Explain the Game and the Genre(S) That It Fits Into

COMP7970 – Assignment 3

Francisco Arcediano

Explain the game and the genre(s) that it fits into.

The game I selected is “Outlaws” and I chose it because I remember enjoying it very much back in its time and I only needed an excuse to play it again, and because I have the disks for the installation, and I remember the installation being really easy and fast.

It was published and developed by LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC and it was released in March 31, 1997 for the Windows 95 operative system (PC platform; there was a patch released for windows 98). The ESRB rating for the game was Teen and it was classified as an action game (i.e., the main focus of gameplay were actions, like movement, quick thinking, reflexes, etc.), as a 1-st person perspective (i.e., the game was displayed from a 1st-person perspective or view, from the viewer's own eyes), and as a shooter (i.e., the gameplay emphasis is on fast action and fast reflexes; mostly involving shooting things). Games combining these characteristics are commonly referred as 1st-person shooters or FPS.

The game was designed by Daron Stinnett, Stephen R. Shaw and Adam Schnitzer using an enhanced version of the “Jedi game” engine (first seen in “Star Wars: Dark Forces”). It received an award for Best Music (Computer Gaming World – 1997) and Best Story (PC Games – 1997).

It is one of the very few FPS games with a Wild West setting. You play James Anderson, a retired U.S. Marshal. When he comes home after a trip, he finds his wife murdered and his daughter kidnapped by an evil railroad baron named Bob Graham. To get her daughter back, Anderson hunts down each prominent member of Graham's gang of “Outlaws”. Anderson's quest takes him through old western towns, canyons, Spanish villas, moving trains, abandoned mines, finally leading to the huge and well guarded Graham's personal estate.

Compare this game to other games in its genre.

“Outlaws” graphic techniques were for most part an improvement from the popular 1-st person shooters of its time, and, as expected, they were rapidly surpassed with the new games taking advantage of the Windows 98 and following operative systems, hardware improvements (faster and more powerful microprocessors, 3D graphic cards, bigger memory and faster access to hard drive, etc.). The more popular competing games of its time were “Doom” (released in 1993), “Duke Nukem 3D” (released in 1996) and “Quake” (released in 1996). “Doom” and “Duke Nukem 3D” were not real 3D games, they used a restricted-view mathematical trick when rendering their 3-dimensional view (sometimes called 2.5D games). In this technique, overhanging elements are not possible. This is noticible in the lack of true so-called "room-over-room" situations (although Duke Nukem was quite successful working around this problem). “Outlaws” 3D engine was an improvement in the sense that all the environment was really 3D and the characters were moving in the 3 dimensions. However, the characters were not 3D models, but 2-dimensional sprites drawn on top of the 3D objects. “Quake” was more successful offering both 3D emvironments and 3D characters. Real 3D become more popular and a must have in the 1-st person shooter games that followed these ones.

What separates “Outlaws” from other 1-st person shooter games was not its gameplay (it was not more sophisticated than “Doom”, “Duke Nukem 3D”, etc.) or its 3D engine (it was slow, very fast outdated with the rush of the new technologies of its time), but the whole feeling of being immersed in the story, of being carried by strong motivations and emotions.

Why do people play this game? What makes it fun?

People who play this game do not do it because of the 3D graphic techniques they are going to encounter. Although the graphic engine was satisfactory at its time, it became very rapidly outdated. The gameplay, although very good, it did not set apart “Outlaws” from other good 1-st person shooter games. What made “Outlaws” enjoyable and very fun to play was the combination of gameplay, ambiance, and content. The story rapidly catches up on the player, immerses the player with emotions, and motivates to drive forward on the game.

