Outcast (computer game)

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Outcast
Studio Appeal
Publisher Infogrames
Senior Developer Yves Grolet (Director of Development)
Yann Robert (Director of Development)
Franck Sauer (Art Director)
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 August 20, 1999
platform Windows
Game engine Paradise
genre Action adventure
Game mode Single player
control Keyboard & mouse , joystick
medium CD-ROM , DVD-ROM , download
language German English
Current version Patch 3 (December 27, 1999)
Unofficial Patch HDv3 (September 8, 2010)
Age rating
USK approved from 16
PEGI recommended for ages 12 and up
information Outcast: Like the original, Second Contact received USK approval from the age of 16 and was approved by the PEGI from age 12

Outcast is a futuristic action adventure from Belgian game developer Appeal . It was published in the summer of 1999 by the French game publisher Infogrames . The player takes on the role of a lone fighter who has to protect the members of a research team on the alien planet Adelpha and free the inhabitants of the planet from a tyrannical rule.

A remake called Outcast: Second Contact has been available since November 2017 . Weapons, combat, controls, graphics, artificial intelligence and the user interface have been revised. The areas have been expanded and contain new tasks.

action

Course of action

In 2007 the American government launched a space probe to prove the existence of a parallel universe . The experiment, led by the scientists William Kauffman and Anthony Xue, succeeds and the probe sends images of an alien planet for a short time. But shortly after landing, an apparently intelligent life form damaged the probe, causing a tremendous energy repulsion back to Earth . This recoil of energy creates a constantly growing black hole on earth and threatens to destroy the world. Cutter Slade, lone fighter and commander of the US Navy, is therefore supposed to accompany the three-person team of scientists, consisting of Kauffman, Xue and the exo-biologist Marion Wolfe, into the unexplored world to repair the damaged probe. All expedition participants are individually transferred to the newly discovered parallel world at intervals of several minutes.

But there are complications during the transfer. Cutter arrives without equipment and separated from the scientists on the alien planet called Adelpha. After he woke up in a village of the local residents of Adelpha, the so-called Talans, he was now looking for scientists. Cutter has to deal with a culture that is foreign to him. Since the murder of their spiritual leader Kazar, the Talan people have been ruled by the tyrannical Faé Rhân. Some Talans consider Slade to be the Ulukai, the liberator of the Talan people prophesied by Kazar. In return for their support, Slade is supposed to find five sacred objects, the so-called mons , for the residents of Adelpha before they fall into the hands of the warriors Faé Rhâns. Slade has no choice but to help the locals in their struggle, as he too needs their help.

In the course of the plot, Slade realizes that Kazar is identical to the missing scientist William Kauffman and that Faé Rhân is his assistant Anthony Xue. The five holy mons turn out to be chip cards that are necessary to repair the probe. Furthermore, Slade has to discover that he and the scientists traveled to Adelpha's past due to a time paradox at the transition between the worlds, to a time before the arrival of the earthly probe. And although there were only a few minutes between the individual crossings of the expedition members on Earth, several years passed on Adelpha during this period. Xue had used this time to kill his old rival Kauffman and to become the sole ruler of the planet. Since he no longer intends to give up his position and return to earth, he tries by all means to prevent the probe from being repaired. Slade has to get all five chip cards and prevent Xue from destroying the incoming space probe.

