It was 2014 when the Mi-Clos Studio launched the first Out There, a sci-fi game that brought the interstellar adventure to Android and iOS that fascinated half a million female gamers. Eight years and a few spin-offs later, the French studio returns with a direct sequel to the first title, namely Out There: Oceans of Time.
It is not easy to insert Out There: Oceans of Time (as well as its predecessors) in a very specific category, since the game blends elements of interplanetary exploration seasoned by a narrative framework with management phases with a strong survival component, interspersing everything with sessions. more of a roguelike matrix.
After the success of the first title, Mi-Clos Studio has chosen to raise the bar by hiring highly respected professionals, including new entries and well-known names. In Oceans of Time, the composer of the first game, Siddhartha Barnhoorn, returns as Benjamin Carré (Alone in the Dark, Transformers: Age of Extinction) makes his debut as illustrator and even Christos Gage, the screenwriter of the Netflix adaptation of Daredevil. and of the video game Marvel’s Spider-Man, to the dialogues. There is plenty of meat on the fire but will it be able to satisfy the palate of the loyal fans of Out There?
In the first moments of the game we find ourselves catapulted into a future in which the Sun has gone out forcing humans to migrate on orbiting arks. Multiple forms of alien life now flock to the universe, including cubic deities who control and regulate it. But the Archon, an evil demi-god, is determined to subvert the cosmic order and conquer the civilizations scattered across space.
It is in this scenario that the adventure of Nyx and Sergeï begins, two humans who personally suffer an attack by the Archon that forces them to abandon their spaceship in emergency capsules and in a state of cryogenic sleep. After 100 years, the two awaken on an unknown planet with only one question to torment them: how to track down and defeat the Archon?
In an attempt to retrace the steps of what happened to collect clues to the Archon’s position, we will help Nyx and Sergeï orient themselves in a cosmic map dotted with solar systems towards the objective of the main storyline, exploring sidereal space far and wide to complete the missions that unfold in the course of the adventure.
The phases of exploration on the cosmic map alternate with roguelike moments when we land on planets that can be visited. Once set foot on alien soil, our team will have to juggle to achieve a variable goal depending on the type of planet, such as visiting an alien village or finding a particular type of resource useful for sustenance.
During our wanderings we will find a vast typology of spacecraft (which is not uncommon to find abandoned in some remote orbit) which we can take possession of in search of a larger hold, which can contain a greater number of resources and technological tools (essential to access hostile planets) as well as increased crew capacity, creating space to recruit new team members to join over the course of missions.
As in Out There, even in Oceans of Time the fighting is completely absent: the real enemy is nature. Between poisonous spores, hostile terrains, unbreathable atmospheres and desolate plains, the toughest challenge of all is to survive.
Given the precariousness of the condition of the protagonists and of the entire human race, every minute in the world of Out There: Oceans of Time is a continuous struggle for life. There are four parameters that we will have to continually keep an eye on: fuel, oxygen, spacecraft strength and crew morale. If any of the first three indicators reach zero, the game will end and you will need to start over or from the last available save.
To avoid running into this situation, we will have to collect the resources necessary for the maintenance of the spacecraft in the different planets where a specific type of useful materials is hidden. For example, in the rocky planets we will find iron useful to restore the resistance of our vehicle, while it will be possible to extract helium and hydrogen from the gaseous planets to increase fuel supplies.
Within the adventure you will also come across civilized planets, where pristine nature has been tamed by arcane alien species that can prove to be of vital help in our adventures. However, there is a “small” problem: they only speak their incomprehensible language.
And if we don’t have in the team a character originally from that planet or a xenolinguist, predisposed to the interpretation of alien languages, it will be almost impossible to decipher the dialogues. And in this case we will have to rely on luck to choose the correct option, hoping not to annoy our interlocutor too much.
In our astral wanderings it will happen to come across sporadic storage stations that allow us to save progress. And we will need it badly, considering what it means to repeatedly move from one part of the cosmos to another …
To carry out any action it is necessary to consume resources at our disposal. So to progress towards each solar system (and consequently towards the goal of the story) we will need a quantity of fuel, oxygen and resistance that varies according to its distance from our position. But what we will find inside it is a surprise.
Imagine running out of fuel and needing to find a gaseous planet at all costs. We enter a first solar system, where however there are only rocky planets, then into another one containing only planets with trees … and it’s game over in the blink of an eye.
As in the first iteration of the series, luck plays a fundamental role within Out There: Oceans of Time. In addition to the randomness with which the planets are generated, we also find a good dose of randomness in the narrative sector.
The storytelling of the game mainly unfolds in long textual inserts that cannot fail to remember the words of a Dungeon Master when describing a scene during a Dungeons & Dragons session, or an old school text adventure. Thanks to the multiple choices there is a good deal of interactivity, in which, however, the case has a great impact.
While we are on the cosmic map, from time to time we come across textual pop-ups that place us in front of crossroads. By choosing some answers we can earn useful items or even cross mysterious passages that teleport the spacecraft to another segment of space. In other cases, the game will have no mercy: even if we are convinced that we have made the most plausible choice for our crew, we will risk losing a huge amount of precious resources (first of all fuel) or life points.
What follows is that the game over is always around the corner and the scarcity of save points makes the gaming experience often repetitive or frustrating similar to the previous chapters of Out There, as the community has often reproached the Mi-Clos Study. But what has the French production company learned from the first title in 2014?
The game’s layout has remained the same, renewing the formula that the Out There fanbase so much appreciates, but the graphical interface has significantly improved. The cartoon style is abandoned (at times incongruent with the setting and the tones of the game) in favor of a more exquisitely sci-fi graphics dotted with animated sequences and completed by a good soundtrack, which manages to make us immerse ourselves in the sci-fi atmosphere. of the vast universe. Overall, however, the game maintains a retro streak (especially in the 3D character models) that is more reminiscent of a game of yesteryear than a 2022 release.
Out There: Oceans of Time is a difficult game to swallow for those unfamiliar with the genre and requires some effort to avoid having to start the game over. It is recommended for fans of previous titles in the series, who certainly won’t be disappointed by the large amount of content inside.
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