L.G.C. |Reviews| — Outland

This week your intrepid heroes loose sight, backtrack, and play a competent metrodivania style game.

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CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR
– Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Outland (Generic platform game that tries to be artsy)
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/305050
Devel: Housemarque and published by Ubisoft!
Engine: “Housemarque’s own proprietary engine”
Price: $/€ 9.99

Wazzat: Outland is a fast-paced, dynamic platformer where the player uses powers of light and dark in an epic journey to save the world from forces of chaos.


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Everything worked OOTB ..except for one thing. VSYNC
  • I could never seem to disable it.
  • I was forced to sit there screaming WHY AM I BEING FORCED TO PLAY THIS NICE LOOKING GAME IN 4K AT A CONSTANT 60 FERPS WITH MINIMAL TEARING?? OH THE HUGE MANATEE!

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Outright does not launch on the Fedora 21, 670 Superclocked system
    • No output from the CLI either.
  • Runs after a rebort.    Still dinging it a chair for not telling me what the fuck was wrong
  • Runs very well on the steambox with the a10-5800K, but working on 50% of systems gets you 50% of a score

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s a platformer and it claimed full controller support.
  • So I played it on the Steam Box and was not disappointed by any of those claims.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I was not thrilled about playing another platformer this week but one of the first things out of my mouth-organ was “well, at least it’s pretty”
  • The faux mo-cap on your character is done quite well. Really gives you a sense of motion.
  • Oh look! Directional sound in a 2D platformer. That’s, um, neat? ..I guess.
  • That’s said nothing about the sounds is immersive. Not even in the slightest.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I can dig the art style
  • The music is a bit of alright too.   Fits the visual aesthetic they were going for
  • The narrator certainly does his best to give the story some gravitas

P-CHAIRCHAIR

  • The game starts with a black and yellow character travelling through a yellow and black backdrop.
    • I lost sight of what I was doing more than once.
  • After you’ve progressed far enough, that is no longer an issue.
    • Until you hit a level with a black and blue backdrop and you have to switch alignments on the go, a la Guacamelee, the same thing happens again.
  • I did like the narration and the way the combat animations are done.
    • Those freeze-frames really do make it seem as you’re actually accomplishing something, instead of just waving a feather duster around.

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Everything worked OOTB /w the XClone.
  • Buttons matched correctly.
  • Rumbles like FK ALL
  • Controls are tight.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Works fine on the 360 controller
  • Seems like your standard metroidvania fare
  • Dinging it a chair because sliding when you land in a bullet hell game will get you killed to death a whole lot

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It claims full controller support and it does seem to provide it.
  • Didn’t try the NVidia controller, but I doubt NVidia has fixed the firmware to the point where it’s usable in Linux yet.
  • I’mma have to ding it a chair because it doesn’t allow you to rebind the buttons on the controller and only has 2 schemes to choose from.
    • Neither of which sit particularly well with me.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Fun? 

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Ladies and gents I give you Dustamelee!
  • Here’s the thing, Brad. I’m 54 minutes in and nothing had really happened.
  • You should have heard the groan when I first noticed a place where you could slide but lacked the ability.
  • That kids is a time honoured tradition of extending your games playtime without really adding anything.
  • At the end of the day it’s a competent metroplatformer that reminded me of Dust and Guacamelee, but don’t think it borrows from them …It came first.
  • If you’re a fan of backtracking pick it up. If not, wait for a sale.

J-CHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s a competent metrodivania style game, but nothing really special
  • But just by going through the map, even early on in the game I can tell there is a metric fuckton of backtracking
  • This game seems to take a page out of the castlevania book of fuck you enemy placement
  • Bullet hell + committing to a jump just seems like artificially adding difficulty
  • I don’t mind the ikagura mechanic that much, but it’s a bit inconsistent with the enemies

P-CHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s a competent Metroidvania platformer.
  • It would be a proper platformer weren’t it for the fact that I keep losing track of where my character is.
  • Boss fights are boring and uninspired.
  • And I stand by what I’ve said in the Wooden Sen’Sey review.
    • I don’t like platformers unless they have something to distinguish them.
    • Not only doesn’t it do anything new, all the mechanics have been done much better in much better games like Guacamelee, Dust: An Elysian Tale or even much worse ones like Isbarah. What with all the bullet hell scenarios and shit!

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Final –CHAIRCHAIR

1 Comment
  1. Interesting review guys, I find the Fun category killed the chair average but it is an important category none-the-less. If a game isn’t fun to play it doesn’t matter if it runs super well.

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