Outcast

Moby ID: 358
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In the year 2007, a parallel universe is discovered by scientists. The U.S. government sends a probe to that universe and learns of the existence of an entire alien civilization there. However, an apparently hostile alien damages the probe, leading to the creation of a black hole threatening the very existence of our own world. Former U.S. Navy S.E.A.L. Cutter Slade is assigned to escort three scientists to the parallel universe in an attempt to repair the probe and avert the danger.

Upon arrival, Cutter is separated from the scientists and is greeted by the local inhabitants, the Talan. It appears that their world, Adelpha, has its own troubles: a mysterious being known as Faé Rhan has been assembling an army consisting of Talans who think themselves superior to the rest of the population and willing to rule over them with violence. Cutter is proclaimed the Ulukai, a savior mentioned in a prophecy, and entrusted with the task of retrieving five sacred relics needed to overthrow Faé Rhan - all while trying to locate the scientists and save the Earth as well in the process.

Outcast is a 3D third-person (with optional first-person view) action game with adventure elements. In search for five sacred relics, the protagonist travels through the five continents of Adelpha (plus one tutorial island). Each land has its own landscape (mountains, lakes, forests), populated areas, as well as dozens of minor problems - small quests that the hero is required to solve. Most Talans populating the world can be conversed with about a variety of topics. A large portion of the game consists of finding key characters and performing quests for them; some of these are optional, though most must be completed in an adventure-like linear fashion in order to advance the plot. Cutter is free to travel between the continents using special portals.

Apart from exploration and completing quests, Cutter will also fight many guards and creatures. At his disposal are six futuristic weapons (railgun and others); ammunition for those guns is scattered around and can also be produced by mixing items. Aiming help is provided in the form of laser sights. Sneaking up to the enemy and punching him out silently is also possible. Gadgets such as a holo-decoy can be used to help Cutter gain the upper hand in combat. The player character can also jump, climb, swim, dive, crawl, and ride a local animal known as Twon-Ha for faster travel.

Spellings

  • 时空英豪 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

161 People (135 developers, 26 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 34 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 92 ratings with 12 reviews)

Who is Shamaz Keb?

The Good
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our lecture "Game design -- how to do it right, for those who need it most." Ah, I see many familiar faces in the crowd today -- there's Westwood over there; most of the staff of Nihilistic, hi guys! And, yes, none of the German developers seems to be missing. Very good. Now, how do you get to know the secret of excellent game design? All of you should have received a copy of Outcast upon entering. Now do the following: Go home. Play Outcast. Learn. That's it. Class dismissed!

I do not want to go into the obvious details, such as the technical brilliancy or the immersive game world that make Outcast an outstanding experience. But there are a few things that are easily overlooked, and which add to the overall atmosphere and playability a lot. Outcast is full of ingenious answers to those little questions that come with the complexity of a huge world. How do I find a certain person in a crowd? By asking your way through, as anyone will point you to the one you seek. How do I find small objects in the wilderness? By following the marks that your visor draws around them. How do I cut a long walk to the other end of a continent short? By using portable teleporters that you can deploy anywhere you like. These features are small, yet a boon for fluent gameplay.

Another thing that has earned special attention are the excellent sound effects. From the smooth splashing of the waves in Okasankaar to the busy chatter in the city of Okriana -- the FX underline the character of each continent. From the soft humming of the teleport daokas to the shouts of approaching guards -- the FX help you orientate yourself. The FX are not only decorative, they're important -- but never obtrusive. This is a lesson that many a software company has yet to learn. Oh, and did I mention the impressive orchestral soundtrack and the perfect voice acting?

The Bad
Who is Shamaz Keb? This is a question that'll keep you occupied in Outcast. It's the only downside of Appeals' exotic game world: the names. It's okay to design a credible culture. But it's not necessary to scare inexperienced players with an overkill of expressions. In a typical mission, the Ulukai'd have to ride his Twon-ha through the daoka to Okasankaar and fight Gamors to collect zlingtog for Jeokaze in Okriana. See what I mean? As a consequence, you'll need quite some patience to make yourself familiar with Adelpha (that's the world's name, by the way).