main characters

Cutter slade
Sign of the "Ulukai".
Cutter Slade is the main character and player character. In the German version he is voiced by Manfred Lehmann , known as the German dubbing voice of Bruce Willis . The French language edition Cutter Slades was also recorded by a dubbing voice from Bruce Willis: Patrick Poivey. Cutter is a retired Navy Seal and hand-to-hand combat specialist . The tragic death of a cameraman during a PR campaign he was monitoring, which he was wrongly accused of, led to him being expelled from the special unit. Slade sinks into alcohol consumption and develops a markedly cynical streak. Through his confidante and mentor Doug Dawson, Admiral of the Navy, Slade found a new unit in the secret special unit PROWLER. However, this cannot help him get over his bitterness.
Cutter's job during the Adelpha mission is to keep the team together and to protect them. The Talans see in him the "Ulukai" who, according to the prophecy, will descend from heaven to destroy Faé Rhân and free the Talan people.
Marion Wolfe
Marion Wolfe, daughter of the US Senator Clare Fitzgerald, is part of the three-person team of scientists who are supposed to explore the parallel world of Adelpha and repair the probe. She and Cutter met on another mission when Cutter was assigned to supervise them. The death of a cameraman, caused by Marion, was accused of efforts by her mother's lawyers, Cutter Slade. Since then, Slade has had a great dislike of Wolfe, although Wolfe strongly condemns her mother's actions. Wolfe therefore turns away from journalism and goes into research. It is becoming a globally recognized capacity in the field of bio- ethnology and exobiology. At the time of the action, she is the director of the exobiological laboratory at the University of Chicago.
William Kauffman
William Kauffman comes from an established New England family. He is a quantum physicist at Harvard and a Nobel Prize winner. Kauffman officially heads the "Sidestep" project, which was able to establish contact with the parallel world Adelpha for the first time with the help of a probe. His life belongs to science. He is always polite and represents the ethically thinking scientist. Due to an unforeseen time delay in the transfer, he and Xue arrive in Adelpha several years before Cutter Slade and Marion Wolfe. He has been dead for a long time when Cutter arrived, but has left behind clues in the form of various holo videos, including for the repair of the probe.
Anthony Xue
Anthony Xue is a difficult character and completely contrary to his colleague Kauffman. Coming from a humble background, Xue is very ambitious and obsessed with power. After one of his experiments on matter / antimatter reaction ended in disaster , killing several researchers, he was banned from the scientific community. It was not until he was in the military that he found a new client and, together with William Kauffman, researched the possibilities of traveling in parallel universes in the “Sidestep” project. While the two worked closely together scientifically, they didn't get along very well on a personal level.

Game world

The accessible part of the Adelpha game world consists of a total of six completely different regions, which are connected by so-called Daokas . Daokas are very similar to star gates from Stargate and enable long journeys to be made without losing time. The Daokas do not arise from any Talanic technique and cannot be made by the Talaners. The establishment of the Daokas is said to belong to the so-called venerable ones , who, through their harmful work on Adelpha, evoked the vengeance of the gods ( Yods ) and wiped them out. For the Talans the use of the Daokas is necessary to maintain their culture, which is why the more important gates are guarded by mercenaries Faé Rhâns.

Ranzaar
Ranzaar is the first region that Cutter Slade sees after his passage. Ranzaar has an arctic climate and is only accessible through a hidden daoka in Shamazaar. It is the last refuge of the rebels, called Dolotai Guardians . Apart from the few rebels, there are no living things on Ranzaar.
Shamazaar
Shamazaar is mainly used for agriculture. The rice-like Rizi plants are planted here in the numerous swampy terraces and provide the Talans of all other regions with food. Shamazaar is also the religious center of the Talans. A temple is dedicated to each of the four deities here. A Daoka in the south connects Shamazaar with Talanzaar. Other heavily guarded gates in Faé Temple lead to Okasankaar and Motazaar. A strange barrier in the northwest prevents any living being from entering this area.
Talanzaar
Talanzaar is an inhospitable desert region and consists entirely of the city of Okriana. For this reason, Okriana is often equated with Talanzar. This oriental-looking town is the capital of Adelphas with Faé Rhâns Palace in the center. Numerous traders and craftsmen have settled in numerous flat roof buildings around the palace. To protect against the rough desert storms, a high wall was built around the city. The three Daokas in this region lead to Shamazaar, Okasankaar and Motazaar.
Okasankaar
The region of Okasankaar is characterized by extensive sea and swamp areas. The inhabitants of the village of Cyana located here are mainly fishermen who regularly have to deliver their catches for Faé Rhâns mercenaries. Important buildings are the holy Darosham , ritual center of the Faé devotees, and the island prison Zorkatraz . In the east of the region, guarded by a mercenary barracks, is the only Daoka after Okaar.
Motazaar
The mines of Motazaar supply the ores ( helidium ) and metals needed to build the weapons used by Faé Rhân's mercenaries. The very dry region is crossed by deep, lava-ground cracks and has many hot springs. Motazaar is bordered by high mountains, making it the ideal location for Faé Rhân's prison camp.
Okaar
Okaar is also called "the old world". It is a mythical jungle world that only a few Talans enter, mainly to hunt. In the southeast, only Faé Rhân's troops maintain a camp. Okaar was the only region that produced intelligent, but primitive compared to the Talans, indigenous people, the Oogobaar. The remains of a foreign culture, which can be found in the form of buildings and artefacts throughout Okaar, do not seem to go back to them. Okaar is also identical to the landing site of the probe, the damage of which was the cause of the black hole. One of the unsolved mysteries of this world is a broken Daoka near a waterfall. It cannot be activated and its destination is not known. The Talans call it "Himmelsdaoka", other legends report that it enables the journey to the two moons of Adelphas.
Kizaar
Another region, Kizaar, is mentioned by name, but cannot be reached in the game. Kizaar is an island in the sea. All Talanic children and women live on it. The men visit their wives there every few years.

