clip through each other, etc etc. But the game's very comprehensive save-game system (whose thumbnails are also bugged, although the timestamps aren't), prevent any bugs from being game-ending. The bugs (if you hit them) are only a minor inconvenience, but sometimes you'll be running around for ages thinking a script bug has prevented something from appearing, but it's actually just hard to find.
I think most kids these days would have little time for a game like this. It's 50% talking to people, 40% running around and 10% shooting enemies. The talking aspect can bring some lovely moments, like when the hero tells a musician to shut up because his music sounds like a "Yanni Nightmare". There's lots of amusing interplay between the protagonist and the inhabitants.
As a remake with a price tag of £14, I'd say it's well worth it. I didn't get all completionist like I usually do, but it stioll managed to give me about 40 hours of play. Conratulations to the team who made this remake, it's superb. I hope you have the chance to make the followup game that never appeared!
Steam User 1
pretty neat remake of the original game much easier to go around and talk to people and explore