The Bottom Line
Outcast is one of the Top 3 games of 1999. An admirable piece of art, technical as well as in terms of design, it is one of those few milestones that prove that computer games have evolved from being toys to a serious and independent form of modern entertainment.

Windows · by -Chris (7762) · 2000

Heaven's Gate: The Computer Game

The Good
Well, it has an impressive initial impact. For a few minutes it seems as if you have been dropped into a deep, interactive world which you can explore at your leisure; the environments are very attractive, using smooth voxels, whilst the sound and music are professionally done and, in the latter case, expensive. Indeed this game reeks of money and talent, and like many expensive collections of expertise it is absolutely hollow inside.

The Bad
As explained quite well in some of the other reviews, the actual gameplay is dreadful, dated, linear, uninvolving. Each level involves running up to a character, listening to a dull conversation, running elsewhere to pick up three or four objects, running to a second character in order to repair the objects, running to a third character in order to find the location of a fourth object, running to the fourth object, running to the second character to find the new location of the first character, running to the first character to hand him 'object Z', at which point he tells you that you need to locate character X in order to embark on a very similar quest. The whole game is nakedly a modular series of looping flowcharts, with no enjoyment at all.

The 'sci-fi' angle involves taking a bunch of quasi middle-eastern characterisations and environments, renaming everything (so that instead of locating Farmer Giles and asking him for a pair of 'scissors' you have to locate Qu'loth and ask him for his 'maarg', or his 'tarrn', or his 'tazmak'), and little else. The game is thus very, very complex but utterly shallow, indeed it is meaningless, impossible to relate to or feel anything for. It reminds me a great deal with 'X: Beyond the Frontier' in that respect; attractive, quality stuff, no game.

The Bottom Line
The nightmare is that this game showed enormous promise. Each level is like a functioning city/village, although sadly not loose enough for you to simply wander around, playing with things. If it had been married to some kind of RPG it would have been excellent, but it isn't, the game itself is no more advanced than a simple Sinclair Spectrum arcade adventure.

I could feel my initial intrigue - the game is very, very attractive - wearing off, until by the second level I was playing it out of sheer bloodymindedness. Again, this reminds me of 'X: Beyond the Frontier' and, oddly, 'Serious Sam', another game which had promise but ran out of ideas very quickly. If only...

Windows · by Ashley Pomeroy (225) · 2005

Most fun I've had playing a PC game!

The Good
This game is a nearly perfect blend of action and adventure. It takes place mostly outdoors with expansive vistas (many games tend to have a very limited visual field, whether due to primarily interior or urban environments). It has many supporting characters with individualized personalities. The musical score is performed by the Moscow Philharmonic, and gives the game a "cinematic" feel. The interface was very easy to learn and uses a combination keyboard/mouse. This game is vast and will keep the player busy for many enjoyable hours.

The Bad
I suppose the use of voxels to render the imagery was one thing that could be improved upon. There is a lack of rendered detail of objects. Oddly enough, this did not really detract from the game a bit. I have read that the sequel will not be using voxels and that the detail will be much better.

The Bottom Line
Outcast is a game to try if you are an adventure gamer and you need a break from hardcore puzzle solving. There are puzzles but they are so well integrated into the storyline, and they are usually solved within the context of the action. FPS/action gamers will probably find the action a bit tepid but this game is "aimed" more at the adventure gamers who like some action elements too. My wife and I both enjoyed this game very much!

Windows · by Rodney Mayton (17) · 2001

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Outcast appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cancelled Dreamcast version

A Dreamcast version was planned by Infogrames, which would feature a new, fully polygonal engine to replace the original one. However, thanks in no small part to Outcast's small sales and the self-destruction of the Dreamcast console, on September 22, 2000 Infogrames announced the cancellation of the port's development. This is sad indeed, since Infogrames had hinted that a 3D acceleration patch for the PC version would be available thanks to the Dreamcast port (since the console uses DirectX as its core API for 3D acceleration).