Many people have criticized the use of 2-D dimensional sprites as characters. However, it makes the story more enjoyable because the personality given to each character is easily recognized and it gives a greater range of interaction. Hardly it could be possible to outline the characters with such personalities if they were drawn on the screen as 3D models. The environment (landscape, houses, etc), although truly 3D, was textured and drawn in such way that it helps the 2D characters to integrate and blend harmoniously, and the sprites are hardly noticed. Only when you look at the game from a technical point of view, the problems of integrating 3D objects with 2D sprites are noticeable; if you just play the game and let you immerse in it, you can hardly notice it. The immersion in the game is also greatly helped by the music, sound, and voices. The music accompanies you all the time and it is perfectly adjusted to the atmosphere of the game (setting emotions, anticipating problems, soothing emotions, etc.). The sound effects are also excellent. You can hear everything that happens around you (sounds of footsteps, distant voices, opening door, cows, chickens, shootings, windows being broken, etc.). The sounds are also used to set your emotions and being ready for what it could happen. The dialogues, although no very abundant, they are very well written and very convincingly spoken. They challenge you and help to set your emotions, too.

Another aspect it makes the game to be enjoyable is its realism compared with other games. The weapons are those of the time (fist, pistol, rifle, knife, shotgun, TNT, and gatling gun) and all of them have their advantages or disadvantages, according with its real specifications. In this game, you cannot find that ultimate weapon, good for all that blasts anything in front of you. Weapons also need to be manually reloaded and that takes time, so you have to watch out for how you use them. Another aspect that makes the game interesting is that not all characters you find are “bad guys”. You have innocent bystanders (specially when you go through a village or any other populated area) that you should not shoot (it takes your health away if you hurt them). Thus, you have to make sure you do not shoot on first sight, and strategy becomes more relevant than in other 1-st person shooter games.

How was computer technology (e.g. graphics, AI, animation) used to make this game more fun? Did the lack of or excessive use of technology ever hurt the playability of the game?

"“Outlaws”" was released at a time when 3D acceleration was still uncommon and only very high-end graphic cards supported 3D capabilities; thus, in the original version there was not Direct 3D support. The first generation of players did not care specially about this lack of graphic support and enjoy the game. The popular 1-st person shooter games of the time were “Doom”, “Duke Nukem 3D”, and “Quake” and they were not more advanced than “Outlaws” for the most part. However, “Outlaws” came at a time of fast technological change, and new generation of players expected games taking advantage of the new microprocessors (Pentium II and III), operative systems (Windows 98), and new graphic cards boosting real 3D modeling, and they considered “Outlaws” (as well as “Doom”, “Duke Nukem 3D”, and “Quake”) as outdated games and uninteresting without ever playing them. Although “Outlaws” was considered a game of cult for many players, it never had time to get the popularity of the other games that were being played for longer time.

Another problem came with the popularity of multiplayer play. Although “Outlaws”’ multiplayer capabilities were very acceptable for its time, it became less and less compatible with newer versions of Microsoft Windows, and it was not able to rise to the expectations of the new more massive multiplayer capabilities of new released games.

What did your classmate think of the game? Did he enjoy learning the game? How long did it take your trainee to get good enough at the game to have fun? What aspects of the game did your classmate find easy to learn or confusing?

The game was hard to play because there were too many characters to learn.

It was fun but she wished she had a greater choice of weapons. It was hard not to have automatic weapons. Being out of ammunition in the worst moment and being killed because she was fast enough reloading the weapon was not fun for her.

She had fun enjoying the voices from the characters, and how engaging the story and the characters were.

She enjoyed learning the game. It was fun for her to get good at shooting with an old fashioned gun. She loved that there were a lot of places to hide and it was able to ambush the “bad guy” characters. She enjoyed that the characters had different personalities and their behaviors were consistent with their personalities.

It took her about 30 minutes of uninterrupted gaming to get good enough at the game to have fun. And the aspects of the game she found easier to learn were how to move in the environment, how to get in and out of buildings, and how to use props in the environment to protect my character from attack. The most difficult part for her was how to detect some characters from others (i.e., to distinguish between bad characters (the ones to kill) and good characters (innocent bystanders; not to kill). It was also difficult to use old-fashioned weapons (i.e., get familiar with its range, manual reloading, difficult accuracy on moving targets).

Some screenshots