Outcast (video game)
| Outcast | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Developer(s) | Appeal |
| Publisher(s) |
Infogrames (Europe) Infogrames I*Motion (North America) |
| Distributor(s) | Fresh3D |
| Director(s) | Franck Sauer Yves Grolet Yann Robert |
| Producer(s) | Olivier Masclef Sébastien Brison Jean-Yves Patay Olivier Goulay |
| Designer(s) | Renaud Dauchel Douglas Freese Catherine Marechal |
| Composer(s) |
Lennie Moore Sean Hickey William Stromberg |
| Engine | GAIA |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | August 31, 1999 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Outcast is an action-adventure video game developed by Belgian developer Appeal and released by Infogrames for Windows in 1999. The game was critically acclaimed, for instance it was named the "Adventure Game of the Year" by GameSpot in 1999. In 2001 an Appeal developed sequel, called Outcast II: The Lost Paradise, was never finished due to bankruptcy. In 2010 the game was re-released into the digital distribution on gog.com. In 2014 Outcast was released again as HD remake after the original developers acquired the franchise's IP again.
The player controls the protagonist Cutter Slade around the alien world of Adelpha in a third-person or first-person view, and only uses two mouse buttons; The right mouse button aims the player's weapon, and the other is context-sensitive (For example, standing in front of an NPC makes the mouse button initiate conversation, while running around has the mouse button make Cutter jump). The player can walk, run, jump, crawl, and climb onto virtually any ledge Cutter can reach with a jump.
Aside from the tutorial area, the player is free to move to any region of Adelpha as they please through the travel gates known as Daokas. The player can drop teleport beacons from the F-LINK gadget to instantly move between areas inside a region, but these beacons do not work between regions. The player can also acquire a Twon-Ha (a beast of burden that can be ridden), which makes traversing the vast regions much quicker, either by simply buying one or doing certain quests that reward the player with one.
A large part of the game focuses on conversing with the friendly aliens known as the Talan in order to learn the story and history of Adelpha, and to progress in Cutter's mission to find the probe. While this can all be skipped, they treat the player differently depending on how the player treats them, through a reputation system; If the player perform many tasks to help them, they like them more and are more eager to help, whereas if the player does things that harm them they will become more and more angry with the player and aggressively dismiss them. There are multiple variations of dialogues which are selected either randomly or based on the player's reputation.
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Wikipedia