Outer Wilds made me less convinced of Games' potential as an art form. Im being provocative on purpose but How many goddamned times is the message of a game that is praised for its artistic merit be, to one degree or another "Memento Mori"? Spiritfarer, What Remains of Edith Finch, Persona 3, Pentiment, now Outer Wilds. I like all of these games to varying degrees but it just makes me hopeless if time and time again thats seemingly the only subject games are praised for tackling. "Your life is limited and you will eventually die" Yeah thanks game, I already knew that, I literally think about it every single goddamned day, to a degree that actively makes me miserable. I know its stupid but I cannot help it and no amount of whimsical space banjos is going to change that!
In fairness my main issues with Outer Wilds are personal. When you make a game such as this its going to be loved by some and utterly alienate others and that is fine. Outer Wilds is a game that requires patience, and I have none. Fuck it, this is already way too personal of a review : I'm 80% sure I have ADHD and am in the process of getting diagnosed. All of my academic pursuits thus far have been failures because I physically cannot pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes at a time and get extremely frustrated when things don't go my way. When I am forced to queue at the Supermarket I grit my teeth and subequently fantasize about bludgeoning the customers in front of me with my shopping so I can cut in line.
So whilst it was a valiant effort on the part of Outer Wilds fans to tell me to never look anything up because this is a game of information, it was never going to happen. I tried, believe me. I figured some things out and especially in the first few hours or so I had a great time just leisurely exploring stuff and reading text and trying to puzzle it all together. Unfortunately Outer Wilds is a game that is 90% failure and 10% victory/discovery. As much as there is no consequence for failure other than time, figuring out how to get to a place and having to redo the loop twice cause the autopilot killed you or a tiny mistake on your part is demoralising. And that is the word I would use to describe Outer Wilds, it demoralised me in almost every aspect.
Now, I did keep playing the game and finished it, which still puts it better than most games and for sure there is SOMETHING here I enjoyed. Once you get used to the slighltly clunky controls and learn to never use the stupid autopilot unless the planet is literally in a straight line from you with only empty space between its pretty fun to fly around and discover stuff. The couple of "Aha" moments I did have were gratifying but sometimes I had figured out what I had to do but hadnt quite figured out exactly what the game meant me to do (the detective game problem). The artstyle is quite good and the music is great.
The high points of Outer Wilds are high, but to me its low points are so low It just left me cold. The amount of times I left a play session after failing to do something and just feeling shitty for the rest of the day, I just dont play games for that man. I would still recommend Outer Wilds. It is better than Outer Worlds, but I would only recommend it to people who have a lot of patience.
SPOILERS
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On a last note, I can see why people like the ending but I didnt. I was already just wanting the game to be over after the nightmare that was the Dark Bramble which I left for the end, and the dumb item gather quest I found irritating and after all that the ending is just a downer. Yes I know its on purpose blah blah dont struggle against the end etc but it just makes the quest seem kind of pointless to me. I think the Nomai writings about the Eye wherein one of the scholars wonders if the Eye of the universe actually didnt call the Nomai at all, they just ascribed it that significance and in fact the eye may not give any amount of shit about them was supposed to be metaphorical about religion and the indifference of the Universe towards us, as well as mirroring the player's own realization that the timeloop was just a coincidence. You were not on some supernatural quest to stop a supernova, you were coincidentally roped in to a system no longer manned or overseen by anyone. And I get it, but again I just don't like it, it bums me out. Idk, I have no better way to end this unhinged essay so heres a song I like : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfoSLP_w1I
In fairness my main issues with Outer Wilds are personal. When you make a game such as this its going to be loved by some and utterly alienate others and that is fine. Outer Wilds is a game that requires patience, and I have none. Fuck it, this is already way too personal of a review : I'm 80% sure I have ADHD and am in the process of getting diagnosed. All of my academic pursuits thus far have been failures because I physically cannot pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes at a time and get extremely frustrated when things don't go my way. When I am forced to queue at the Supermarket I grit my teeth and subequently fantasize about bludgeoning the customers in front of me with my shopping so I can cut in line.
So whilst it was a valiant effort on the part of Outer Wilds fans to tell me to never look anything up because this is a game of information, it was never going to happen. I tried, believe me. I figured some things out and especially in the first few hours or so I had a great time just leisurely exploring stuff and reading text and trying to puzzle it all together. Unfortunately Outer Wilds is a game that is 90% failure and 10% victory/discovery. As much as there is no consequence for failure other than time, figuring out how to get to a place and having to redo the loop twice cause the autopilot killed you or a tiny mistake on your part is demoralising. And that is the word I would use to describe Outer Wilds, it demoralised me in almost every aspect.
Now, I did keep playing the game and finished it, which still puts it better than most games and for sure there is SOMETHING here I enjoyed. Once you get used to the slighltly clunky controls and learn to never use the stupid autopilot unless the planet is literally in a straight line from you with only empty space between its pretty fun to fly around and discover stuff. The couple of "Aha" moments I did have were gratifying but sometimes I had figured out what I had to do but hadnt quite figured out exactly what the game meant me to do (the detective game problem). The artstyle is quite good and the music is great.
The high points of Outer Wilds are high, but to me its low points are so low It just left me cold. The amount of times I left a play session after failing to do something and just feeling shitty for the rest of the day, I just dont play games for that man. I would still recommend Outer Wilds. It is better than Outer Worlds, but I would only recommend it to people who have a lot of patience.
SPOILERS
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-
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-
-
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On a last note, I can see why people like the ending but I didnt. I was already just wanting the game to be over after the nightmare that was the Dark Bramble which I left for the end, and the dumb item gather quest I found irritating and after all that the ending is just a downer. Yes I know its on purpose blah blah dont struggle against the end etc but it just makes the quest seem kind of pointless to me. I think the Nomai writings about the Eye wherein one of the scholars wonders if the Eye of the universe actually didnt call the Nomai at all, they just ascribed it that significance and in fact the eye may not give any amount of shit about them was supposed to be metaphorical about religion and the indifference of the Universe towards us, as well as mirroring the player's own realization that the timeloop was just a coincidence. You were not on some supernatural quest to stop a supernova, you were coincidentally roped in to a system no longer manned or overseen by anyone. And I get it, but again I just don't like it, it bums me out. Idk, I have no better way to end this unhinged essay so heres a song I like : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfoSLP_w1I
2 Comments
@Dreamer I didnt think it came from a place of unoriginality, its done fairly well here even if I personally disliked it. My gut impression is just seeing it so prevalent among games that are so praised for its artisitc merit just makes the medium seem limited, like its one of the few themes that can be tackled well. Obviously there are plenty of games that tackle other subject matter well, but the overrepresentation of this theme just seems so... disheartening to me personally
Removed by a moderator
Dreamer
1 year ago