When I first reviewed Out There I was a little sour about it being mobile only, to the extent that I looked into options for running Android apps on desktop OSes. Now the developers have released a free update in the form of Omega Edition, which brings the game to Windows, Mac and Linux along with extra content and a variety of improvements. The game was always going to work well on the desktop, there’s little about it that is touch-screen specific and even the interface isn’t horribly touch-centric and scales very well. It’s worth noting that whilst Omega Edition is a separate release on the desktop OSes it is a free full update for mobile devices.
The fundamentals of the game remain much the same as before, whilst on a long mission in cryo-stasis below the speed of light, something happens and you end up far from home… out there. Then your task is to use a newly acquired faster than light jumping technology to go from star system to star system, playing through events and managing resources. This has not been made any easier and much like FTL, you will fail many times. That’s part of the appeal and with the additional content that’s been added to the game, there’s a great deal more to find. Drawing from the website it would appear that there are new aliens, space ships and a new ending (I’ve yet to manage even one!). There are also apparently 50 new interactive stories, which probably means that you aren’t likely to come across repeated content any time soon. In short, this update represents a huge addition to what was already a pretty big game.
Another point of improvement is a new rendering engine, which combined with the already awesome art and general aesthetic makes the game look even better. I seriously like the look of the game, and I think it was, in this case, necessary effort. The danger in a game such is this is the essentially menu based gameplay which could well be dull if refined down to its barest elements, however that isn’t the case here as the brilliant art and new rendering engine give life and a certain visual essence to the stories at the heart of the game. It’s not often that I place such importance on the aesthetic of a game, however I think that here the core of the game has the potential to be quite dry, which is in no way intended as a slight against the writing but it’s just that this is essentially a text-based adventure with resource management. Giving that text-based adventure a wonderful aesthetic with interesting landscape art, creative aliens and pleasantly rendered planets puts flesh on the bones of the game.
The update will have been applied automatically to existing mobile versions of the game, so if you own Out There and haven’t played with it for a while, then I would recommend jumping back in and seeing some of the new stuff! If you’re still new then the mobile version cost varies according to platform, however they are all pretty reasonable across the board. The Steam version is a little more pricey coming in at £7.00 (approx $11.00), however this is pretty regular pricing for a well fleshed out indie game on desktop platforms so it’s pretty fair. Basically, it’s worth what they’re asking for it, absolutely. This is a great little, pick up and play for a bit game, ideal for breaks or train journeys and the like as the chances are you won’t have a particularly long journey anyway.
Out There: Omega Edition website with Humble Widget which is my recommendation:
Out There: Omega Edition on Steam
http://store.steampowered.com/app/334420/
Out There: Omega Edition on Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miclos.google.games.outthere
Out There: Omega Edition on the Amazon App Store:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/dl/android?p=com.miclos.amazon.games.outthere
Out There: Omega Edition on the App Store: