Star Wars Outlaws: 7/10 This is what I'm going to call a "nice" game. Up to now, I feel that I've been playing a lot of games with titles like "Death Murder ******* Killer" that have been saturated with violence, and this was a welcome antidote. In SWO, the majority of the game is spent getting to where you're supposed to be, which given how gorgeous the game can look, is actually quite a pleasant experience. You play as aspiring Hans Solo-alike Kay Vess, accompanied by her very cute pet Nix. Nix is a big part of the game, being able to distract people, steal items and activate various things. The on-foot gameplay is primarily based on stealth mechanics, but going loud is always an option and you are not going to be punished for shooting your way out of a problem. Combat is a little clumsy, but I've seen worse: There's also a speeder bike to zip around the large planet side environments. Once you have a few upgrades under your belt, the game becomes quite easy. You'll also fly around in your ship (a Millennium Falcon analogue) in a somewhat Freelancer style, shooting down enemy ships and picking up and transporting cargo. The graphics are excellent for the most part. The scenery is incredible, booth from a visual and draw distance perspective. Seeing famous areas such as Mos Eisley rendered in setting sunlight stirs childhood memories - including the Tatooine twin suns! Populated areas have a wonderful "hustle and bustle" feel with many NPCs wondering around, while the inside of Imperial facilities really show off raytracing features. Unfortunately whilst alien character models are also great, humans aren't quite up to the same standard (including Kes). I wouldn't classify them as bad, just not as good. Although Storm Troopers, having no visible hair or skin, look real. In fact, I was wondering about taking some screenshots and resurrecting the screenshot thread I started many years ago. Unfortunately the game is a flawed gem and could've done with some more polishing. The structure was clearly designed with continually releasing DLC (including a weapons upgrade that was obviously always intended to be part of the main game but chopped out). Given the lacklustre reception, this DLC will likely not be expanded on. There are only 2-3 boss battles, which are a little disappointing. I had quite a few CTDs, but this may be down to raytracing. Also (and I may draw some flak for saying this), the game was being developed during those very sensitive cancel culture times, and as a result, it seems half the universe is in a same sex relationship. This is a "PG" game, so this boils down to female characters saying "my wife" and male characters saying "my husband". I mention it as it is a bit too noticeable. So, whatever. A lot of love has clearly gone into this game and I enjoyed my time with it, even with the issues mentioned above. I think it's worth playing if you're feeling a little burnt out from other more intense games. I also reckon this is a good game to play for those with young children who are old enough to move on from Lego Star Wars.
I've just started this, so this is a decent review and timely . I'm in the mood at the moment for something I can pick up for 15-20 mins (due to time limitations) and Xbox Quick Resume helps massively with this. I'm also in the mood for some destruction (due to life-induced anger issues) so this may or may not be the appropriate tonic, in that case. Boltgun was ideal, but has disappeared from Game Pass, unforts.
Also enjoyed Outlaws, hopping about in the SW universe did evoke childhood memories like you say @Pete J I also noticed that almost every female character had a wife, every male a husband - no issue with that at all in a game but it really gave the impression they were over compensating unnecessarily. Plus Kay's character. In Jedi survivor the character pretty much resembles the actor who played him. In Outlaws they fuglyfied the female actors looks, probably seen as 'too pretty' even though that's just how she looks. It's seems you can body shame people for being too attractive. Hopefully we see the end of that sillyness, attractive people do exist.
Might have to give that a look. I like easy pretty games, but things like No Mans Sky are too directionless and sandbox to hold my attention for long. The political correctness/pandering criticisms are valid. I am my own evidence for this: my politics are progressive and mostly left leaning, but seeing them expressed in media irritates me. How to explain this apparent contradiction? Simple: it insults me, my values and the medium. It implies I need my values spoonfeeding to me with sugar, through entertainment media, for me to internalise them; it implies that my values are not persuasive when expressed explicitly, and must be smuggled into my subconscious; and it implies that such brainwashing is one of the purposes of entertainment media and art. It bebases the art, the political values and the audience at the same time. It also smacks of cowardice on the part of the creators, because by sheer coincidence they're always advocating for whatever it is currently easiest to get in trouble for not advocating. No games about African child soldiers or AIDS victims this decade! Those were yesterday's moral fashions, no gold stars awarded for including them now. TLDR we recognise insincerity in creative works and it's okay to be turned off by it
Similar to my post in the What are you currently watching? thread, im finding it incredibly difficult to play/start new games. My steam/epic/humble/gog/ubisoft/EA libraries are heaving with games that i havent played, i just dont know how to pick, and with limited time i dont want to waste it installing and trying something i find i dont like. bah.