Gameplay

Outcast is an action adventure game that can be played either from a third-person or first -person perspective in a largely open game world. The game combines action-oriented battles in real time with skills such as jumping, smaller puzzles or physics puzzles. In addition, the character Cutter Slade has to communicate a lot with the inhabitants of the game world in order to obtain information and orders that are necessary for solving the game. The player controls Cutter Slade directly through the game world with the keyboard and aligns the camera with the mouse. For real-time battles, the camera is locked and the cutter can only be moved in four directions.

The aim of the game is to recover the five chip cards that are hidden in the five regions of Shamazaar, Talanzaar, Okasankaar, Motazaar and Okaar. After an introduction to the game and a somewhat longer introduction to the game in the world of Shamazaar, the rest of the game world opens up for the player. From this point on, you can switch between the regions at any time via the so-called Daokaa travel portals. The player can freely explore the regions with a few action-relevant exceptions and accept orders. He can at any time determine the order in which he solves the otherwise linearly structured orders, there is no time limit for the fulfillment.

The equipment of the expedition was distributed over all areas of the game world due to the long period. Finding the right ammunition packages, dynamite sticks and technical aids is therefore a constant activity during the game. As soon as the corresponding objects are in the immediate vicinity of the player, he receives a voice message. Alternatively, the player can have items of equipment made by craftsmen upon presentation of appropriate resources from Adelpha's environment. Some Talan vendors also offer Slade weapons and weapon upgrades for sale.

technology

Developer Appeal used the self-developed Paradise engine for the game. Thanks to a mixture of textured voxel and software- calculated polygon graphics , the game world was less angular than contemporary polygon graphics and offered players a comparatively high range of vision. The voxel engine was based on a raycasting method to represent the terrain (floating horizon algorithm). The three-dimensional terrain information was saved with the help of a so-called height map . At the same time, there was a so-called color map that contained the color information of each point within this height map. During the calculation process, taking into account the user's field of vision, the visible points within the height map were first determined and then provided with the corresponding color information using the color map and thus visualized for the user. Since it was not a real three-dimensional graphic calculation, the presence of a special 3D graphic card was not necessary, since these calculations were done by the CPU . The polygon graphics were also calculated exclusively by the software and were not hardware-accelerated. The game therefore did not benefit from the presence of a 3D graphics card. Instead, Outcast required a processor that was very powerful for the time.

Two main methods were used for the optical landscape design. For convex surfaces were Tiles (Engl. For tiles ) with the help of graphics software 3D Studio 4 for DOS designed and the visual result held from above. The height information for the implementation in voxel graphics was obtained from the tiles. Polygon objects were required for concave surfaces, such as house roofs or bridges over a canyon. These were also designed in 3D Studio 4 and then textured with Photoshop . With the help of an editor, the voxel tiles and then the polygon objects were first placed. In addition, there was play objects and other program information for path finding and object collisions. The backgrounds in the shape of the sky consisted of hand-painted Photoshop graphics.

