Open Outcast

[Erkki]

Holy crap. http://www.openoutcast.org/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/18/mama-were-all-voxely-now-open-outcast/

I think there have been several failed community attempts to recreate Outcast as a mod for another game but looks like this one might be getting somewhere.

[Erkki]

Aargh... Have to download a whopping 6.5 GB to play it.

[brkl]

Is it a remake or a fan-made sequel?

[toblix]

This is awesome.

[Erkki]

Is it a remake or a fan-made sequel?

Fan made sequel.

[buemba]

That's pretty awesome.

Now if somebody made a sequel to the Tex Murphy games I'd be all set.

[Erkki]

I played through it. For a tech demo, I think it shows promise. Looks nice, though I had to turn the settings most of the way down. I just hope the content isn't indicative of what the actual game will be like:

- really stupid plot: We accidentally poisoned our only water source and we might all die now, but we are too lazy to do too much about it ourselves, so it's good you showed up and why don't you go fetch me some of the aforementioned water so I can sample it to create an antidote.

- fetch quest after fetch quest. only one fetch quest at a time. so completely linear

there are other issues but those are probably just technical stuff that will be worked out eventually.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Isn't that the amazing plot from the original Outcast? I could never get past those dull fetch missions.

And that astoundingly imaginative alien language they used: "Here, take this device. It captures your essence. We call it the Gaamsav." *thud*

[Erkki]

Isn't that the amazing plot from the original Outcast? I could never get past those dull fetch missions.

Well, yeah, I suppose it is. Maybe it was exaggerated purposely in this tech demo.

[gdf]

Outcast has just been released on GOG for six dollars and I downloaded it to my netbook.

Firstly, I'm very impressed so far. Secondly, voxels are awesome.

The only problem is that the music jumps forward through itself between two second segments and it's really fucking irritating, but I'm sure some fiddling with options and hardware sound acceleration levels will do the trick.

[Quanta]

Outcast! It's one of my all-time favourites. The soundtrack played by the moscow symphony orchestra alone makes this game a worthwile experience.

It's great that you can play the re-release on Windows 7 without problems. But a resolution enhancement is absolutely necessary as well. The limit of 512*384 was implemented because even high-end cpus (it was a Pentium III at 533 MHz or smth.) were struggling with the game. Today's common resolutions however wouldn't be a problem for modern CPUs.

[Erkki]

It's great that you can play the re-release on Windows 7 without problems. But a resolution enhancement is absolutely necessary as well. The limit of 512*384 was implemented because even high-end cpus (it was a Pentium III at 533 MHz or smth.) were struggling with the game. Today's common resolutions however wouldn't be a problem for modern CPUs.

From what I recall reading about their engine at the time, I think it's not a simple matter of upping the screen resolution. The voxel resolution was limited too, and used tiles to keep memory size smaller. It might not look that much better in higher res. Or I could be wrong.

I tried to find that info from the wayback machine, but the rendering tech. page is not there:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010407211856/www.appeal.be/research/rese_par.htm

[Erkki]

This didn't deserve a new thread, and this was the closest one to put it in: I'm glad RPS is so consistent in recognizing Outcast as the 57th most important PC game of all time.

[Erkki]

Back to topic, the Open Outcast team has released the second tech demo - Oasis 1.1 some time ago. I'm gonna take a look to see how it has improved.

[Roderick]

Wow, the Youtube movie looks REALLY good! They've managed to capture quite a lot of Outcast's essence, including (or perhaps because of) little details like the Talaan's pointing to mission objectives, and their voices. The soundtrack has some nice nudges toward Lennie Moore's original score. All I was missing was the electronic voice constantly stating the amount of minerals growing nearby.

This has gotten me quite longing for a real new Outcast again.

[Erkki]

Wow, the Youtube movie looks REALLY good!

This one?

u_XCfB-tq7E

[Roderick]

Yes!

[toblix]

Outcast was so fucking great.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow. That's a seriously impressive tech demo.

[Erkki]

Crap, apparently I don't have enough HD space to download the Crysis Wars Trial needed for this. Firefox seems to need TWICE the space that the file takes (one for the .part file). And I can't be bothered to try other downloaders. I gotta start building a new personal computation machine anyway, guess I will save it for that.

[Kolzig]

That video looks amazing!

This is one high quality fan sequel. Are they doing this just for free or is there some budget behind this.

I would pay for that, how come even the voice acting sounds pretty good quality?

[ThunderPeel2001]

I would pay for that, how come even the voice acting sounds pretty good quality?

I'm guessing it's ripped from the original game(?).

[Erkki]

I'm guessing it's ripped from the original game(?).

Cutter Slade is definitely not ripped, but I think the others are new recordings as well.

[Roderick]

It's all new voices and all the models have been (obviously) made anew as well. The game runs on the Crysis War engine, so I wouldn't go so far as to call it a 'tech demo', as the tech is the same as Crysis. As a, I don't know, proof of concept however, it's superb. This might seriously help these guys get some funds, possibly.

[Erkki]

This might seriously help these guys get some funds, possibly.

Hmm, don't know about that. Somebody probably still owns that IP?