Yeah this is definitely a problem. But it’s worth picking one and trying it to see if you get hooked, if you didn’t like it and uninstall then DM;HF (don’t matter had fun). Games are games right?
I don’t know about this game specifically because I’ve never played it, but what can feel like over-representation and patronising to you can simply mean that you are not the intended audience for that representation. You’re not necessarily the person that needs to see… “whatever it is”… be far more normalised. FWIW, I really love how gender and relationships were handled in Baldur’s Gate 3: no one gives a **** (censored pun intended) because it’s just normal. No one cares whether you’re male, female, both, or neither; no one cares whether you’re gay, straight, or entirely indifferent on the matter; no one cares about your body or your appearance; no one cares if you’re a halfling banging a 7 foot tall fiery demon-woman with horns. In fact you can shag one of the characters in their bear wild-shape form, if you really want (although said character is a leery creep, IMO!). No one mentions anything, no one comments on anything, no one pats each other on the back… No one cares, it’s just normal.
Can't say I remember noticing same sex relationships being more common in Outlaws when I played it, then again you're visiting new planets at least some of which haven't been featured in other Star Wars media so who's to say that's just how those societies work and non same sex relationships are the less common? I've personally been playing a bit of Shadow Gambit again as whilst I had 'completed' the main story there are more things you gain access to once you've completed more of the optional objectives so working my way through some of that.
I heard a great story once about a D&D dungeon master who took an off-the-shelf scenario and changed nothing... except they flipped the genders of all the NPC characters. The players never even made it out of the starting village, 'cos they spent their entire time trying to uncover the (non-existent) mystery of where all the men went...
I mean I'm not bothered by it, it just seemed a bit overdone I think probably in response to the climate at the time. I found it more bizarre they actively made Kay more ugly than the actress that voiced her, unlike making Survivor's male character exactly like the actor himself. I'm never overly bothered though as I always play as predatory lesbian characters anyway
No, respectfully, that's not what I'm getting at. It's not that this message or that message is obvious or redundant. Even when it's a contentious point that needs discussing, on which many people's minds need changing, on which my mind may need changing, I still find it cringe to see entertainment media or art shoehorning it in. It's about the effort, see. Brokeback Mountain is a story entirely about repressed gay love, and it's incredible. It dares to be about that. But a game just shoehorning gay dynamics in without exploring them, just to say they're there, is tacky to me. Because they're not really trying, they're just playing it safe. And because it doesn't work, bigots don't play Bg3 and suddenly go "omg...gays ARE people just like me!" It isn't about actual progress, it's about pandering and point-scoring. It's a cynical exercise in executive bet-bedging. We ticked the box. Our game is representative, it's progressive. But it isn't. Go broke(back) or go home, I say. If these creative teams and execs are so woke, make a goddamn game about gays, don't just make a normal game and add one line of dialogue like "oh btw I'm gay now here's your quest". Edit - I should say, as a matter of personal taste in storytelling, I find it naive and immersion-breaking when everyone is colourblind, as you describe in Bg3. Even the villains respect your gender identity. Like...they'll do genocide or bomb a city, but they honour your pronoun preferences? I'd rather see bigotry in the narratives of our games, because there's bigotry everywhere else and no in-universe explanation is ever made for why everyone's suddenly blind to immutable characteristics.
