Starfield

Starfield, Bethesda Summary: Quite literally the best “what it would actually be like to walk across an exomoon’s surface” simulator out there. And kind-of a lifelong dream title for me having been raised on [i]Elite[/i] and [i]Damocles[/i] in last century’s 8- and 16-bit eras. But, especially so in the first few tens of hours that I played, it’s just amazing at capturing what it would most likely feel like to yomp across an icy moon in close orbit around a ringed gas giant. It does, of course, then compromise this with things to make gameplay work, like sound in a vacuum, but I’ll never forget the first time I walked / jumped for what would have been kilometres over a ridged ice world watching as its ringed parent planet gradually set over the horizon. But … so many cons to go with the pros. And so many missed opportunities - although, given the ambition of the title, these are more forgivable. Pros: - A literally unimaginably enormous play area, although formally infinitesimal compared to [i]No Man’s Sky[/i] (but much more realistic than that title) - Incredibly diverse and beautifully realised planetary environments, especially so for those moons in orbit around ringed planets - Broadly imaginative flora and fauna populate many planets and moons, and the geological / resource side of things is handled fairly well - Enjoyably Fallout-like in its quests, side-quests and companion dynamics - An actually not-bad sci-fi tale hiding behind all of the plot machinations - much cleverer than most comparable titles - Solid FPS combat dynamics with a range of energy and ballistic weapons (but a little light compared to Fallout) Cons: - While enormous, the play area is mostly “empty” or occupied by copy-paste locations and the fraction that is procedurally-generated compared to designed is too large - Alien life is occasionally clearly templated on living or extinct Earth life - While satisfyingly challenging at first, combat becomes much easier after levelling-up - also, for all the talk of fragile spacesuits, damage is totally conventional - Completely unnecessary “special powers” that add too much fantasy and contribute very little to combat Space travel sections are actually pretty pointless, the balance of space combat is set too challenging by default, and ship-upgrading is made too non-intuitive to bother with - Unlike [i]Fallout 4[/i], building outposts is completely unnecessary (I never built a single one), entirely skipped by the narrative, and just weird in a game where there’s just so much to visit that returning to a planet never happens (except to advance the plot) - The Va’Ruun faction is just too peripheral in the base game Missed opportunities: - Strangely, the space flight parts of the game are mostly pointless, just affording you nice views of planets and occasional fights with bad guys; usually, you arrive in a planetary system, then immediately land on the planet or its moon, completely defeating the object of these bits (although I guess they look good in trailers, etc.) - The game doesn’t do anything with the outposts to make them essential to the plot or even gameplay, so the temptation (which I succumbed to) is to not bother with them at all; you literally don’t need them for anything - [i]Fallout 4[/i] at least fitted them into the plot and gameplay - While I guess they might be out there and I just didn’t find them, I felt that it was missing science / sci-fi Easter Eggs, especially in our familiar solar system (e.g. no Ceres / Eris, no floating defunct NASA probes, very limited locations on Earth, no Icehenge on Pluto, etc.) - Strange errors / omissions in the orbital dynamics of planets and moons; basically what the solar system map shows you of relative planet and moon orbital positions doesn’t align well with what you experience when you actually visit the moons; when you do finally work out which side of the moon is facing a planet, you can then use this information to get better views, but it’s needlessly messy - While there are zero-gee locations in the game, they’re quite rare, and it’s a loss to combat that they’re not more common, as they’re quite fun to navigate - While there are hints of it, the immersion of the game would be better if the distribution of humans and the different factions across the solar systems included was more systematic; i.e. lots close to Sol, fewer as you move outwards Overall: A definite thumbs-up, but probably only really for fans of either semi-realistic space walking simulators or RPG titles like Fallout. Lots to love, but lots to get very annoyed by.

Honestly bro if people didn't compare this game to Skyrim and fallout they'd have an amazing time. If you think about this game as it's own thing it's crazy good but when you start saying "Oh it doesn't have this mechanic" or "I can't do this like in Skyrim" you're gonna feel some type of way. I like it though. I went through a phase when it first came out when I said it was amazing and then like 40 hours in I started to get bored. Now the Free lanes update is out and honestly that update with all the DLC makes this game awesome again. Definitely can feel boring at times but I feel that way with many open world games honestly.

Starfield is a good game which is why I'm giving it a thumbs up, what it is though is a bad Bethesda game. This game is a far better experience just sticking to the storylines than it is to go off the beaten path and get lost exploring because there is nothing to find doing that because 98% of the planets in the game are barren rocks no matter where you land on them, that is the antithesis of the Bethesda experience. They devs claim that exploring these barren planets would be this grand exciting experience in real life, which is true but real life experiences like that do not translate into being these grand exciting experiences in video games.

space

I like Skyrim. This is Skyrim in space. This game doesn't deserve the hate it gets. Enjoy it for your own reasons. What I like: - The pacing of the main story is slow and relaxed. - Character development is open and simple. - Exploration is enjoyable. The worlds are beautiful. - Gun play is exceptional. - Stealth is challenging and rewarding. - High Replayability.

this game is fantastic if you can get it to run smooth on your pc. Cant get the game to run smooth no matter what I change the settings too. Very choppy and inconsistent gameplay.

Solid $20-40 game tbh. very fun but lacked meat; like an early access game where they've only made the main storyline and a lil around it but thats it. There's clearly an immense amount of effort into making the main locations pretty, but thats it. every location has a fifth the quests that it should, and the side quests that do exist are great while the main story felt poorly written. this is a universe I really like, and a game I genuinely enjoyed.

史上最伟大的rpg，给我一种原子之星的同款无聊感，复杂的系统和操作，无赖的开锁和开飞船，怎么玩怎么变扭，同为太空题材rpg,不如质量效应一根毛，rpg仙人,给你这傻货游戏公司打个垃圾差评

It's got it's problems (and some mods help, StarUI is great) but it's a good space romp. Customizing my ship is addictive and slowly getting better at building is also fun. Wish there were more variety of weapons....wish there were more of a variety of armors....but mods have been helping there. It's just a game to have fun in. The story is ok (why isn't the Terrormorph the primary or secondary quest?!?! One of the most interesting things and it's wrapped up super fast). All in all....get it on sale and just have some Nasa-punk fun.

二百年来意渐寒，纷繁物理已无澜。如筵宇宙久丰盛，岂有一隅未动盘。