Characters and figures were designed as polygon objects using the software Alias ​​Power Animator and NURBS technology . In order to be able to add textures to the wireframe models, these had to be exported. With the help of the Skymap software provided by Infogrames, the UV coordinates required for texturing were generated, whereby the figures had to be split into several smaller objects (e.g. body extremities) due to program restrictions. The textures themselves were then created with the help of 4D Paint, the forerunner of the Deep Paint 3D software, using a 3D painting process that was new at the time. With the help of the bump mapping process, which is also new in game development, the impression of natural unevenness and folds was created for the polygon objects. The developers used motion capture in conjunction with keyframe animations and procedural animations to show the figures as realistic as possible .

The then progressive AI system Game's Artificial Intelligence with Agents (GAIA) provided all living beings with a daily routine and reaction schemes to the actions of the player. Outcast also used the environmental audio technology from the sound card manufacturer Creative Labs , first introduced in 1998 , with the help of which ambient noises and sounds such as the reverberation of pistol shots were reproduced in a way that was adapted to the environment.

The game only offered three default screen resolutions (320 × 200, 400 × 300 and 512 × 384 pixels). At the beginning of development, Appeal only relied on VGA resolution (320 × 200 pixels) with 256 colors. In the course of development, the quality was increased to SVGA quality with a color depth of 24 bits. In addition to bump mapping, Outcast was one of the first to use depth of field , subpixel antialiasing and shadows calculated in real time.

music

At the time of development, General MIDI was the predominant method of creating music for computer games. But for Outcast, Art Director Franck Sauer wanted a symphonic soundtrack in the style of the film composers John Williams , Alan Silvestri and Danny Elfman . When looking for a suitable composer, Appeal placed an advertisement in several music magazines in 1996 in which the company was explicitly looking for a “Hollywood film composer” for “orchestral accompaniment”. Among the applicants was Lennie Moore , then based in Los Angeles , who became aware of the ad in a newsgroup and then sent Appeal a demo of his compositions for the documentary Trinity and Beyond . This soundtrack was created under the direction of the main composer William T. Stromberg in collaboration with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra . With this work sample, Moore was able to convince the developers.

“We hired Lennie to write symphonic music for our game Outcast in 1997. I was looking for someone who could handle all the music production aspects from composing to hiring the soloists and orchestra and organize recording sessions. And the result was outstanding, way beyond my expectations. I'm a film music lover, so I had strong references in my mind and all I can say is Lennie was up to the task. The music was inspirational, the orchestration filled with rich articulations and great themes, the recording quality was top notch, and the most important thing, the music fit so well into the game's universe. Looking back at the game today makes me smile because the graphics look so dated. But if there is one thing that still stands up against any of today's next gen blockbusters, it is Lennie's wonderful score. "

“We hired Lennie in 1997 to compose symphonic backing music for our game Outcast. I was looking for someone who could handle all aspects of music production from composition to selecting the soloists and orchestra to organizing the recording sessions. And the result was extraordinary, it exceeded my expectations by far. I'm a film music lover so I had strong comparative examples in the back of my mind, and all I can say is that Lennie was fully up to the task. The music was inspiring, the orchestration full of rich articulations and great themes, the recording quality was top notch, and most importantly, the music fit so well into the game universe. When I look back on the game today, I smile because the graphics look so out of date. But if there is one thing that can stand up to today's next-gen blockbusters, it is Lennie's wonderful accompanying music. "

- Franck Sauer

It was Moore's first composition for a computer game. By joining the development team at a very early stage, he says he was able to work out a complete concept without the usual time pressure.

Moore described his soundtrack as a mixture of classical music with exotic and esoteric elements. In order to clarify the differences between the different worlds and to work out their peculiarities, he varied the instrumentation, for example. For example, he uses an Armenian flute ( Duduk ) to provide the background music for the urban world of Talanzaar to convey the flair of a Middle Eastern village . For the old world Okaar mainly African percussion instruments were used, with talking drums , congas and djembés . In Okasankaar you can mainly hear deep woodwind instruments in their lowest register. Other instruments were udu drums, Egyptian tambourine , tabla and the tombak (Persian hand drum).

