Outcast – Second Contact is a remake of the classic action adventure game, Outcast. The game has just been released on the PC, and below you can find our First Impressions, accompanied by a video showing the first 17 minutes.
In Outcast – Second Contact, players take the role of Cutter Slade. Players will dive into the extraordinary landscapes of planet Adelpha in an attempt to pierce its secrets in order to prevent a terrible catastrophe. Along the way, players will uncover many things that will even surprise fans of the original.
Contrary to other remakes, Outcast – Second Contact is as faithful to the original as possible. As such, the cut-scenes are almost identical, animations are identical and the control mechanics are exactly the same. This is a perfect 1-1 remake, featuring an updated graphics engine.
Unfortunately, and even though Outcast – Second Contact looks better than the original game, it already looks dated for 2017’s standards. A lot of the textures seem to be low-res, animations are not that smooth, the lip-syncing is terrible and the environmental details could have been better. Moreover, some effects – like the amazing water ripples from the original – are absent in this remake. This is obviously due to the new engine, however we find it a bit ironic that those ripples are nowhere to be found. It’s pretty exciting witnessing the world of Outcast in a brand new “Voxel-less” engine, however it’s not a great looking title.
Not only that, but the game’s mechanics have not been improved at all. For example, Slade feels heavy and the jumping mechanics look awful. Moreover, there is a minor delay between commanding and executing a rolling. For the keyboard keys, the game does not show which one players should press (it simply shows the keyboard). The shooting mechanics are mediocre and everything seems rough around the edges. As said, Outcast – Second Contact is as faithful to the original game as possible.
As a result of all the above, new players will find it hard sticking with it. Outcast – Second Contact feels and plays like a really old game. On the other hand, die-hard fans will absolutely love this remake. While it lacks some effects, it offers better visuals and plays exactly the same like the original 1999 version. Unfortunately, though, this remake feels like something that should had been released a couple of years ago. The biggest improvement in Outcast – Second Contact is its visuals and those look average for today’s standards. And that’s the biggest issue with this remake, especially since there aren’t any meaningful gameplay changes/improvements.
In conclusion, we feel like Outcast – Second Contact is a game that only its die-hard fans will appreciate. And since those fans have already finished it, there is no point at all returning to it. The only reason would be to admire some breath-taking visuals. However, the game lacks such an ‘wow’ factor. Newcomers will find it hard sticking with it and that’s a shame because under the underwhelming visuals and its rough/stiff mechanics, Outcast – Second Contact is as great as the 1999 version!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Looks like something that’s still in early access.
I’ll pass.
“As such, the cut-scenes are almost identical, animations are identical
and the control mechanics are exactly the same. This is a perfect 1-1
remake”
Its not. The control is bad in this, the original controls perfectly, like a modern game, responsive and fast. The remake prioritises animations over responsiveness, has delay to movement, jumping is messed up. This was not the case in the old one. They increased greately the bullet speed in the remake, they were quite slow projectiles where you had to shoot in the direction where the enemy would end up half a second later. The camera runs poorly indoors, keeps shifting and zooming in and out.
“The shooting mechanics are mediocre and everything seems rough around the edges. As said, Outcast – Second Contact is as faithful to the original game as possible.”
Same bulletspongy enemies same save system?
The enemies are bullet-spongy unless you don’t do the quests to weaken them.
do you still save with the crystal?
Saving with the crystal prevents save scumming throug difficult situations
Exactly, and using the crystal actually attracts enemies in your immediate surroundings.
Haven’t played the original but in this version there is also auto-save, not sure exactly what triggers it. Feels like it saves like every 5 minutes or so.
And enemies go down quite fast when you do headshots. Thou by default there is this auto-aim that locks on enemies, but that always hit body and takes lot of bullets.
BUT even with that starting pistol you can shoot as fast as you can click. So really when you line headshot and quickly click few times, Enemy is dead.
THey even re-used the old low quality voice overs
this doesn’t look like a polished remaster…
kinda reminds me of fable anniversary
where they took an Xbox game and remastered into an early 360 game
though unlike this lazy POS it had remastered audio and slightly better visuals
come to think of it, it also had “microtransaction grade” DLC
where the bonus added content is hidden behind a paywall (though i’m a genius, i bought the pack, purchased all the items in-game and then refunded it, i still had all the items in my inventory, Screw microscam)
not sure about this game but judging from the intro alone, it’s not the remaster i was looking for
dont even remember original game must have..just missed it
Always wanted to play this , Maybe I will this time.
I have a Sandy Bridge i7, the game runs well on it.
Well, it really depends on what you think is acceptable honestly. In 1.1 I get a 100% smooth 60 fps in 720p (the resolution the game was optimized for, you shouldn’t go higher and 1080p is not really an option), in Second Contact you won’t get a smooth 60 in 1080p. The game is very CPU limited when it comes to handling the NPCs so for example in Talanzaar or at scenes where there are a lot of NPCS on screen you’ll see fps in the 40s.
So basically the game runs better than Outcast 1.1 did in 1080p but not better than how it did in 720p. Because of the CPU bottleneck I aimed for a solid 30 fps and that is something Second Contact will give you 100% of the time. Also the game is pretty light on the GPU so on my GTX 970 I completed the game in 2620×1880 and never saw the fps going below 30.
So yep, lock it 30 and use freesync.
As for the engine stuff it’s a bit complicated: the game is running on Unity alright but for the game functions it runs the original game (or more like a form of the original engine) in the background as a Unity plugin. Also Unity can be CPU bound anyway, even other Unity games like Oddworld: New n Tasty rely heavily on the CPU.