A Review of Outlander: Cool Idea…Cruel Game…
Er…yeah! This is totally in Outlander! This is, uh, that sight you see after that part where… you, uh, survive…
Year: 1992 (Genesis), 1993 (SNES) // Publishers & Developer; Mindscape // Genre: Action/Driving
>>> Starting over in a post-apocalyptic world. That is nothing we have not heard before, but it was something of a novel idea to try out in a video game. Released for the Sega Genesis in 1992 and ported to the Super Nintendo one year later, Outlander pits your lone tough guy up against a desolate world populated mainly by angry biker gangs and vengeful helicopter pilots. Wow…there is a lot of people alive in fact, and for some reason they happen to be bikers…or own access to some serious transportation. Who in their right mind has the sense to form a helicopter posse just to kill one guy? Then again, what makes sense in the post-apocalypse any way?
I wonder where that part is where I have fun.
Game play consists largely of long-winded driving sequences broken up by side-scrolling portions in which your survivor leaves his car in order to explore towns or beat up hoodlums to collect ammo, health, and gas. The Genesis and SNES versions differ largely in their perspective. The SNES version features a third-person point-of-view with your main guy looking a tad more intimidating in his angry sunshades. The Genesis, however, utilizes an in-car cam and minimizes your view of the character only to side-scrolling levels and death scenes. The graphics in the Genesis version are also a little more fleshed out with a slightly stronger emphasis on making you feel trapped in this cruel, new world.
So the whole idea of traveling the world after a nuclear or biological disaster via video game is to me the awesomest thing next to killing snakes with a machine gun-toting rabbit (although I am sure there is a game out there like it, be it mainstream or indie…). But seriously! To have something like this on a 16-bit system…that’s pretty phenomenal! Who would have thought that you did not have to wait until the Fallout series to simulate a lifelike scenario where you’re stranded amongst strangers who have been reduced to their primitive instincts? Suddenly you need to search for answers! You need to find survivors and search for means of rebuilding! You need to–
–oh, wait, all you really do in Outlander is drive…
SNES version says hi…
…and in establishing a post-apocalyptic setting, it does a phenomenally horrible job…
Genesis version says “just bikers and desert…no disaster here…”
In this world, you have to veer around a carefully assembled batch of road blocks that have been strewn across the highway for miles…and miles…and miiiiiles…
Seriously! Who…would take the time…to set up ROAD blocks…when people would be ON THE ROAD in a desperate attempt to escape their fate before the disaster occurred?
Bikers? Please! They are the least of your concern! How about you stay on the road and avoid those road blocks! Because in this world reduced to chaos, they are your BIGGEST concern! Well, that and ammo.
I noticed that the game provides you limited ammunition, which makes sense, since the common concern that protagonists in post-apocalyptic books and films share is running out of supplies. This part, I had decided after lengthy self-debate, was done rather well. Sure, it stinks when you’re fighting enemies on the road and you can’t shoot anymore, or that you try to fire your gun on thugs in the walking levels and no bullets leave the nozzle. That sucks. But what I found is that you can go through most of the game without having to use your weapon. You are not required to kill enemies in the driving sequences, and as long as you know how to duck in the side-scrolling stages, then all you have to do is wait for bikers and foot-soldiers to approach your crouched form and punch them to death. The AI therefore feels horribly under-used.
They appear intimidating at first, but once you discover the secret to avoiding and/or killing them, then they are a big, fat joke! Granted, the explosive helicopters and grenades that some bikers launch are enough to pose a viable threat to your life bar. Also, if you take enough hits and die, then it is BACK to the beginning! No extra lives, no continues. Just game over…
Oh, but hey! There IS a password system on the Genesis…when it decides to show up… My eyes may have been deceiving me, but sometimes a menu shows up allowing you to toggle Sound and BGM and enter a password for a later section. However, there have been times when the screen popped up and all it said was “Press Start.” O….kay??? Why are there even two title screens?! And how come they show up sporadically? What’s that all about?
