Outpost (computer game)
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| Outpost | |
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| Developer(s) | Sierra On-Line |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra On-Line |
| Release date(s) | 1994 (PC) |
| Genre(s) | Strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A (Kids to Adults) |
| Platform(s) | Windows 3.1x, Macintosh |
| Media | CD-ROM |
Outpost is a video game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. The game was noteworthy for having a hard science fiction approach, without standard science fiction technologies like faster than light travel, force fields, cloaking devices or teleporters. Outpost was developed with input from a NASA scientist, to verify technical details of gameplay features.
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[edit] Story
A massive asteroid named Vulcan's Hammer is detected to be on a collision course with Earth, and all attempts to divert it from this path have failed. The last attempt, firing a large nuclear warhead at the asteroid, actually ended up splitting it not into five chunks as humanity hoped, but rather two asteroids. Now, instead of simply wiping out nearly all life on Earth's surface, Earth will actually be destroyed.
Extinction is not an option, and so a mission is organized to create a colony on a world elsewhere in the galaxy as the last hope for mankind's survival. The player is in charge of that mission.
[edit] Gameplay
Gameplay starts with the player choosing what equipment they choose to bring to the colony and choosing a site for the future colony. Once this is done, gameplay shifts to the colony screen, where the player can organise research and other day-to-day colony tasks.
The colonists land on the planet of the user's choice, where they must build many different buildings to keep Earth's colonists alive. A hostile rebel colony attempts to become the dominant faction in the game. Although there is no battle in Outpost, there are battle units in Outpost 2.
[edit] Technical details
Outpost was released simultaneously for DOS and Windows 3.1, and was also released for the Macintosh. It made heavy use of pre-rendered 3D graphics. For DOS and Windows, the game required a PC with an Intel 386 (25 MHz) or better CPU, 4 MB RAM, and 5 MB of hard drive space.
[edit] Expansion packs and other related games
No expansion packs were created for Outpost, but a sequel was created: Outpost 2: Divided Destiny. The only update for Outpost 1 was Outpost 1.5 which included bug fixes.
[edit] Bugs and exploits
Outpost can sometimes end abruptly, as players who choose the wrong star system in the beginning can find him/herself in a star system with no inhabitable planets.
Sometimes, players will find the colonists on the planet dying en masse unexpectedly, thus causing the game to end when everyone has died. The colonists' death rate during this occurrence is one of exponential growth, following the equation 2^n, where n is the number of turns passed since the widespread death bug began.
The algorithm to calculate recyclable resources was also exploitable. If one built enough residential units, the resulting recyclables produced by the colony would be more than the resources going into the colony.
The game files contain information for several buildings which are not available during gameplay. This was a result of cutbacks made by the game's developers due to a rushed release date.
A player cannot build a working mass driver, as the option to create the rail is nonexistent.
[edit] Critical reaction
Initial reviews of Outpost were enthusiastic about the game. Most notoriously, the American version of PC Gamer rated the game at 93%, one of its highest ratings ever for the time. It was later made known that the reviewers had in fact played beta versions of the game, and had been promised certain features would be implemented, but never were.
Indeed, many of the features described in the game's own documentation simply did not exist in the game at all. These included the ability to enter diplomatic relations with the rebel colony and the ability to build roads, among other things. Many of these gameplay aspects were later patched in, though in appearance only, as many of them failed to have any meaningful effect on gameplay.
Following the release of the game, the game's general bugginess and perceived mediocre gameplay, along with the lack of features described in most of the game's reviews and the game's own documentation led to a minor backlash against the computer game magazines of the time by consumers who bought the game based on their reviews.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Outpost Universe - The Outpost-Universe is a community for the Outpost series games by Sierra/Dynamix. This community is still active as of mid 2006.
- Outpost at MobyGames
