I stole something with nobody in line of sight and I still got caught.
What happens when you get caught?
I was confronted but was able to walk away without a fight and I lost reputation with his faction.
Interesting, guess I’ve got a bit of a glitch then, I’ve cracked a safe in front of an audience and nobody cared.
It may also be a function of the points in things like stealth…
I have a few points in there, but something is a bit sketchy either way, because I don’t have that many points there, and I don’t know if you have been to Gladys’ office, but one of those safes was the one I cracked without response, and it never should be that easy.
Is there a downside to stealing (aside from being caught)? Is it essentially free stuff or is it like the Bethesda games where the entire global population tracks every apple and knows where it came from?
IIRC it was literally impossible to beat without patching due to an early quest bug. And patches were hard to get back then. I never finished the main plot or got far, either.
I really must’ve been lucky as I didn’t encounter too many bugs. Not compared to most modern games.
Never used much unarmed skill.
I haven’t paid full price for a game in two years. Is this one worth it?
Depends on how thirsty you are for an Obsidian game. Most people seem to be loving it. The rest (myself included) are liking it though not to the same “it’s the best” level. I haven’t seen anyone actively dislike it although I’d guess anyone playing on Day One knew what they were getting into.
It’s included in Xbox Gold and on the Xbox PC Game Pass so you can easily play it without paying MSRP. On the PC, it’s $1 to start the Game Pass Beta for a month and I think it’ll offer to make it two months if you allow auto-payment (which you can still immediately cancel). This is a 40ish hour game from what I understand and, while you can replay it with different stats or try a different mission path, it’s not a “Sink 1,500 hours into modded New Vegas/Skyrim” experience.
My same character who got caught has been able to steal some stuff without any repercussions. I don’ steal too much and I do try and do it out of line of sight. Maybe there is an unseen radius or something that triggers getting caught?
Just finished it. I liked it a lot!
Playtime says 27 hours. I completed all the quests I found, and didn’t skip dialogues or anything, but also didn’t dilly-dally much. So, maybe 15-20 hours for someone that does the bare minimum, and maybe 40 hours for someone that does everything at a leisurely pace.
I’d say the game is really much more like Knights of the Old Republic (or other Bioware game) with some Fallout-esque elements than a plain Fallout clone. The world structure (using your ship as a hub, traveling to different planets, etc.) and the way companions are handled (collect companions as you travel around, pick a squad every time you go somewhere, complete companion missions to build camaraderie, etc.) are all classic Bioware.
The main inspiration from Fallout (before F4) is really the dialogue system, with interactions based on your skills. I put a lot of points into dialogue skills and so was able to persuade, lie, or intimidate my way out of a lot of situations. Unlike Fallout, your companions can contribute to your skills here, so it’s important to pick your squad depending on the situation. There were a couple of scenes where I really had to max out every point of intimidation, picking my companions and clothing just right, and really felt like a trio of badasses standing there. I also liked that some companions worry about you being a bad influence on the others.
Aside from that, the Falloutness comes from taking a specific aesthetic (50s-era Atomic Age for Fallout; 30s-era sci-fi serials for TOW) and mapping it to a game. Not many games pull that off. Bioshock is the only other one I can think of right now.
There’s a lot inspired by Firefly. Your first companion is not a Kaylee Frye clone, but she’s got the combo of competent engineer, bubbly personality, and old timey dialect that Kaylee had. Your ship isn’t the Serenity, but it’s a rustbucket that feels lived in (compared to a sleek military vessel like in Mass Effect).
Overall, I eagerly anticipate some DLC and/or a sequel. And will probably play it again as a different character.
Disappointments? Minor, but here’s a list:
- Although I like the KOTOR-like world structure, it does make the maps smaller. There’s something to be said about the big open world of Fallout. These two things are somewhat in contention, but I think they could have made the world maps bigger, with some far-off outlying areas. I kinda miss the sense of exploration in Fallout.
- It’s a little shorter than I’d have liked. It’s not a bad deal or anything, but I wanted to play more!
- The perk system is a little weak. The perks were all static passive effects, as compared to Fallout where they could be tied to special abilities or random events.
- The “flaw” system is really weak. Partly because you only get a single perk by taking one, and because it doesn’t explain well what the downsides are, and because they mostly seemed to be a net loss. I only ever took one.
- Inventory management kinda sucks. Really, this is a problem in all RPGs and TOW is probably a bit above average. It does have a decent sorting option (sort by price to weight ratio!), but the sorting doesn’t actually work in all inventory screens.
I guess that’s about it. Obviously I still really enjoyed it overall, and thought it was a good blend of several influences, while also being its own thing. I kinda feel bad for only paying $1 for it, but given that Microsoft owns Obsidian, I’m pretty sure I’m not putting them out of business.
I thought Prey (the recent one) did a good job.
That’s a good one. It’s harder to tie that to a specific era, but I guess it’s roughly a 1960s space race vibe. In any case, they did end up with a nice retro-future aesthetic.
I think with space based games, they either can make a few planets with detailed maps and multiple locations or have lots of planets that have very random looking environments that are smaller. I am not sure what the right answer is.
They were running a special for $1 a month, I was gonna jump on that but it seems that Microsoft requires Windows 10 and my gaming PC is still (happily) on Windows 7.
No Man’s Sky is an example of the latter.
I’d also say the “science!” weapons were a letdown. Unless you took the +25% damage perk*, the +50% damage perk* and the companion +20% damage perk*, in which case they rose to adequacy. *all specific to the science weapons ONLY.
And the flaws can really screw you over - in the permanently-disable-automatic-health-regen kind of way. Hope you like sorting through your food inventory after every battle! There’s a reason all the reviewers talked about the two “taking more damage” flaws, and not so much the dozen or so "drop 3 base attributes one level (out of what, 5 levels IF it was maxed?)
And, honestly, I’d compare it to Mass Effect long before I’d compare it to Fallout. Relatively small planet/zones, 2 companions with triggerable special attacks…
They own inExile as well. It’s as if Microsoft is trying to be a reincarnated version of Interplay before they were partially bought by Titus Software.
Not that that’s a bad thing.
A question for anyone who’s completed the first planet;
Parvati talked me into diverting the power to Edgewater, which I didn’t feel good about, but seemed like the right choice. When I confronted Adelaide afterward, she let me in on her secret - she’d been grinding human corpses into fertilizer to make her crops grow. This was the opposite of what I expected, since it seemed like they were setting up a cannibal reveal for Edgewater in the scene where Parvati explains to the mayor that the cannery processors aren’t working right because they’re expecting saltuna and they’re getting “something different”. Can anyone who sided with the deserters confirm whether there is such a reveal if you shut down Edgewater and confront the mayor afterward?