There are also some huge discrepancies between the two versions that make both of them miserable to play. On the Super Nintendo, driving levels take far longer to complete than the already lengthy stretches on the Genesis. This would be okay if the stretches were interesting, but they are…not. It is desert upon desert where your only company consists of roadblocks, bikers, cacti, rocks, and choppers. It is just a monotonous road of driving broken up only by leaving your vehicle on monotonous walks to monotonously farm for fuel and health to continue this monotonous game. The Genesis version, while a little more polished in the driving stages, does away with a clear life meter. You can only make out your health while you’re out of the car. The Super Nintendo features a life bar in its third-person driving sequences, but that is the only way in which it improved upon Sega’s formula. Thanks for trying…
Just crouch, and everything will be all right…
Movement flat-out bothers me. In the side-scrolling stages, you can dash for a split-second, but then just…stop–as if a wall had reached out and blocked you. Another problem is you can be running and suddenly stop over a land mine, which obliterates a quarter of your health. Shooting is a bit delayed but ultimately rendered a moot point by your broken-tiered punches. Pacing is sluggish and part of the reason that it takes forever to complete each section. Also, in the driving sequences, the Genesis requires that you fire all of your weapons simultaneously with one button (C). Although you are primarily using the machine gun on your car (with the gun’s fire barely registering on-screen as white smoke and thin lines), windows will appear in the bottom left and right-hand corners of your perspective to allow you to fire at bikers approaching you from the side.
SNOOOOORE!
The Super Nintendo did a nice job in separating the two control schemes (although its machine gun fire is even harder to see as it takes effect), but on the Genesis, this is the dilemma: If you are concentrating on smoking the hooligans in front of you with your railgun, but the side-screens pop up, then while you are firing your machine gun, you will also fire off a few handgun rounds wasting ammunition for your side-arm. On the flip side if you are concentrating on shooting bikers out your window, then you have no choice but to waste your machine gun fire. Did I mention you are already low on bullets to begin with? Pro tip: Don’t shoot things while driving.
Outlander is not truly about surviving a world gone to the dogs after an apocalypse. Outlander is Out Run with guns…which are few and far between. It should have been titled Out Run Because You’re Out-Gunned. This game shames me for using one of American society’s most intriguing hypothetical situations in getting people to play it. It is a waste of time. No, seriously. This is a disappointing view of what life would look like after a catastrophic event that wiped out most of human civilization. I do not think anyone had out-running bikers in mind when thinking of the most pressing horrors one would face in a post-apocalypse. Well, anyone not including Mindscape…
CHIC Factor
Challenge: 3/10 (SNES and Genesis): You just keep driving and farming for gas, driving and farming for gas, and you stop at the occasional town–not to mention the enemies are either nearly impossible to avoid or way too easy to dispatch. No lives or continues is also ridiculous.
Handling: 3/10 (Genesis): If the controls were to be tolerable in Sega’s playthrough, then the brake button would have been subbed out for an alternate command for the machine gun on your vehicle. That way, you are not hitting “C” to use two weapons when you just wanted to fire with one, wasting ammo for the other. Also running in the walking segments is extremely atrocious for how it just stops you dead in your tracks once you have dashed for a chunk of seconds; 4/10 (SNES): Although the controls are much better laid out for the Super Nintendo, pacing was still extremely sluggish and the walking sections were not much better. Segments also dragged out a bit longer, and it was hard to note the impact of your machine gun.
Innovation: 6/10 (SNES and Genesis): Oh, it is innovative because it is set during the post-apocalypse, you say? It focuses on a different style of play, you say? Well, while the premise was stellar, the use of gameplay in following up that theme was lackluster. It is a combination of driving and side-scrolling beat ‘em up/shoot ‘em up…only, both forms of play are highly uninspired.
Core Experience: 4/10 (Genesis): No health display during driving sequences? What’s that all about?! While the aesthetics are visually attractive, they do nothing to convey the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic setting. It does not help that the game was set in a desert, which is normally devoid of life, apocalypse or no apocalypse; 3/10 (SNES): Although the SNES did improve on the Genesis formula by including a life meter during the driving sections, those same sections were pointlessly stretched out even more, and the aesthetics were far more jagged and less appealing than they were for Sega’s version.
OVERALL (both versions): 4/Has Serious Issues: The Genesis version looks better, but the SNES plays better. But when everything is ultimately taken into consideration, neither version of Outlander is worth your time. This is a sloppily executed driving/shooting game marketed as post-apocalyptic game when it was anything but. If you like it when things happen while you play, then search elsewhere on both the Genesis and the SNES for higher entertainment. Seriously. Play Sonic, Streets of Rage, Alcahest, EarthBound…heck, even Golden Axe II and Super Alfred Chicken would suffice over this pretender!
About the Author
Nichomaxwell Nichomaxwell is a reporter for the Northern Neck News in Warsaw, Virginia. When he's not writing newspaper articles, he's driving around in his unreliable SUV to see people or playing a new or old videogame. Although once the "review machine" on the site, NM has shifted his interests to feature stories, "did-you-know's" and editorials for TG.TV.
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