{\ new Staff \ with {\ remove "Time_signature_engraver"} \ time 3/4 \ relative c '{c dis eg aes b}}

Basic notes of the soundtrack

The soundtrack is built around a central theme that revolves around the adventure aspect. Moore then linked this motif in all of the pieces with other leitmotifs, for example for the different worlds. In addition, he determined certain harmonies that run through the entire composition and should mediate the connection between the different regions. The basis was a hexatonic , symmetrical scale consisting of the tones C, D flat , E, G, A flat and B and the six basic chords C, E and A flat minor or C, E and A flat major, which served as the starting point for the pieces. On the one hand, they functioned as a basic structure and resting points, but on the other hand they could also be put together to form a more complex, polytonal harmony.

The choir passages are written in Latin and are based on Virgil's ancient epic the Aeneid . The texts were created in collaboration with the Vergil project at the University of Pennsylvania . At the request of the developers, Moore looked for text passages that matched the game, which he then, with the help of the translator Dorothy Stewart , brought into a meter suitable for the music using Elision .

Moore first created MIDI demos, but they were already very close to the later implementations. Moore also recorded the outcast soundtrack in collaboration with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Moore's friend Stromberg. The recordings took place in the Russian capital, the orchestra consisted of 80 instrumentalists in total, plus a 24-piece choir. Moore himself was responsible for the composition and orchestration and acted as a music producer during the recordings. In total, Moore was able to record around 60 minutes of music, whereas according to previous game productions, he usually only recorded around 20 to 40 minutes of music. This enabled Moore to develop particularly long, coherent individual pieces. Alongside Heart of Darkness ( Bruce Broughton ) and Medal of Honor ( Michael Giacchino ), it was one of the first game soundtracks to be recorded live with a full orchestra. The soundtrack was included in CD audio quality (44.1 kHz / 16bit) on the game medium (CD-ROM).

Development history

Creation and prototype

Outcast was in development for over four years. The starting point for the project was the growing dissatisfaction of the three game developers Yves Grolet, Yann Robert and Franck Sauer with linear adventure games. In 1994 all three worked on two-dimensional arcade games for the Belgian game developer Art & Magic . However, the company made less and less sales of its games and the age of the underlying hardware base increasingly limited the design options of the designer. At the same time, there are signs of the advent of 3D graphics, a trend that the developers also wanted to follow. However, the hardware performance available on average for computer games at that time limited the performance of polygon-based graphics engines , as there was not enough computing power to create complex, detailed polygon objects and thus a natural-looking appearance. Technological articles on the subject of voxel engines promised an alternative . But the outdated hardware from Art & Magic also proved too weak for this technology. So Grolet, Robert and Sauer decided to start a new company. With the help of your hardware manufacturer Themes, the development of a prototype was financed. In return, the company received a minority share of Appeal. The remaining shares were divided equally between Grolet, Robert and Sauer.

The first concept was for a plot in a fictional South American country. The game character was supposed to infiltrate a drug cartel and free hostages from the captivity of the local drug lord. The game was originally supposed to be played from the first person perspective . However, only the natural surroundings were adopted from this concept. Finally, Yves Grolet came up with the concept of traveling in parallel universes. With this concept, work began on a first prototype. While Sauer and Robert continued to work full-time for Art & Magic, Grolet began developing the rendering engine with Philippe Zondack, another programmer. Sauer designed the first landscape graphics, which later became the basis for the Shamazaar play region. He also created 3D models of talans and twon-has. In the prototype, the characters were represented by animated, pre-rendered sprites according to the original plan . They were eventually replaced by polygon models later in development.

Publisher search and production history

With the prototype, the developers started looking for a publisher who would finance the further development. The Paris-based publisher Ubisoft turned down the project, but the expanding company Infogrames from Lyon was looking for a technological lighthouse project. At the mediation of Éric Mottet, Infogrames' production manager, there was a meeting with Infogrames managing director Bruno Bonnell . Bonnell was so convinced of the project that after the presentation he wrote a check for the equivalent of 150,000 euros. In return, Appeal signed a contract with Infogrames, which granted the publisher worldwide marketing and publication rights. The developers acquired all rights to the graphics still held by Art & Magic and the business part of Themes. Appeal moved into business premises in Namur and began building up a development team, which the entire remaining workforce joined after about a year. The development team was divided on the Artistic design departments (ger .: Art ) led by Franck Sauer and programming under Yann Robert and Yves Grolet. The programming department was responsible for the design of the content (plot, missions, etc.). SGI Indy workstations from Silicon Graphics were used as work equipment .

