Star Wars Outlaws Review

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, for this post, I thought I would do another video game review, which will be on a game I have just finished on the Switch 2, which is Star Wars Outlaws. So, this game was well received on its release by critics but also panned by some gamers for its bugs and repetitive missions. 

So, where do I think this game fits on the spectrum? Well, let's find out! 

The usual warning is coming...

PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

STORY

So, the story focuses around a young outlaw named Kay Vess (voiced by Humberley Gonzalez) who is looking to make a name for herself among the crime syndicates as she looks for any jobs to build her reputation. Kay in a desperate to escape her home planet along with her little sidekick pet Nix, joins up with a crew to rob the mansion of a wealthy crime lord named Sliro (voiced by Caolon Byrne). However, the job itself goes not to plan as Kay thought, as it turns out it was to rescue an rebel alliance member and not a robbery and as Kay demands payment, she is stunned and knocked out and left for Sliro. Sliro then blames Kay for the job but she manages to escape in a ship called the Trailblazer, which leds to Sliro placing a death mark on her.

Kay soon however is forced to make a landing on the planet Toshara and while there she meets a mechanic, Waka, who says he will help her to repair her ship but tells her to get local work with the crime syndicates to pay for the parts. So, from here, Kay begins her connections with the criminal underworld in order to establish her reputation. 

THOUGHTS

As far as Star Wars games go, Outlaws is definitely very enjoyable and has much going for it as it has an engaging story and good characters as the plot features plenty of twists and turns along the way. Kay herself is also a likeable, albeit feisty protagonist, who while a scoundrel, isn't all that bad either and does exhibit much loyalty to the people she works with. Kay also has a nice little relationship with Nix, her cute little alien pet, who is also quite resourceful. The game also features plenty of action, most of which is stealth based, so if you are not keen on stealth then this might not be for you but I personally found it to be enjoyable for the most part.   

GAMEPLAY 

Moving onto the gameplay, I will as usual split it into sub-sections to cover different aspects.

MOVEMENT AND TRAVERSAL

Starting with movement and traversel, Outlaws is in the third person perspective, so we get to see Kay as she works through her adventures. Movement wise, Kay has a fairly diverse moveset as she walk, run, crouch, jump as well as climb. Kay can also traverse many parts of the game via the use of climbing walls and structures to reach her objectives and these can occassionally be met by obstacles along the way such as large cooling fans that can blow Kay off a ledge as she navigates tunnels. Kay can make use of a grapple to to climb up or down areas that have a grapple point to attach to. Kay can also travel by speeder out in the open world, which allows her to cover more ground quickly and she can also upgrade her speeder to adapt it towards different terrain.

STEALTH AND COMBAT

As for the stealth, this is a key part of the game, as Kay will often have to sneak into places in order to complete her missions and gain access to information or other items. Kay can also sneak up behind enemies and knock them out as she moves through areas but can also use Nix to distract as well. Kay however does need to watch out for motion cameras that can track her movements during stealth missions. 

As for the combat, Kay can use hand to hand combat one enemies up close but she also has access to certain weapons in the game, such as imperial blasters, rifles, or even grenade launchers. Kay's main weapon however is her blaster, which can be modified and upgraded by finding materials throughout the game. So, Kay can use her blaster for regular fire on enemies, ion setting for destroying shields and robots as well as an explosive setting to do extra damage, so her blaster is actually a pretty good and diverse weapon.

ENEMIES AND CAPTURE

Outlaws also has its share of enemies and quite a few you will have seen already from the films such as the imperial stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt and even the Rancor (from Return of the Jedi). Kay however will also face plenty of other enemies of other kinds we meet have seen in the Star Wars films series such as Jabba's palace guards, the pig-faced Gamorrean, who are quite brutal here and hit really hard(!) as well as the Rodians, who are the race Greedo belongs in Episode IV and Waka and Gedeek, who also help Kay. Kay can also be captured by enemies such as stormtroopers if she is wanted for trespassing or other crimes, which will result in the loss of credits.

