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I’ve spent a good amount of time with The Outer Worlds since it was released at the end of October and there is plenty to love about the game. It washes the bad taste of Fallout 4 out of your mouth. The gunplay and melee combat are fun, and there are plenty of ways to make the game challenging for yourself (i.e., flaws to choose or opting not to take on companions). Between all the praise the game has received for being a top-notch RPG that shows other game development shops how to do this setting right, NOT ONE OF YOU JERKS TOLD ME THE BEST PART OF THIS GAME WOULD BE COMPANIONS AND I CAN NEVER FORGIVE YOU!
More Than Fallout, Much Like Mass Effect
I jumped into The Outer Worlds because every person who could, said that Obsidian made the best Fallout game of them all, Fallout: New Vegas. A game I never played (forgive me). The prospect of playing a game from Obsidian that was like Fallout but more ambitious, with a space theme and a better variety of locals to explore was too good to pass up. But if someone had told me that this game had some Mass Effect injected into it, I would have been throwing up signal flares, organizing parades, and talking until my lips fell off about how excited I am.
I’m a huge fan of the Mass Effect series and I’m not alone in that. Just check out how the rest of the BNP crew feels when we talk about how the game influenced our game preferences. If there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s that one of the more compelling parts of the game are the members of the crew you assemble, their loyalty missions and getting to know their backstories and personalities. So I was surprised to find out that The Outer Worlds mimics the “build your crew/family” dynamic that Mass Effect is known for.
As a huge fan of Fallout 3 when it came out in 2008 (geez, I’m old), I know that those games let you take companions with you on your missions. However, if I’m truly being honest, companions in the Fallout universe never felt like anything other than bullet sponges. They’re interesting when you first meet them but never really contribute to the overall plot or side missions. They are silent sidekicks or stalkers (shoutout to Fawkes and Dogmeat though), which sucks because they are genuinely so intriguing at the start.
The Unreliable and Its Crew Change Everything
The Outer Worlds is a whole different beast though. By the time you finish your first set of main missions, you end up with at least two companions and your ship, The Unreliable. From there you’re traversing the galaxy with a crew by your side and more members to come. The writing and dialogue are extremely well done, and despite that dead-eyed stare that all of the character models have, they feel real and engaging. Then that feeling kicks in: These characters are going to be something special.
There are moments where I’ve just finished missions on a certain planet and I’m amazed at how fascinating it is to see these characters talk to one another once I’ve returned to the ship. Whether it’s about how they felt after we completed a certain mission or with one another about the latest Tossball game or serial drama. You can talk to them and find out more about their backstories and lives before they joined you on your journey. It’s a dynamic that works so well in this type of RPG and makes you care about the characters.
There are even several missions, very much like the loyalty missions in Mass Effect, that are exciting and develop those characters even more. Some of them aren’t as dire as helping Mordin cure the Genophage or Garrus get revenge, but they are meaningful nonetheless. Parvati in particular, fresh off the only planet she has ever known, is deep. You follow as she navigates her way through love, her own sexual agency, and explores the galaxy for the first time. Even Vicar Max, the preacher who hates Philosophism provides great insights on several missions and during his quest to translate a certain book.
I think the character who has one of the best missions in the game is Nyoka. Funny enough, you don’t think much of her the first time you meet. After all, she’s the town drunk. Hell, you spend the majority of her recruitment mission finding a way to make her sober enough to take you where you need to go. It’s after you recruit her that you find out that about her old crew, finding out what happened to them and putting them to rest. You see a whole different side of the character who, at first, got angry and defensive when you tried to pry into her past. It’s good stuff.
A Connected World, Connected Characters
Sometimes, I take the time to consider which characters are leaving the ship with me. The preacher might provide some interesting commentary on the Philosophists who have set up camp on one planet or Doc Ellie might give you some insight while you’re on the planet Byzantium, where she was born. Two factions warring against each other might hit too close to home for one character, while others might get angry at how stupid the politics of corporations can get. The team at Obsidian put so much work into the world and how these characters react to it.
It’s that same dynamic that makes the Mass Effect games so engaging. The only difference is the open world and exploration of The Outer Worlds. The Outer Worlds has the option of releasing companions or rather, telling them to get the hell off of your ship. It’s a mechanic shared with its spiritual predecessor Fallout. But I don’t know why you would kick any of these characters off of your ship when you could learn more about what type of person they are and their view on the universe.
If you haven’t, play The Outer Worlds. It’s a game you can so easily get lost in. The politics of how the games multiple corporations work. The way the different colonies and planets operate, and how they are treated by said corporations. The combat feels satisfying, especially when you have such a large variety of enemies to fight and great sci-fi weapons to play with. If there is one last thing I can tell you about The Outer Worlds it’s this…
Fuck Spacer’s Choice.
