The Outer Worlds: Who are you Bridget?

Mild Spoilers
  

I have spent quite a few hours already on The Outer Worlds. My journal plans haven’t worked out. I don’t have much of a handle on my character or the game. I did create the high intelligence low charm character I planned but there’s nothing stopping me from assigning skill points wherever I want. It is so hard not to allocate points to the dialogue category. I’ve stuck with it for the most part trusting the developers that the game won’t punish me for such an unbalanced character. I’ve had to flesh her out a bit in my imagination. She is very on mission and possesses both good temperament and intentions. If a sarcastic response doesn’t seem appropriate she goes for the most direct one.

I have to admit I felt some disappointment as I played through the initial learning section of the game. I thought it was just a really colourful Fallout. Thanks to high long gun skills I had even inadvertently recreated my New Vegas sniper. The time dilation thing is cool though.

Things changed a bit once I picked up my first companion. She completely turned me around on my first major decision. Then conversations took a slight disturbing turn and I nearly regretted listening to her. Almost. At this point, I was intrigued. We were soon able to leave the area and continue the main mission.

Then I entered what seemed a brightly coloured Mass Effect. I can’t stop playing now. My character, Bridget is all about the science. Whatever else she must have all the science weapons. I’m working on a strategy to use the shrink ray effectively. She’s still sniping but once I learned how important weapon effects are she began experimenting more. Thank goodness there are only three ammo types to worry about.

Combat was fairly easy on normal difficulty until we got to the wild planet. Then we got into tough fights in tight areas where stealth was difficult. We had to just sprint for it. It won’t get any easier so some enhancements are in order.

It’s worth exploring every nook and cranny you can get into especially in populated areas. Bridget found a guy stuck in a flooded bathroom in one out of the way area.

Developers tied weapon holstering to the action button on the PS4 controller in a quite baffling way. This is my only complaint so far. I frequently draw my weapon while starting a conversation with NPC’s. Most of the time it’s not an issue but Bridget did lose a little reputation in Groundbreaker over it. Before the ship vacuum cleaner was activated, I accidentally accepted a Robophobia flaw and decided just to live with it. Now that there’s a robot wandering the ship poor phobic Bridget’s stats have gone slightly red. Later I overheard two companions debating whether the robot is a corporate spy. There’s a bunch of unexpected hilarious stuff like this.

There’s still much to do and I suspect and hope that Bridget may get more interesting. She is running into difficulty with speech checks and her lack of charm has come up in at least one dialogue. It’s a fun game so far.