The protagonist was originally named Stan Blaskowitz and wore harem pants, a coat-like outer garment and a bird-like helmet. However, Infogrames' marketing department rated this appearance as too strange and therefore revised it. The marketing team finally decided on Cutter Slade as the final name, which some critics later described as "stupid".

By creating the Agazork language for the Talaner people, the developers tried to convey a lively foreign culture. A dictionary integrated into the game contained over 150 terms for objects, people or beliefs of the Talans. This detailed elaboration of the Talanic culture set the game apart from competing products. A fan project was created under the name “The Talan Language” which had set itself the task of completing the Talan language, which has only been introduced to a limited extent. Some game testers, however, criticized the confusion that could arise from the many special terms.

Overall, the development cost the equivalent of around 1.5 million euros.

marketing

Infogrames treated the title as a flagship production and promoted it worldwide at a comparatively high financial expense in order to reach the mainstream market. The marketing budget was three million US dollars, in addition to magazine advertising, various cover stories and trade fair appearances, among other things, a trailer was placed in the opening act of cinema films. The game was presented annually from 1997 to 1999 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Art Director Franck Sauer expressed subsequent criticism of the marketing in the USA. The game was published in the period after the US publisher GT Interactive was bought by Infogrames, which resulted in a restructuring of the US publishing branch. Sauer accused Infogrames USA of not promoting the game adequately due to self-interest in connection with the restructuring and thus being primarily responsible for the disappointing sales figures in the USA.

publication

Outcast was originally localized on two CD-ROMs. With the DVD release one year after its initial release, the game was one of the first titles to use this data carrier, which was not widely used until then, for its first release. In addition to a multilingual version of the game, it included the soundtrack and bonus material in the form of several videos and trailers.

In addition to the PC version, there were plans to release a revised version of the game based on DirectX for Sega's Dreamcast console . However, the project was discontinued before the release in favor of the announced successor Outcast: The Lost Paradise , as the reprogramming of the engine turned out to be too time-consuming.

In April 2010, the game was re-published via digital distribution via the provider Good Old Games , making it accessible for newer, previously incompatible operating systems from Windows XP.

Follow-up projects

Around 2001, Appeal began work on the successor Outcast: The Lost Paradise , which was to appear for Windows PCs and PlayStation 2 . At the beginning of April 2003, however, it was announced that the work had been suspended in favor of other projects until further notice. On August 12, 2002, developer Appeal had to file for bankruptcy, from which the company no longer recovered. Since then, Infogrames has not made any efforts for a successor. An unofficial successor called open Outcast , which is implemented as a modification based on the CryEngine 3 , has been in development as a fan project since 2004 .

In 2002, an online petition initiated by fans was supposed to persuade Infogrames / Atari to sell the outcast rights to Elsewhere Entertainment , which was founded by Outcast director Yves Grolet and other former Appeal employees. However, Infogrames did not grant the outcast community's request . Instead of a successor, Elsewhere Entertainment began developing a game called Totems , which should be based on similar concepts. Elsewhere Entertainment was bought by 10tacle Studios in 2005 and has since operated under the name 10tacle Studios Belgium. However, as a result of the company's bankruptcy in 2008, the project was never completed.

revival

With its 2012/13 annual report, the financially troubled rights holder of Outcast, which has meanwhile been renamed Atari, announced that the group had sold the trademark rights at the beginning of the new financial year. In July 2013 it was announced that the brand had gone to Appeal founders Grolet, Sauer and Robert. At the end of the same month, they said they would merge with the developer AMA Studios, led by Grolet and Ubisoft co-founder Christian Guillemot. Under the new name Daoka, the team wants to work on games for the Outcast brand, among other things . In February 2014, Sauer told the German online game magazine Gamona that he was working on porting the game to the polygon-based Fresh engine.

On April 7, 2014, the team started a crowdfunding project via the online portal Kickstarter.com in order to finance the development itself. However, the campaign missed the funding target.

On December 18, 2014, an Outcast remake was released on Steam and later on GOG.com as Outcast 1.1 . This version has been recompiled from the original source code , with support for higher screen resolutions, bug fixes and minor enhancements.

