4/5 ★ – TheGameNerd's review of Star Wars: Outlaws.

Is this the Red Dead Star Wars game I have dreamed of for many years? No, but it is probably the closest we’ll ever get and maybe that's okay. Well, It took me a while to beat this because there are a LOT of things going on in this game but I finally got around to finishing it. First off, I have to mention the crashes and bugs. I played this game for 45 hours and the game crashed every other time I played. Luckily the game has a pretty forgiving auto-save so not too much progress was ever lost but it is still very annoying to be taken out of the game as many times as I was. As for the bugs, there were many. Some of which forced me to have to hard close the game and reload a save. The most common one I ran into was a door that needed to be open and just wouldn't open. Again, these kinds of bugs did not fully break the entire game as I just had to shut down the game and boot it up again but when that happens multiple times it starts graining you down. The Story failed to hold my interest for the first 5 hours or so but it did start to pick up once you fully start to assemble your team for the big heist. When the game starts Kay Vess comes across as a simple Han Solo copy. A smuggler who gets dragged into things they didn't sign up for. However, as the game went on I became a lot more attached and invested in where her story will go and hopefully, we get to see more of her in some form in Star Wars’ future. The gameplay is your average Ubisoft open world type stuff with platforming that feels very Uncharted-like with paths conveniently marked with yellow markings letting you know the way forward. Most side missions consist of base infiltrations to steal a specific item that you need or someone wants. The stealth is comically bad mostly due to the dumb AI that won’t notice a dead body right next to them but will somehow spot Kay from across the map. There are a few things here that work and feel okay to play around with. Kay's trusty friend Nix is always there to lend a helping hand with sabotaging alarms, detonating grenades on a Storm Trooper belt or just causing a distraction while you sneak by. Every situation can be completed without having to blast your way through but let's be honest, most people are just not going to waste their time, they’re going to blast their way through if the game allows it. Now, even with those flaws I just could not stop playing this game. There is so much in here that makes me turn a blind eye to most of the bad and I couldn't help but fall in love with this world. To start, the game is just visually stunning, I’d often catch myself just pausing whatever I’m doing and fully taking in what I’m looking at. If 10 year old me could see this game I can’t imagine know how I would have reacted. To think we would get a Star Wars game that looks this beautiful and you can just walk around Mos Eisley or hop on your speeder and go wherever you want. This might be the most detailed Tatooine that has ever been created and when I first landed there and explored the first little isolated village you arrive at, I can pinpoint the exact moment I truly fell in love with this game. As much as I could prase Tatooine, it's not the only planet. Each one feels authentic and lived in by the many NPC’s walking around every location. This is a Star Wars game where it truly feels alive everywhere you go. Space combat is simple which is a good thing. I don’t want to fly my spaceship and feel like I need an actual flying license just to get around. Shooting down tie fighters and flying right up against giant asteroids while they chase you down simply feels fantastic. The world is packed with things to do on your travels across the galaxy. Arcade games, gambling contract jobs from the planet's biggest crime lords etc. The reputation system is a big standout for me in this game. You can get jobs from different crime organizations throughout the game. Contracts of infinite amounts where you accept a job, go do the job to increase Kay’s reputation with said crime lord. This is how you will collect most of your credits throughout the game and at the end of each of these missions Kay will get an opportunity to go through with the original deal or go behind their back and side with an opposing organization. Even the locking mini-game won me over. You don’t get a bobby pin and jam it around until you brute force your way in. Instead, you get a rhythm game that not once did I ever get tired of playing. Slicing computers is basically just the Star Wars version of Wordle. An ingenious way of making an old tedious gaming cliche like breaking your way into somewhere something you want to do multiple times. I could ramble on about this game for a long long time but I’m going to stop and wrap this up. If you are a Star Wars fan then this is a must play. There are moments in here that just made me so incredibly happy I can’t accurately put it into words. If you’re not a Star Wars fan, I still think there are parts to this game that anyone can enjoy but I don’t think they would have nearly the same experience with it as someone who's loved Star Wars their whole life. It makes me sad this game did not sell amazingly well as we don’t know if we’ll ever get another game like this set in the Star Wars universe. I don’t think this game is going to win any GOTY awards but it sure as hell made the nerdy kid inside me happy, and I can only thank it for that. Okay, I’m going to go play some Sabacc now.