Whenever we get a game to do a preview, we usually sit down with it for a few hours to get a feel for it. When we received an early copy of Outcast, developed by Appeal and published by Infogrames, we ended up playing for seven hours straight, without breakfast, and that was only the first day.
Outcast is a mixture of first person shooting, third person puzzles, problem solving, social interaction, and much much more, all in the totally new and lifelike world of Adelpha. You are Cutter Slade, an elite military commando blessed with ample talent in the field of sarcasm. You have been sent to escort a team of scientists whose job it is to save the Earth from an experiment gone wrong. This is all explained in a well-rendered and pleasantly long introductory movie. It's one of the best we've seen. Unfortunately for Cutter but fortunately for game play, your mission goes wrong from the very start.
We don't like to give away details which can ruin the game, so we'll only give you the basics. You start out poorly armed in a strange unfamiliar world filled with aliens who basically think you're the messiah. You've got to get your team back together, and help them fix the experiment which went awry and thereby save the Earth. In the process, there are many adventures you'll have, all of which have an effect on future play. Some missions raise your status with friends, and thereby gain you help. Others weaken your enemies in future battles. All the ones we've seen are fun and interesting.
The puzzle types we've seen include tasks like running errands, killing enemies, retrieving lost items, finding information, solving puzzles, stealing items, sneaking about, and talking to various people to gain information. And that is all in the first major section of the game. This brings up another great aspect of Outcast. It's huge! You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts compared to Outcast. And it's varied as well. The excellent dialogue, varied stories, and many kinds of play keep you interested. No game in recent history has such a plethora of activities. We're talking a veritable cornucopia of fun!
