Cutter Slade is the main character in the game and the leader
of the scientists. Unfortunately your team scatters upon arrival in the parallel
universe and you are left on your own in the beginning.
The very first environment of the game is a mountain village
filled with mysterious creatures dressed in capes. In the village you will learn
the background story of Outcast and go through a tutorial level (which you can’t
skip). The mysterious creatures offer their help to find the probe in exchange
for you obtaining five relics. Pretty soon you also discover that a cruel dictator
oppressing his people rules the parallel universe.
Appeal managed to throw together a solid background story, which
intrigues and inspires during the game play. It’s a well-balanced story,
that you follow or skip parts of if you rather want some action.
The universe (Adelpha) is quite fun to explore. It’s large
enough with five vast continents containing deserts, jungles, ancient cities
and rice patties. A notable part of the game is the big desert city with lots
of guards, merchants and life.
All of the inhabitants in Adelpha seems as if they have a life
on their own. They are out chopping firewood, selling stuff, going to places
and talking. In some adventure games the characters just stand there waiting
to be talked to, this is not the case in Outcast.
The enemies are quite intelligent and they range from soldiers
(of different ranks) to huge dragon like monsters. You really feel like you
are fighting against intelligent opponents when getting into trouble with the
local armed forces. They move and shoot almost like real soldiers, covering
each other.
Outcast was quite innovative graphically when it came in 1999.
It was the first game to combine a voxel landscape with polygons (usually characters
and buildings). Overall the graphics are still ok with today’s standards,
they lack some detail though.
A major nuance with Outcast is the camera that trails the character.
It’s often hard to navigate and it often moves into strange positions.
Combined with that Slade’s movements aren’t always that smooth can
cause headaches. Actually it can cause more than a headache, it also degrades
the game play.
The soundtrack is quite impressive and powerful (performed by
the Moscow Orchestra). However it’s sometimes hard to see that the music
fits with the contexts, from my view the soundtrack has too much classical influence
to fit in.
Outcast is a huge adventure game; it has a great story that only gets better
as the game hum a long. The camera and character movements could have been better
done. They cause a lot of problems; it’s also why this game fails to get
the highest score.
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.
Uziana.com 
Reviews of Classics 