And equally respectfully (though I’d like to think I’d be called out on it if I hadn’t been respectful), I think your core point, if I’m understanding correctly, necessarily implies an either nefarious or misguided intent from people involved in making games. Though before I get started, I do want to be clear that I wasn’t trying to start or engage in a debate. I was offering a perspective, not critiquing an argument. Games that explore sexuality in the way that Brokeback Mountain did are out there. But most people don’t tend to see those games unless they go looking for them, because there isn’t a chance in hell that a “big name” publisher would take a risk on it. Personally, I have zero desire for a video game story that explores repressed male homosexuality. Not because I’m not interested in it or because it would make me uncomfortable, but because I’ve already lived through one example of it. Even on his deathbed, my father couldn’t say out loud that he was gay. In hindsight I realise that he’d tried to make implications or drop hints over the years, but even when he was less than a day away from his death, he still couldn’t just say three short words: “I am gay”. For a long time I’d had an inkling that he might be gay, but it wasn’t until after he’d died that it “clicked” and I could even say it myself. It still saddens and upsets me that his upbringing, his background, his parents, his career, his life, had put him in a place where he felt that he had to live a lie until quite literally his dying breath. That he couldn’t just be who he was. The man could be a real ass, and he was absolutely not the best father or husband. But I still regret, and will likely always regret, that I never had the courage to talk to him about his sexuality openly. And he’s just one person among the countless millions of others who, even after all the progress made in Western countries, will go through their entire lives without being able to be who they truly are or be with the ones they love. Unless it serves a narrative purpose, or that is what the game is actually about, I would find it cynical, shallow, and patronising if a game shoehorns in a “Brokeback Mountain”-style storyline. This is why I highlighted Baldur’s Gate 3 as an example of where I think gender and sexuality is handled well: because no one in the in-game universe cares about it, and the game doesn’t go out of its way to shove it in the player’s face. The player can project whatever they want about themselves into the game… or not. They can ignore any hint of a romance sub-plot and just revel in murderhobo’ing their way through anything and anyone in their path. Personally, I’ve always preferred playing female characters in games, because I think they’re often far more interesting and well-realised, and the voice acting for female characters has been far better. For example: Jennifer Hale’s FemShep in Mass Effect, or Cherami Leigh’s female V in Cyberpubk 2077 - both of whose performances I personally think are superior to their male counterparts. BG3’s protagonist is un-voiced, but I naturally defaulted to a female Tav. But I still had my choice of who I wanted the character to bump uglies with, whether they’re male, female, or even a man in bear form. (Though frankly if you’re choosing anyone other than Shadowheart then you’re just flat-out wrong and I will fight you .) The game makes no outright judgment about your choices & decisions in regards to sexuality, or indeed how you choose to progress the story. There are consequences for your choices, whether those choices are “slaughtering supervillain blazing a trail of blood” or “goody-two-shoes hippy peacenik trying to make everyone get along”. But consequences are not necessarily the same as judgement. And, for what it’s worth, I find the various villains & antagonists all the more compelling because they’re not cartoonish moustache-twirling caricatures - not even the ones who are actual devils with actual red skin and actual horns. In fact Raphael ranks among my favourite video game antagonists of all time - though I will freely admit that this is helped in large part by the fact that he sings his own theme song if you choose to fight him! Not even Sephiroth had that! In any case. I’m well off-track here, and as I said, I never intended to start or engage in any kind of debate, critique the merits of any particular argument or game design approach, or persuade anyone to any particular view or idea. Besides, I highly doubt that many will have the patience for another one of my infamously lengthy posts anyway. To be frank, I write much of what I write because it helps clarify my own thoughts, it isn’t necessarily always for the benefit of others. I really should get my blog going properly again…
Indeed, interesting thoughts but we are pulling the thread offtrack. As is our wont. We could always DM this stuff I guess, that'd probably be a relief for everyone else. ("The wall of text nerds have gone!") Funnily enough the only on-topic thing I have to offer is BG3. That's the last game I completed. That's how good a game has to be for me to finish it. Anything more middle of the road and I lose interest and go into dadmode and start building a doghouse or something instead.
It’s all in the finest and most ancient traditions of this forum. Don’t look at me like that, 25-ish years is “ancient” in the context of social media - my account is older than people I work with!
Just completed daddy daughter simulator 2026.. oh wait it's called pragmata. The credits are still rolling... I enjoyed it I won't say how I feel about the ending to avoid spoiling, I didn't get the parental feelings either.. maybe I'm just dead inside, I'm one of those tho you tell me it's a robot it's a robot... Game play was fun, the whole hacking and combat at same time made it something different, the game wasnt as long as I expected but it was a good length, I kept going back to zones to get all the items, couldn't work out where one last item was, even though I'd unlocked the scan to make things appear in range. The story was ok.. 3d printing and Ai... The visuals are ok the sound track I enjoyed, game play at times was a little to much for my head trying to do the puzzles to hack something got me a little overwhelmed, the interactions with Diana are sweet, although imo not enough AI art (if you played it you'd get this joke) it has some fun interactions enjoyed the 1st 3/4 then last 1/4 was imo like it had to wrap up fast, I don't know why I feel like this as it was ok but it's one of those build up build up the end kind of feelings It's one of those I'd recommend, the demo it's worth playing.
