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Sneak Preview: Outlaws© Dan Finkelstein
Apr 8, 1997
The public has spoken, and LucasArts has listened. But, after playing the demo version of "Outlaws," I have come to the conclusion that maybe they should have listened a little better.
When "Dark Forces" came out a few years back, it was an instant hit -- it incorporated everything that made a great game. Awesome graphics, a great plot (borrowed straight from Lucas's "Star Wars" saga), and addictive gameplay satisfied many a "Doom"-lovers gaming need while they waited for the next big thing from id Software.
Now, a few years later, LucasArts is putting the finishing touches on "Outlaws," a first-person shoot-em-up that takes place in the wild west. There's not much to say about the gameplay here -- it's standard aim and fire stuff a la "Doom" or "Quake." In the demo, there are several weapons to blow the bad guys away with -- the standard pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun. LucasArts promises the ever-popular gatling gun and other weapons of destruction to be included in the final release. "Outlaws" spices things up a little bit with the necessity to reload your weapons.
The one aspect that Dark Forces was missing, however, was modem and network play. So the public complained, and in Outlaws, LucasArts has listened -- you can now play against other people over a modem, local area network, or the Internet.
There is supposed to be a plot to "Outlaws," probably the first action game to actually take its plot seriously. Basically, you play former marshal James Andrews, on a mission to retrieve your daughter, who was kidnapped... well, you really don't have to hear the rest. Probably the best part of "Outlaws" is going to be the cut-scenes, where the plot will advance with a little help from stylized, professional animation, which reminds me of the arcade game "Sunset Riders".
The pseudo-Western music in "Outlaws" is also top-notch, which should be expected from a company like LucasArts (remember Full Throttle?). The sound effects are also in the high-quality LucasArts style.
Unfortunately, that's about all I can say that is positive about "Outlaws." While it has the potential to become a great game (the music, sound effects, and overall plot look like it could work), it doesn't really look like the design team took much time to enhance the 3-D engine. While "Dark Forces" was state-of-the-art at the time it was released, it is now amazingly dated -- below games like "Duke Nukem" and WAY below the high-resolution, 3-D environment of "Quake." The textures are dull and blocky, and the buildings look like basic squares. Turning up the resolution (which requires actually *exiting* the entire program) solves the blockiness problem, but slows down the game, even on a fast Pentium. Bitmaps (2-D objects in a 3-D game) abound, and detract from the gameplay -- there's nothing worse than seeing a dead guy's legs seemingly move as you walk around a body. Talking about the enemies, they all look *very* similar, all run with a strange, limping-like gait, and all die in the same fashion.
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