The Outer Worlds is proving to be decent nostalgia bait for those of us who still have fond memories of Fallout: New Vegas (and in particular, its Old World Blues DLC) even if it lacks a distinct voice of its own. There are many additional pros and cons that have been delighting and irritating me in about equal measure, though, so I thought I’d list them as a way of figuring out why I’m still so underwhelmed by what this game has to offer.

Pro: There don’t appear to be plot-crucial characters, so you can run wild

When Bethesda took the reins of the Fallout series with Fallout 3, they couldn’t come up with a plan for handling the possibility of plot-crucial characters being killed, so they simply made them invincible. You had much more freedom in the original games—and in older RPGs in general—so it’s refreshing that The Outer Worlds doesn’t give any of its characters invincibility. If you can’t be bothered with a sidequest or simply hate a faction, there’s nothing stopping you from wiping it out wholesale. This makes the gameplay far more appealing for anyone looking to play as a chaotic neutral character. You can lose party members if you kill NPCs important to them, though, and killing everyone in an area means missing out on potentially interesting sidequests. Strangely enough, I’ve found myself avoiding violence far more than in Fallout games because of this.

Con: The Outer Worlds‘ enemies are either tissue paper or damage sponges

I managed to steamroll my way through every combat encounter for the first 10 or so hours without ever being in any real danger, and that’s before I bothered looking into companions’ special attacks. Then I reached an area called Monarch and was suddenly barely scratching enemies. Even with quality armor and weapons, my allies were constantly being knocked unconscious during combat. The Outer Worlds‘ combat isn’t great; the same floatiness that exists in modern Fallout games is present here, but the V.A.T.S. system has been replaced with a bullet-time slowdown system. The biggest difference between the two is that V.A.T.S. automatically locks on to the nearest enemy while The Outer Worlds‘ slowdown doesn’t, meaning you can’t use it to find enemies pelting you with ranged attacks while hiding in nearby foliage. The combat is just blah.

Pro: Pickpocketing takes time, making stealing a more interesting process

Rather than pickpocketing being instant, it takes a second or more to complete, during which time nearby NPCs become temporarily hostile and rely on The Outer Worlds‘ Dishonored-inspired detection system to determine whether they notice you or not. Basically, that means that you can pickpocket someone even when another NPC has a direct line of sight. Their distance from you and how quickly you can pickpocket are both factors, obviously, so good timing and planning can make it possible to steal from NPCs who are standing out in the open. It’s a fun system.

Con: Talking your way out of consequences still impacts your relationships

When you’re caught stealing, you’re given the option to offer a bribe to the person who caught you and avoid being attacked, while those with high dialogue skills can choose to persuade or intimidate their way out of the situation instead. Whatever route you go, your standing with a faction is negatively impacted. It makes no sense for the entire faction relationship to be negatively impacted if you talk or bribe your way out of it. Especially since the NPCs who catch you tend to say something about how you’re okay or trustworthy afterward.

Con: Factions are inexplicably psychic, and that’s really dumb and game-y

Killing a member of a faction causes their opinion of you to go down (or to be more accurate, it causes your “dislike” bar with them to go up, which is separate from how much they like you for some reason). That’s fine, but it shouldn’t be possible for the faction to know what you did if you shot someone in a cave and no one else was around to notice. One of the things I really liked about Fallout 4 was how you could sneak around and use silenced weapons to take out NPCs without changing their allies’ opinion of you. It really allowed you to feel like some kind of deep-cover hitman. Magically psychic factions serve no purpose other than making you worry about your faction standing every time you fight someone.

Con: There are too many invisible walls and way too much fall damage

I’ve run out of pros already but have about 10 more flaws ranging from performance/visual/audio bugs to the frequency and length of The Outer Worlds‘ loading screens, so I’m going to go ahead and end with this con rather than rambling on for another 800 words: there’s almost no exploration off the beaten path. Bethesda’s Fallout games are undeniably imperfect, but they offer players the freedom to climb mountains and otherwise explore every nook and cranny of its game world. The Outer Worlds‘ seemingly climbable rocks are covered in invisible walls, though, and you’ll quickly learn that trying to ascend things that look climbable is an exercise in frustration. Not only will you not find a shortcut to wherever you’re trying to go, but you’re liable to slip off of an invisible wall and maintain your momentum as you fall, either dying from fall damage or losing a significant chunk of health in the process. You’re forced to follow The Outer Worlds‘ paths instead of freely exploring.

To its credit, enemies don’t respawn, so you’re not constantly dealing with the same enemies every time you move from point A to point B. It’s not always obvious which path you’re supposed to take to reach certain areas (most notably Devil’s Peak), though, so you can find yourself wandering around looking for some barely-noticeable turn that’s one of only a couple entrances not blocked off by invisible walls. I don’t like that at all.

Two things I like about The Outer Worlds and four things I hate first appeared on Killa Penguin