On August 12, 2016, the development studio announced that the remake of Outcast would be released in March 2017, under the name Outcast: Second Contact . The developers had meanwhile renamed their studio back to Appeal Studio. Bigben Interactive was announced as the publisher for the title . The release date has been postponed to autumn 2017. The game has now been released. In 2019, Appeal sold the trademark rights to THQ Nordic .

reception

Rating mirror
German-language ratings
publication Rating
GameStar 87%
PC action 86%
PC Games 84%
PC player 86%
Power play 85%
International ratings
Ars Technica 4.5 out of 5
GamePro (US) 4 of 5
GameSpot 8.6 of 10
IGN 8.5 out of 10
Jeux video 19 of 20
PC Gamer (UK) 90%
PC Gamer (US) 90%
PC zone 62%
Meta-ratings
GameRankings 81.31%

Reviews

Outcast received mostly good to very good reviews ( GameRankings : 81.31%) and was repeatedly praised for its game depth and world, its great freedom of action and its orchestral background music. In tests, it was mainly compared with the Tomb Raider series, more precisely with Tomb Raider 3 . The German game magazine PC Player awarded a gaming fun rating of 86 percent and a magazine award. Rüdiger Steidle from GameStar pointed out parallels to Stargate . Together with his co-testers Jörg Langer and Christian Schmidt, he also criticized the many special terms and many dialogues. He praised the combat AI, the variety of missions and puzzles, the richness of detail in the game world and the lip-synchronicity of the English-language test version. He particularly emphasized the design of the water: “Never before have reflective water surfaces been so beautifully represented in a computer game.” Steidle awarded a rating of 87%, and the game also received a booklet award for a special atmosphere. Editor-in-chief Langer also came to a positive conclusion:

“And now the good news: The nerve names are my biggest criticism of the game. The second largest: the flood of quests, which is sometimes extremely rampant. The rest is true - actually I thought I'd have to wait for Ultima 9 to finally experience a believable, seamless 3D world. Love at second sight ... "

PC games author Peter Kusenberg was also enthusiastic, highlighting the quality of the ambient graphics and the artificial intelligence of the opponents, but justifying a below 90 percent rating with the extraordinarily high hardware requirements and frequent graphics errors. Nevertheless, the game also received a magazine award from PC Games. The game received further magazine awards from the print magazines PC Action and Power Play .

Charlie Brooker from the British game magazine PC Zone only got an average rating of 62%. Although he praised the technical performance, he mainly criticized long conversations, peppered with numerous new words, which, coupled with a flat plot and weak, uninspired fights, led to boredom.

In retrospect, the game has often been called ahead of its time. In addition to the early use of a fully orchestrated live soundtrack, Outcast is also considered by some critics to be the first three-dimensional open-world adventure game .

“Okay, so the hero's name is stupid and the plot sounds like a rehash of Stargate, but trust us, this action-adventure game was revolutionary. You could freely explore open world cities, mountains and forests (two years before GTA III). You could commandeer extraterrestrial vehicles - in this case, dinosaur-like creatures - for quicker transport (two years before Halo). You could pick and choose missions in the order that suited your playing style (nine years before Fallout 3). "

“Okay, so the hero's name is stupid and the plot sounds like a Stargate infusion , but trust us, this action-adventure was revolutionary. You could freely explore cities, mountains and forests in an open world (two years before GTA 3 ). You could command extraterrestrial vehicles to move faster - in this case, dinosaur-like creatures (two years before Halo ). You could choose your missions and work through them in the order that best suited your own style of play (nine years before Fallout 3 ). "

- GamesRadar

Soundtrack Reviews

In addition to the game, the soundtrack composed by Moore was particularly well received.