Graphics engine

A common misconception is that Outcast employs a voxel engine. Franck Sauer, though, said in an interview with gaming magazine "Strana Igr": "We've all misused the term voxel for what actually is just an height field with some software raycasting". The engine allows for a complex architecture and a wide range of sight. However, it features only low resolutions up to 512 x 384, does not support 3D accelerator cards and requires a potent processor (preferably 500 Mhz) to run smoothly.

Legacy

On November 1999, Appeal announced a sequel Outcast 2: The Lost Paradise, a PS2 game with a PC release to follow. Appeal however declared its bankruptcy on August 12, 2002 and the game was canceled. A major part of the team moved to elseWhere Entertainment and a petition was started to persuade Infogrames to allow Elsewhere Entertainment to use the Outcast license, but with no result. A team called Eternal Outcasts started working on Open Outcast as a mod for different types of engines, first the one of Gothic, then the Crystal Space engine, next CryENGINE2 and finally settling on CryENGINE3. After two tech demos (Oasis 1.0 & 1.1) that can be played as mods through Crysis Wars, the project was re-branded on 1st April 2013 as Outcast: Legacy of the Yods.

On 3rd July 2013 it was announced that Yves Grolet, along with the other two original Appeal founders Franck Sauer and Yann Robert, bought back the rights to Outcast from Atari. The game will be developed through Grolet's company AMA Studios and Sauer and Robert will work for AMA through their own company Fresh3D S.A.R.L. Tentatively dubbed Duality, it was then confirmed that it would become the official successor to Outcast. Duality was already announced as the third AMA title at least one year earlier, but with no details except for the title.

Outtakes

Appeal created 15 movie outtakes for Outcast. They could be downloaded as mpg-files from the game's official website. Ideally, any viewer should have played the game, in order to understand the puns.

Promotion

A lengthy gameplay demonstration of the game was shown on the main projection screen at the Belgian demo party Wired 1998, nearly a year before its official release.

References

  • Listen closely, and it's possible to recognize the main notes of Luke's Theme from the Star Wars soundtrack being played by some of the flute players in the region of Okriana, particularly those west and east of the palace. Fitting, considering the city is in the desert.
  • The word Okriana could be seen as an anagram of the Russian word okraina, which means the outskirts. However, according to an interview with Franck Sauer, it actually comes from ochre, the yellow colour that dominates the area.

Save

The crystalline object used to save your game is called a Gaamsav. Carefully listening to that name makes its use more than apparent.

Voice actors

In both the French and the German version of the game, the actors providing the main character's voice are the dubbing voices of Bruce Willis in the respective languages: Patrick Poivey and Manfred Lehmann.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2000 (Issue #188) – Adventure Game of the Year
  • GameSpot
    • 1999 - Adventure Game of the Year
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 03/2000 - Best Sound in 1999
    • Issue 12/1999 - #57 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 11/2005 - #8 Game Which Absolutely Needs A Sequel

Information also contributed by -Chris, Lumpi, Sciere, shifter, Supernintendo Chalmers, Xa4, Zack Green, and Zovni.

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Related Sites +

  • Open Outcast
    A fan-made sequel in the works. The team intends to use the CryEngine 2 for terrain modelling. Well worth a look.
  • Outcast - Wikipedia
    article about the game in the open encyclopedia
  • Outcast Hints
    Alex Burrell wrote these excellent hints for Outcast for the Universal Hint System.
  • Outcast II.net
    A very comprehensive site with news, resources, art, guides and interviews.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Additional contributors: -Chris, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Chentzilla, Sciere, CaesarZX, Cantillon, Zeikman, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added November 1, 1999. Last modified March 16, 2024.