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The post No One Told Me ‘The Outer Worlds’ was Secretly a Mass Effect Game and Now I’m Mad appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
I’ve spent a good amount of time with The Outer Worlds since it was released at the end of October and there is plenty to love about the game. It washes the bad taste of Fallout 4 out of your mouth. The gunplay and melee combat are fun, and there are plenty of ways to make the game challenging for yourself (i.e., flaws to choose or opting not to take on companions). Between all the praise the game has received for being a top-notch RPG that shows other game development shops how to do this setting right, NOT ONE OF YOU JERKS TOLD ME THE BEST PART OF THIS GAME WOULD BE COMPANIONS AND I CAN NEVER FORGIVE YOU!
More Than Fallout, Much Like Mass Effect
I jumped into The Outer Worlds because every person who could, said that Obsidian made the best Fallout game of them all, Fallout: New Vegas. A game I never played (forgive me). The prospect of playing a game from Obsidian that was like Fallout but more ambitious, with a space theme and a better variety of locals to explore was too good to pass up. But if someone had told me that this game had some Mass Effect injected into it, I would have been throwing up signal flares, organizing parades, and talking until my lips fell off about how excited I am.
I’m a huge fan of the Mass Effect series and I’m not alone in that. Just check out how the rest of the BNP crew feels when we talk about how the game influenced our game preferences. If there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s that one of the more compelling parts of the game are the members of the crew you assemble, their loyalty missions and getting to know their backstories and personalities. So I was surprised to find out that The Outer Worlds mimics the “build your crew/family” dynamic that Mass Effect is known for.
As a huge fan of Fallout 3 when it came out in 2008 (geez, I’m old), I know that those games let you take companions with you on your missions. However, if I’m truly being honest, companions in the Fallout universe never felt like anything other than bullet sponges. They’re interesting when you first meet them but never really contribute to the overall plot or side missions. They are silent sidekicks or stalkers (shoutout to Fawkes and Dogmeat though), which sucks because they are genuinely so intriguing at the start.
The Unreliable and Its Crew Change Everything
The Outer Worlds is a whole different beast though. By the time you finish your first set of main missions, you end up with at least two companions and your ship, The Unreliable. From there you’re traversing the galaxy with a crew by your side and more members to come. The writing and dialogue are extremely well done, and despite that dead-eyed stare that all of the character models have, they feel real and engaging. Then that feeling kicks in: These characters are going to be something special.
There are moments where I’ve just finished missions on a certain planet and I’m amazed at how fascinating it is to see these characters talk to one another once I’ve returned to the ship. Whether it’s about how they felt after we completed a certain mission or with one another about the latest Tossball game or serial drama. You can talk to them and find out more about their backstories and lives before they joined you on your journey. It’s a dynamic that works so well in this type of RPG and makes you care about the characters.
There are even several missions, very much like the loyalty missions in Mass Effect, that are exciting and develop those characters even more. Some of them aren’t as dire as helping Mordin cure the Genophage or Garrus get revenge, but they are meaningful nonetheless. Parvati in particular, fresh off the only planet she has ever known, is deep. You follow as she navigates her way through love, her own sexual agency, and explores the galaxy for the first time. Even Vicar Max, the preacher who hates Philosophism provides great insights on several missions and during his quest to translate a certain book.
I think the character who has one of the best missions in the game is Nyoka. Funny enough, you don’t think much of her the first time you meet. After all, she’s the town drunk. Hell, you spend the majority of her recruitment mission finding a way to make her sober enough to take you where you need to go. It’s after you recruit her that you find out that about her old crew, finding out what happened to them and putting them to rest. You see a whole different side of the character who, at first, got angry and defensive when you tried to pry into her past. It’s good stuff.
A Connected World, Connected Characters
Sometimes, I take the time to consider which characters are leaving the ship with me. The preacher might provide some interesting commentary on the Philosophists who have set up camp on one planet or Doc Ellie might give you some insight while you’re on the planet Byzantium, where she was born. Two factions warring against each other might hit too close to home for one character, while others might get angry at how stupid the politics of corporations can get. The team at Obsidian put so much work into the world and how these characters react to it.
It’s that same dynamic that makes the Mass Effect games so engaging. The only difference is the open world and exploration of The Outer Worlds. The Outer Worlds has the option of releasing companions or rather, telling them to get the hell off of your ship. It’s a mechanic shared with its spiritual predecessor Fallout. But I don’t know why you would kick any of these characters off of your ship when you could learn more about what type of person they are and their view on the universe.