“When Outcast came along in 1998, it was a revelation to the gamers of the time. It was one of the first games to feature a fully blown, fully realized orchestral score, it's even today often times heralded as 'best game music ever' by many people just because it was the first time they heard a game using a musical language that used to be confined to movies before. "

“When Outcast came out in 1998, it was a revelation for the players of the time. It was one of the first games to feature fully furnished, fully implemented orchestral accompanying music; even today it is often referred to as 'the best game music of all time' by many people simply because it was the first time they could hear a game use a musical language that had previously been limited to movies. "

- Seb Wuepper : Gameranx

In 2003, parts of Moore's soundtrack were performed together with other game compositions as part of the first symphonic game music concert in the run-up to the Games Convention . It was the first game composition event outside of Japan. The concert in the Leipzig Gewandhaus was performed by the Czech Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Andy Brick.

The games composer Cris Velasco described Moore's composition as decisive for turning to the games sector as a composer:

“When I was done with school, I wanted to write the kind of epic orchestral scores that I fell in love with from the movies. At that point, I hadn't really heard anything in games that led me to believe that this was a viable path. But a few months later I heard the score to Outcast by my (now) good friend Lennie Moore and I realized that games could offer me the creative outlet that I was looking for; now I am able to really fulfill my dream as a composer. "

“When I finished school, I wanted to write the kind of epic orchestral accompaniment that movies made me fall in love with. I hadn't heard anything like this in games at the time, which would have convinced me that it was a realistic option. But just a few months later, I was listening to my (now) good friend Lennie Moore's music for Outcast and I realized that games could give me the creative freedom I was looking for; now I can actually fulfill my dream as a composer. "

- Cris Velasco

Awards and sales success

On the E3 1999 was Outcast the special prize of the Game Critics Awards for outstanding achievement in sound. The online computer game magazine GameSpot named the game “Adventure Game of the Year”, as did the print magazine Computer Gaming World as part of its 2000 Premier Awards. This was done in express recognition of the narrative quality of the game, as this category was usually reserved for traditional adventure games in both formats . From the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences was Outcast for the Interactive Achievement Awards in the categories nominated 2000 "Best Adventure / RPG of the Year" and best soundtrack, but none of these prices could decide for themselves. The DVD version was named Best European DVD on DVD Summit III in Dublin and DVD Champion of the Year 2000 in the Games category.

Outcast could not meet the profit expectations of the publisher Infogrames. The game sold only 400,000 times after its release, in the USA just 50,000 units could be sold.

In November 2017, the game magazine 4Players examined the remake Outcast: Second Contact and awarded the rating “ sufficient ” with 50 out of 100 points for the platforms PlayStation 4 , Xbox One and PC . The Gamestar reviewed the remake in their test with 67 points.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Infogrames: Outcast-News ( Memento from October 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) . Official website
  2. ↑ Planet-Adelpha.net: Patches ( Memento from May 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ OUTCAST in HD (High Definition) (English)
  4. ↑ a b c d e Rüdiger Steidle: Messiah of two worlds: Outcast . In: GameStar . 08/1999, August 1999, pp. 108-112.
  5. ↑ Product page for the Paradise engine ( English ) In: Official website . Appeal . Archived from the original on April 2, 2003. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
  6. ↑ a b Manfred Bertuch: Graphic algorithms: Klötzchenwelten . In: c't . 04/2009, April 2009, pp. 182-187.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Franck Sauer: Published Games: Outcast ( English ) In: Private Website . Retrieved June 19, 2013.
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  13. ^ Rüdiger Steidle: Technology check: Outcast . In: GameStar . 08/1997, August 1999, p. 114.
  14. ↑ a b c d e Emily Reese: Lennie Moore and Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm on Top Score ( English ) In: Top Score . Classical Minnesota Public Radio . May 10, 2013. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
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  57. ↑ a b Manfred Duy: Outcast - Action-Adventure for advanced and professionals . (Article scan) In: WEKA Consumer Medien (Ed.): PC Player . 08/1999, August 1999, pp. 64-70.
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  66. ↑ Thomas Boecker: The Making Of The First Symphonic Game Music Concert In Europe ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM plc . November 24, 2003. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
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  68. ↑ VGMOnline.net: Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco Interview: A Spectacular Collaboration. Retrieved May 21, 2019 .
  69. ↑ Game Critics Awards : Winner 1999 . Retrieved July 24, 2012.
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  76. ↑ Elena Schulz: Outcast: Second Contact in the Test - The Open World Museum. In: GameStar . November 21, 2017. Retrieved June 8, 2019 .