CRIME SYNDICATES AND REPUTATION

Another feature of the game are the crime syndicates that Kay will work for and she has opportunities to build up her reputation with them with the main ones being Pyke Syndicate, Crimson Dawn, the Hutt cartel and the Ashiga clan. However, Kay will also on certain missions be forced to work for one and betray the other, which will results in her reputation changing for the worse or better, which can range from terrible to excellent. However, Kay's reputation can if knocked down, be rebuilt by doing other jobs for that syndicate to get back in their favour but this can also affect the others. 

SPACE TRAVEL AND AERIAL DOGFIGHTS

Then we have the space travel aspect of the game, as Kay can also travel to other parts of the galaxy using her stolen Trailblazer ship (after its been repaired that is!). So, the Trailblazer can actually doing a light speed jump to other planets but it needs a clear path to do so and certain areas in space will have alot of debris or even pockets of dense fog and cloud (or more likely, nebulous gases). Kay will often also get drawn into space dogfights with hostile fighters that could be imperial tie fighters or even crime syndicate rivals who are after her and she can shoot them down with the ship's canon and missiles. 

NIX 

And then we have Nix, Kay's cute little alien pet and companion, who is also very useful as Kay can use him to open doors to get inside areas she can't, or pull down shutters to access power cores to turn off energy shield barriers. Nix can also be useful for distracting enemies, so Kay can take them down from behind and he can even attack them as well an additionally, Nix can also distract security cameras by lying down infront of them, so Kay can sneak past them undetected. 

BETTING

Kay during the game can also engaging in some betting activities such as a card game known as Sabacc, which is similar to Poker where she has to sit down and win a hand against rival players. Kay can also place bets on Fathier races, which involve large aliens racing against each other. Some missions also require playing Sabaac but these are optional. 

OUTFITS

As the game progresses, Kay will also get awarded with new outfits, some of which she can also buy from merchants found duirng the game and these can provide different levels of defense and in some cases, boost her stealth abilities. Kay can also purchase other items that can be used to craft new clothing items but this is found after a specific mission.  

WEAPON UPGRADES

As for weapon upgrades, Kay can upgrade her blaster at the workbench on the Trailblazer but this will involve specific materials that she will find throughout the game. The blaster has three main settings for Plasma, Ion and Power all of which you can unlock as you do the missions. Kay can also customise her blaster's appearance as well as boost its efficiency for reducing cooldown time being firing and recoil resistance.

VOICE ACTING (WARNING: SOME SPOILERS MIGHT BE MENTIONED HERE!)

Moving finally onto the voice acting, the cast all do an excellent job here.

Starting with Humberly Gonzalez, who is excellent in her role as Kay Vess, the young scoundrel, who wishes make a name for herself in the underworld. Gonzalez does a great job here at showing Kay's sassy and feisty qualities but also her loyalty towards the crew she works with and also the bond she develops with her robotic counterpart ND-5, who she does a big heist job with.

Eric Johnson also does very well as Jaylen Vrax, the suave leader of the crew, who recruits Kay into his plan to do a heist on the powerful crimelord, Sliro. Johnson does a fine job also at conveying that Jaylen might not be all what he appears to be at first as he appears somewhat idealistic in his notions to steal from the wealthy and corrupt (even though he is himself!). 

Jay Rincon is also excellent as ND-5, a former commando droid, who has been reprogrammed and is now self aware but also remains under Jaylen's control. Rincon excels here at playing ND-5 as a robot but also essentially a sentient being, who can make his own choices and develops a bond with Kay over time as they do missions together. 

As for the other roles Shadi Janho does a good job in his role as well as Gedeek, a Ridonian who worked for the Empire but is soon recruited by Kay for the heist and he appears to regret his past and make some amends for the rebels. Caolon Byrne is very good also in his role as Sliro, the arrogant crimelord, who Kay is looking to steal from and Byrne exhibits Sliro's arrogant nature very well. And lastly, Nicole Correia-Damude is very good also in her role as Riko, Kay's mum, who leaves her in the lurch as a child but later on appears in the game and she is somewhat sassy and feisty herself, as well as a bit on the cocky side!

