I’d heard about Outlaws for many years, usually people that played back in the day tended to wax poetic about it. I finally got the chance to play it back in 2020 or so. I have to say that while I wasn’t completely enamored with the game, I was fascinated in a few ways. First off I adore the score and the many Ennio Morricone motifs in it, as well as the phenomenal for the era cutscenes, an audio-visual treat and major upgrade over Full Throttle, The Dig and Dark Forces in the way they were animated and also much better compressed.
As far as the game goes, I felt it truly belonged in 1997. Vast open spaces with vertical traversal, similar to Jedi Knight at times. I enjoyed levels like that, those set in towns less so. I think Outlaws may have played great in multiplayer, there’s something to be said about its reload mechanic, I can see how it would have led to stressful moment-to-moment combat. I believe it’s also one of the first to implement scoped weapons in the way that it does.
Gripes? Well, ammo and health pickups can be a bit scarce at times and the enemies can take you down fairly easily. It’s really more a pop’n’shoot kind of FPS, you’re not expected to get far if you just rush things.
I had a good time with it overall, I’m sure I would have adored it at the time!
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