If you haven’t, play The Outer Worlds. It’s a game you can so easily get lost in. The politics of how the games multiple corporations work. The way the different colonies and planets operate, and how they are treated by said corporations. The combat feels satisfying, especially when you have such a large variety of enemies to fight and great sci-fi weapons to play with. If there is one last thing I can tell you about The Outer Worlds it’s this…
Fuck Spacer’s Choice.
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The post No One Told Me ‘The Outer Worlds’ was Secretly a Mass Effect Game and Now I’m Mad appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Writer: Bryan Hill / Artist: Szymon Kudranski / Marvel
“I know where God lives. God lives in the moment a gunshot takes a life. God lives in the first breath of a child being born. Both moments equal. Neither good nor evil. God cannot consider morality. God is purpose itself.”
First things first, Rest in Peace Betsy Braddock! Fallen Angels is by far the darkest X-Book in this new Hickman era. Most of the details around Apoth, the newest looming threat are shrouded in mystery. But that hasn’t stopped Psylocke from tracking, or being lured by this villain (if we can even call it that yet) to a warehouse in Brazil where it’s about to go down!
This book has featured some incredibly daring artwork that, at times, knocks the visuals out the park with unorthodox angles and stunning panels, but Szymon Kudranski has also missed the mark on many occasions which really takes you out of the story. Luckily the mercenary trio of X-23, Cable, and Psylocke brings more than enough action and intrigue for readers hungry for more X-Men adventures with psychological components.
Psylocke (Kwannon, if you nasty) has taken Laura under her carefully trained wing and is assisting her to slowly hone those rage filled feelings and her perfectly crafted predatory skillset. We also get an inside look at the urges that drive Psylocke closer to this apparent creation of hers. You probably noticed I haven’t mentioned much about Cable. Yeah, well that’s because Cable is a reckless hothead who deserves every unfortunate series of events that happen to him. And we get to enjoy every moment of that fallout. I love how impulsive he is, because we get so many tantalizing skirmishes because if it.
I didn’t love the issue, partly because it was very much the setup for a huge showdown in the next book. Cable’s life is on the line and everything that Psylocke has left is driving her to this moment where God meets mother and machine meets man meets mutant.
6.5 Berserker Barrages out of 10
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Source: gradyreese / Getty
Most of us have the base level knowledge that being a parent is not easy. Compound that reality with the lack of a support system, limited resources and trying to navigate raising a child with special needs and all of it can be overwhelming.
That’s the word Diana Elliott used to describe her feelings after authorities discovered that she abandoned her 14-year-old son at the Grady Memorial Hospital.
According to the Washington Post, on December 4, in Atlanta, Georgia, 37-year-old Elliott drove to the hospital with her nonverbal son in tow. Elliott wandered the halls of the hospital with the boy without checking in or altering the staff for an hour. Eventually, Elliott and her son walked outside together. But she pulled off in a red minivan.
Later, a nurse on her break discovered the boy outside. He was disoriented, cold and hungry. Elliott’s son had a bag containing a few items but nothing that could identify him and he wasn’t able to communicate with officers.
Police officers asked the community for tips about the boy’s identity and after five days they were able to link him back to Elliott. When they located her, she was staying in a hotel with her three other children. She told police that she left her son at the hospital because she was overwhelmed.
Lt. Jeff Baxter told The Post, “She indicated that there were a lot of things going on in her life that were making it hard for her to support her family. She just kind of felt like she could no longer care for her kids.”
While Baxter acknowledged that the whole situation was sad, he said that Elliott’s decision to leave her son alone without notifying the staff ultimately resulted in a charge of child cruelty.
Elliott was released on Thursday afternoon when an Atlanta judge granted her bond, allowing her to leave with just her signature. When other women heard about Elliott’s story, they came to the courtroom as a sign of solidarity and support.
Kaitlyn Ross, of WXIA, the local NBC affiliate, wrote in a Facebook status that when Elliott turned around and saw the women, she gasped.
“She had never met any one of these women and started crying when she realized they were there to support her.
Ana Maria Brannan, an associated professor of special education at Indiana University at Bloomington, suggested that Elliott might have left her son at the hospital because she thought it was a safe place for him and she didn’t know where else to take him.
Don McNeil, the father of two adult children with special needs told The Post, “You cannot judge somebody who’s found themselves at a breaking pitch like that.”
His wife Julie offered, “When you have a child with disabilities, your support system gets so narrow there’s hardly anyone you can pick up and say, ‘What do you do when they bang their heads against the wall?’”
Elliott’s son is still under the care of the Grady Memorial Hospital. Her other three children have been evaluated by the Georgia Department of Family and Children’s Services.