Outcast - Second Contact Reviews

First off: despite being an older game, it still works flawlessly on modern systems. I've only had a couple random crash but there are lots of auto save so it's fine. I didn't see anyone complain either. However being an older console port, some controls can't be changed. But they're simple so it's no big deal or you can use an xbox controller. As for the game, it's pretty good. It's an old school open world fetch quest adventure so there's a lot of back and forth, which is not for everyone but they're wrapped in diverse enough story plots to not feel boring. There are a whole lot of dialogues and characters fully voiced. There's a very decent amount of sub quests on top of the main one. The world design, music and story is very well crafted and fun to explore. The whole experience is pretty interesting if you like this kind of game and there's a lot of very good ideas here and there. I knew about the game but never played before and I'm glad I did end up trying. It seems to be quite a faithful remaster of the original one (Outcast 1.1) and after watching some gameplay videos, it looks impressive how they remade it and not changed everything like many modern game studios would. So if you've played the very first one, you should try this as this game is probably gonna look like your memories of the 1.1 and if you've never played it, it still looks very nice. The textures, music and mechanics still hold up. If you want to complete the adventure on the first try (15-20h), you probably won't. Being an older game, there's not much hand holding going on. If you want to understand what something does, you have to figure it out by yourself (like the tech gadgets you should use but don't know about if you don't dig around). Even the manual save sytem is hinted in the dialogue but not clearly shown unless you dig. There's no quest marker, no arrow, except for the main characters as there are lots of npc roaming around. It's refreshing if you like snooping around. To be noted, the way to find characters is by asking any npc and they will give you an overall direction which is a very cool way to handle this, especially since both npc and some main characters just go about their live and move a lot. For the achievements, if you want to 100% the game you'll need to go through it at least twice because there are lots of quests that aren't obvious and some seem secondary but are part of the main one. They don't prevent you finishing the game but you won't get 100% for the main story, if you finish without these quests. A workaround would be to back up your saves as you only get 3 manual slots and the auto save is very aggressive and will trigger at every interaction, so you won't be able to go back a lot at all. [spoiler]However there are guides online, notably planet-adelpha dot de and true achievements.[/spoiler] I'll definately play the second game once it's more affordable, hoping the story is expanded because it's quite an interesting set up. Overall it's really a must for anyone who likes straight forward sci-fi adventure. The world is worth exploring and if you get it on sale, it's really more than worth its price.