OutRage: Fight Fest
Review
Fundamental fun with a paltry player base
by Jordan Helsley
reviewed on PC
Fundamental fun with a paltry player base
The bumping bass pumps through your speakers, your character poses on a stage before roaring fans, and a big ol' Play button greets your eyeballs. There’s a pageantry and presentation to OutRage: Fight Fest that tells you exactly what it is. Wrestling-adjacent (or more literal) characters in a 3D fight space with basic combo strings and weapons you pick up in the arena. To look at it from the outside, it tugs at the Rumbleverse heartstrings, and that remains beyond the surface level character art. In reality, it feels much closer to Power Stone, which is to say that innovation is light, here. Keep digging and you'll find further evidence of 90s-era inspirations: a small list of game modes, custom games, a decent amount of training exercises, a handful of unlocks, and no mention of a store or battle pass. Truth is, they don't make games like this anymore, and there might be a reason for that.
Get In The Arena
There are a handful of important elements to consider with a game such as this, and the first should be how it plays. A basic roll serves as your lone defensive move, and on offense you've got the ability to punch, kick, pick up, and throw items and/or fighters. As you land attacks you'll build up a rage meter which serves two purposes: to grow your character physically, from Bruce Banner to the Hulk, and to eventually unleash a powerful attack. I appreciate the selection of ultimate attacks, allowing you to pick one that resonates with you, regardless of character, and they all seemed to fit a powerful-but-not-too-powerful mold. As you grow, and you get stronger and more menacing, the game strikes a nice balance between your strength and your opponents' ability to hit you more regularly. Sure, you can hurl your opponents around or pick up cars when you’re at full power, but the target on your back gets proportionately larger.
Combo strings are basic to the point of begging for more variety. While throwing the standard three hit combo feels fine, and mixing it up with a two-hit-throw looks good, all of these strings wear out their welcome relatively quickly. Even worse, the kick remains susceptible to spam, and your fighters are so often caught up in a stunlock regardless. What feels okay at first feels dull before too long. I didn't quite get through all four of the game's party-style modes before feeling the downside of such a simple combat system. With that being such a massive portion of the game's total package, it's easy to see why the recommendation is slipping.
Problems In The Package
It's content light, and that definitely works against it. If ever there was a candidate for an early access release, some mid-development support, this might have been it. The bones are solid, crafted with a level of care that puts it above the contemporaries in its price range, but a few more ingredients and a bit more time in the oven might have been enough to send it over the edge. As it stands you'll spend your time battling with AI opponents and allies and you'll be left with an overall hollow feeling, with a twinge of missed opportunity.
OutRage: Fight Fest is hard to accurately judge, because it will never reach its potential, and never really had a shot. As of this writing the game saw a 24-hour peak player count of three, and an all-time peak of 18. For a game that boasts 16-player matches, both of those numbers are very not good, and it really is a shame. It fits a mould as if made from a Reddit thread: a reasonable price point, the ability to play with friends, and no monetization, but that doesn't appear to have had any positive impact on the playerbase. No word-of-mouth campaign, no viral clips. My hat remains off to the developers supporting the game in the days since launch, but I'm not sure we'll hear more about this one down the line.
Short and Sweet
You'd expect a game with this kind of play time to be a narrative experience pumped out of a game jam, but there's little-to-no reason to add this brawler to the growing list of multiplayer options. And while a lot of OutRage: Fight Fest's faults don't necessarily rest at the feet of the developers, they'll certainly feel the effects. This is a multiplayer-only game, and unless you have a large group of friends to sync up with, the lack of a community has a distinctly negative effect on the gameplay experience. All the music, flashy lights, and simple but recognizable art can only take it so far. Any potential favor earned by foregoing monetization was burned before its day showed up on the calendar. There's a possibility, however slight, that a turnaround happens. Again, the foundation remains solid enough, but built on top of it is a Lincoln Log cabin for an audience of a handful.
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5.0
fun score
Pros
It looks good, it sounds good, and the ideas, if given attention and care, could easily be made into something special.
Cons
The combat gets old quick, the lack of gameplay modes means variety is sorely needed, and any sort of player base has been nonexistent from the start.