GRAPHICS

As for the graphics, Outlaws is a very handsome looking game with its stunning open world design, this game is not short on pleasing visuals. As for its environments, they are varied and have plenty of rich detail from open desert terrain of Tattooine to the frozen lands of Kijimi and Toshara for its open landscapes and home to various syndicates. Then there are the outer space sequences where Kay travels in the Trailblazer and engages in dogfights sometimes, which looks impressive. The character models are also quite good albeit they do look a little bit unsophisticated compared to other modern games but overall they are good enough. 

So, overall, the game is a visual treat for the most part and the Switch 2 version is surprisingly excellent and runs very well even with ray tracing capabilities built-in, which can be demanding, this is quite a feat on such a small handheld console. 

MUSIC

Moving onto the music, the score is very good and is composed by Wilbert Roget II and it has an appropriate Star Wars-y feel to it and its main theme is also quite catchy and sticks with you every time the game loads up. It also has some other good themes throughout and one that springs to mind is theme where Kay comes into land on a planet. So, overall, a very good score here. 

FLAWS

As for flaws, yes OK Outlaws isn't quite perfect.

For starters, I think the game suffers at times from an excessive use of stealth during missions, which can make a lot of missions feels very repetitive and samey. While the stealth didn't bother that much as whole and thought it was well done for the most part, it does have to be said that on alot of missions, Kay has to sneak around e.g. an imperial base or vessel only to finish her objectives and THEN the alarm goes off and she has to fight her way out! So, for me this kind of really negated the whole stealth nature of the game in these moments and makes you think what the hell was the point of it all in the first place! 

Another issue to do with again what is commonly an issue in open world games, is the map system can send you on a bit of a wild goose chase at times. To give an example there is a mission where Kay needs to meet a potential crew member out in a canyon on Tatooine but reaching them is a pain as its that obvious whether its higher up or lower down according to the map indicator, reading the map and following the trail bit by bit, does help more in these cases but its annoying all the same.

Then there are the space dogfights, which frankly for me were really boring and the weakest part of the game overall, as they were simply uninteresting as you fly around in space, zapping away until you hit your target from a great distance. So, there is no immediacy to the space combat, it just feels like it was pretty half-baked in its design and easily one of the weak areas of the game.

Another issue is to do with the limited amount of weapons in the game as there isn't too much variety to be found and the weapons you do find, often have limited ammo, which can't be refilled and you are forced to drop it for another weapon, which is pretty crappy imho. So, the weapons really should have been improved. 

The mission choices in the game where Kay has to make a choice to back one syndicate or betray the other also kind of lacks a dramatic impact, especially given you can make up your reputation with the other syndicate as you progress. This also brings me onto another annoying issue where Kay often will get chased by pirates, who are out to hunt her for the death mark Sliro has placed on her and they can be pretty annoying to fend off as you travel in your speeder.

Lastly another issue I had was to do with the leave quest option in the game, which is a bit misleading as you cannot quit a mission if you want to WITHOUT actually deleting your entire progress of the game! So, if you want to avoid doing a mission you don't want, which you may have already started, you need to revert back to an earlier save, which is quite annoying and time consuming.

So, that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, Star Wars Outlaws can be a lot of fun and as an open world SW game, it works pretty well with plenty of missions and other side content to check out. It also has some fun, engaging characters and a good story that has plenty of twists and turns in it and the visuals of the game are also impressive and the music score is also pretty good and worth of the Star Wars name. 

There are some issues of course with its gameplay, as the stealth missions can get quite repetitive and as such the game does feel a bit too long in its run time as you get nearer the end and there are some other quirks and issues. However, all that aside, this is still a very enjoyable game and well worth a look if you are a fan of the Star Wars game universe, this could be for you.

So, I will rate Outlaws:

8 out of 10

Right, that's all for now and I will try and get another post done before the month is out.

Until then, its bye for now!