I don’t think every game HAS to have a really tailored story about for example a gay character and all their life details. Or a disabled character and how it influenced their life. Or a person with a different skin colour and how that changed them. I try not to have any prejudice or bias for or against anyone, at all really, it’s too much effort. However I fundamentally I am personally not, and I don’t get it. It is a fundamentally obvious thing to me that I’m straight and white and male. I didn’t grow up with Downs or without a leg. I wasn’t subjected to racism over my skin colour. Due to my own neurodivergence I actually cannot relate to any of this. It just makes me feel like I’m intruding on something not meant for me, like cultural appropriation. So I wouldn’t play it. There’s going to be plenty of bigots who actively WON’T play it and won’t give a crap about the effort that went into whatever exposition it has. So giving players the option for even surface-level representation, especially in fantasy games, I am all for. In the world of BG3 since we’re talking about that, maybe they don’t give a heck who you shag and what colour your skin is. Maybe prejudice looks different in that world. They sure don’t like Drow or Squidwards for example. Maybe they don’t call you out for your taste in lover, because actually they don’t care. And that’s okay. At the same time, South of Midnight wouldn’t work with a white male protagonist, and that’s absolutely okay too. I personally won’t play it because as I said I somehow feel I’m intruding. Plenty of bigots will avoid the **** out of it too. But I bet there’s loads of people that learned a lot about a different culture in there too. TL;DR It’s okay for games to be fun with a level of representation without them having to mandate deep social commentary observations.
And they don't. The top sellers on Steam right now are: Apex Legends (okay, some of those characters are probably gay/disabled/not-white, but I can't imagine it's a Major Story Point (owing to the lack of Major Story)), Counter-Strike 2, Dead as Disco (no idea about this one, never heard of it), Gamble With Your Friends, Far Far West (again, not sure about this one), Forza Horizon 6 (maybe some of the cars are gay?), Warframe, Conan Exiles Enhanced, Diablo IV (haven't cared about Diablo since Diablo II), Windrose (?), MOTORSLICE (why so shouty?), Where Winds Meet (that one sounds like it might be a Story Game), Baldur's Gate 3 (GAAAAAY), Fallout 76, Kerbal Space Program, Dead by Daylight, ARC Raiders, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (probably like Apex Legends, at a guess), and Crimson Desert. I was trying to make a point here, but given I've not heard of half of those and can't be bothered to do any further research I think I missed. Anyway, representation in games: did you ever feel weird that everybody in, say, the early Doom franchise was white? No? That's because you're white. You were represented, and it felt like the norm. If a game came out now where everyone was black (and disabled, and gay, why not, let's really push the boat out) you'd feel uncomfortable playing it, as you say. Why? It's not (I both assume and hope!) because you're a racist, by any stretch. It's because it feels weird. It feels different. Why are they all black (and disabled and gay)? Is the dev trying to make some kind of Woke Point? That's not a question you asked of the games where everyone's white (and not disabled, and not gay). Because they represented you, a white (not disabled, not gay) person. It was normal to you. That's representation. You may not even recognise that you were experiencing a feeling of comfort and familiarity seeing people like you on the screen, because that was the norm for you - all games were like that. When they stopped being like that, the feeling of comfort and familiarity that you took for granted went away - it's not that you're now feeling uncomfortable, it's that you're feeling exactly what the black (disabled, gay) gamers were feeling playing the games you liked. It's kinda like a positive version of nicotine addiction, if you like. You don't even notice what the cigs are doing 'cos it feels normal, but by 'eck if you run out you're going to feel like crap. Does that mean you now need to go out and buy the blackest (gayest, disablest) game you can find? No, any more than a black gamer should go out and buy Call of Angry White Dude: White Ops. If you're not represented in a game, then it's fine to decide that game isn't for you. Which is why it's important we do have games where black (gay, disabled) people are represented - so they can feel as comfortable as you've been feeling up until the Great Wokeness Wave of 2020-mumble. If the publishers cancel Call of Angry White Dude: White Ops 2 in order to make Gay Black Wheelchair Racing Simulator 2027: A Woke Dating Sim, then you've room for complaint. Otherwise, enjoy what you enjoy and let there be room for stuff other people enjoy too. I didn't mean this to turn into a sermon. I'm not having a great morning. Feel free to ignore me.
I feel like you understood my point and how to express it better than me. That’s why you’re a good writer and I’m just a forum troll. Even surface-level representation moves the conversation forward and I fully support that. Full games and again I refer to South of Midnight and games like it which have their place too, and are definitely welcome. The real world has real diverse people with real differences from one another, we often have common issues despite where we come from. More games SHOULD have worlds filled with diverse characters even if they aren’t full NPCs you can interact with. And more games should tell a variety of stories when they can.
