Recent reviews by BetaFalcon13

I have to say, when I saw that Obsidian was putting out a survival game, I was very skeptical, as in my experience it's not generally their wheelhouse. However, after playing my fair share of hours of Grounded (50 at the time of writing this review), I am fully on board. It is not the most complex survival game I have played, and in terms of base building it lacks some of the depth of Ark or The Forest, but no survival game that I have played quite captures the vibe of simply being an animal trying to survive in an environment that is constantly trying to kill you as well as this one does. Danger lurks behind every corner, and you will be fighting for your life at every turn. Whether it's looking for food/water, building shelter, or fending off a wolf spider, Grounded perfectly captures the feeling of impending death that accompanies a survival situation like the one that these kinds of games attempt to evoke. The more dangerous creatures in this game are truly terrifying, and it is constantly a fight to carve out an existence among the grass of the backyard. I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys Ark, The Forest, or Raft. And to top it off, this game looks absolutely gorgeous even if not played on the highest settings. I can't wait to see what the full release has in store when it drops a month after the time of writing this review.

This game is what happens when developers care what their customers are asking for. Despite this game's fairly limited budget, Obsidian have managed to make something of a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas, at least related to all the things that make New Vegas stand out from other Fallout games. The game is not without its drawbacks, but much of that can likely be attributed to the limited budget.

Pros:
-Phenomenal dialogue. This game takes the formula that Obsidian used when developing Fallout: New Vegas and sprinkles in some fresh ideas, all while keeping the feeling that player dialogue choices make a difference. It's sad to say, but Bethesda Game Studios has been moving away from this formula a time goes on in favor of an "every character is the same" approach that severely limits the replayability of the game. Why would I play Fallout 4 again when every dialogue and character choice I make always leads to the same outcome? The Outer Worlds takes the opposite approach, and it works beautifully
-Interesting weapon mechanics. The concept of damage types for weapons as well as the unique and science weapons make the gear in this game fairly interesting. You can build a pretty good loadout for dealing with most things in the game, and there is also room for specialization. Weapon damage is based on the level of the weapon itself, rather than on a player skill (in most cases), and therefore you do not need to take ranks in Handguns or Long Guns in order to effectively use either of these types of weapons, although there are benefits to doing so.
-Engaging story: your ultimate goal for most of the game is to help an outlaw scientist obtain a bunch of chemicals so that he can revive colonists who are cryogenically frozen on a ship that was abandoned in space. But there are many different choices that you can make to advance the plot in many different ways, even going so far as allowing you to turn the scientist in to the authorities.
-Companions: The companions in this game have things to say about locations that you visit and things you do and say to other people in Halcyon. They have their own quest lines and they even interact with each other. The companions in this game more closely resemble some of the better modded companions from Skyrim (such as Inigo or Lucien) than any companion in any Fallout game, even New Vegas. In this department Obsidian have really outdone themselves.

Cons:
-Short. The story of the game (unless you're playing on supernova) will probably take you under 30 hours, however this is forgivable due to the game's small budget and the extent to which the player has control over how the story progresses. The game is short, but not boring
-Small maps. Again, can probably be attributed to the game's budget, but I would have liked to see continents or other large landmasses that were fully traversable, in terms of maps, this game more closely resembles Borderlands than Fallout. Also, the maps do feel a little empty sometimes when compared against Fallout, but this as well can probably be attributed to the budget.
-Loot system is a little too simple. I would have liked to see loot mechanics that were similar to those of Fallout 4 (frankly that and weapon mechanics are in my opinion the only things Fallout 4 got right). Again this is probably because the games budget was small, but it would have been cool to see a sort of container system similar to the one used for Fallout, where you can take any item that a dead NPC was using. In this regard, The Outer Worlds is somewhat similar to Rage, albeit still more fleshed-out.
-Lack of mod support. Again this can almost certainly be chalked up to the game's budget, but in my opinion this is the single biggest issue with the game. Mod support is the thing that keeps players coming back to BGS games (despite what BGS seems to want to believe, it's the modding community that keeps their games alive, not anything about the games themselves). Because of this I doubt that The Outer Worlds will see the same longevity that Fallout: New Vegas or Skyrim have seen, and as a result it will likely be necessary for Obsidian to put out a sequel to The Outer Worlds in a MUCH shorter timeframe than has been tolerated for The Elder Scrolls 6 (fourteen years? come on Bethesda), but this should hopefully not be as difficult as it would have been in the past now that Obsidian is owned by Microsoft.

This game is honestly very enjoyable to play. It is full of jokes and pop culture references that give the game a depth that few other games can achieve. It's always very interesting to see what the flavor text for some of the unique weapons is making reference to. Sometimes it's a movie, sometimes it's a political concept, there are even art references.

In addition, I like that each of the playable characters has skills that make them all vastly different to play. It gives the game replay value that the first one didn't really have. If you want to deal huge amounts of elemental damage, pick Maya; if you want to attack enemy critical hit spots, pick Zer0; if you just want to sit back and watch a turret or a robot fight your battles for you, pick Gaige or Axton. The game can change so much just by the character you pick, and even further by how you pick skills. I was playing this game with a friend of mine (he was playing as Axton and I was playing Maya) and we had quite a bit of fun augmenting our character's action skills. By the time we got our characters to level 50, he could deploy two longbow turrets that maglocked to whatever they hit and caused small nuclear explosions. He more or less had two grenades that combined longbow, bouncing betty, and explosive grenade mod abilities. As for my Siren, I could revive him from a distance by phaselocking him, or cause massive amounts of elemental damage to an entire mod of enemies... and I got my phaselock cooldown down to about 3 seconds.

That brings me to the next point: this game is incredibly fun to play with one or more friends. My friend and I sat down to play this game, and before we knew it we had logged 200 hours. We played through the entire game twice. We did not even intend to play it that much, but we just lost track of time. When played with friends, it is extremely difficult for this game to get boring. New things will always be happening. Case in point, a different friend and I were in a location called Tundra Express, fighting insectoid enemies called Varkids. Periodically while fighting, these enemies will metamorphose into stronger versions, which become harder to kill. We left one of them alone for so long that it eventually evolved into something called a Super Badass Varkid. It broke out of its caccoon and roared in the most terrifying way possible. At this point we were sitting there fairly sure that we were screwed. We braced ourselves for what was to come, and then watched the Varkid immediately get hit by a train as soon as it spread its wings. I literally cannot explain how perfect it was