by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
… likely to disappoint all but the most forgiving and tolerant of fanboys.
The Star Wars franchise is an odd, ungainly beast these days. To be fair, that’s been the case for some time now. Aside from the original trilogy, released 1977-1983, Rogue One and the superb Andor series, the franchise has given us a lot of content of… erm, variable quality. Perhaps it’s because Star Wars works better as a world to inhabit rather than a story to tell. That’s certainly the hope of developers Massive Entertainment (The Division, The Division 2) with their brand spanking new open world game, Star Wars Outlaws. And, you can now buy Star Wars Outlaws at cheapest prices.
Star Wars Outlaws is the story of amiable wannabe scoundrel Kay Vess and her adorable alien critter companion Nix. After running into a spot of bother with a new underworld boss, Kay scarpers into the wider galaxy, taking on jobs for various criminal factions and trying to avoid the attention of the Imperial forces and anyone who wants to do her harm.
In gameplay terms, Star Wars Outlaws feels a bit like the original Watch Dogs from 2014. That was another Ubisoft title where you were something of a scoundrel, sneaking around and flogging things that don’t belong to you. Outlaws, unlike Watch Dogs, however, features very few gadgets or abilities to assist in said sneaking. Nix can be used to distract or attack guards, you can stealth clobber unaware enemies and use your blaster to send a knockout pulse that then takes yonks to recharge. It’s not an impressive range of tricks and feels doubly restrictive in the frequent missions where being caught results in game over and a forced restart at the last checkpoint.
Disappointingly, the “just go in guns blazing” option is equally unimpressive. You have precisely one weapon, a slick little blaster pistol that can be upgraded with other firing modes but ultimately feels like a handgun with “pew pew” sound effects. Certainly, you can pick up other weapons like blasters and sniper rifles, but Kay will automatically drop these useful additions any time she climbs or hops on her vehicle. Oh, and that’s vehicle singular too. You get the one speeder bike, that can be upgraded, but forget about stealing other vehicles or riding alien quadrupeds, apparently Kay is deeply monogamous when it comes to travel options.
All of these many shortcomings might have been forgivable if Star Wars Outlaws felt good to play but it just doesn’t. The animation is stiff and janky, the shooting never feels quite right and the hand to hand combat is floaty and unconvincing. This combines with an unforgivable degree of launch bugginess that actually makes the Outlaws experience borderline unpleasant at times.
On the plus side, the world is great to look at and walk around in. There’s not a hell of a lot of interesting things to do, and it’s hardly a revelatory expansion of the open world formula, but it feels authentically Star Wars. The story too, while not mind-blowing, is an effective enough vehicle for decent story missions that those who still hold a candle for adventures set in a galaxy far, far away might get something out of.
The premise of a Star Wars open world video game was one dripping with buckets of potential. Hell, focusing on a scoundrel rather than another magical space virgin wizard was inspired too. However, the actual execution of Star Wars Outlaws is so pedestrian, so surface level, that it can’t help but feel a bit bland, dated and ordinary. There are some decent moments here and there, but ultimately Star Wars Outlaws is likely to disappoint all but the most forgiving and tolerant of fanboys.
