It seems like a doubly weird choice when it’s both the case that even Bethesda’s friends tend toward describing their shooting as ‘adequate’; and that shooters are one of those genres that has been honed so relentlessly by multiple massive budget franchises that showing up with well polished realistic-looking-but-on-the-arcade-side-about-how-much-bullets-hurt shooting with excellent feel, minimal bugs, and excellent production values is worth about 7/10 unless there’s some sort of additional hook to it.
It’s not a huge surprise; in its capacity as an expression of the seemingly limitless gamer bro rage that something that might appeal to filthy casuals and children is being prioritized over something with guns; but it’s just wild in the context where the same opinion-haver is probably declaring that this year’s Modern Warfare 3 (which almost definitely has better pistols) is a stab in the back.
I had quite a lot of fun with Starfield for a couple of weeks and then I kind of looked around and said, “well, the story isn’t nearly as interesting as in some other games, the shooting is alright, the exploration isn’t really exploration, stealth literally doesn’t work, meh.”
It really just needs more depth in various different systems. There’s no way it’s a GOTY candidate. It’s also not a complete tragedy. Like I said, I had a lot of fun for a while.
To give an idea of how meh I found the story, I’m playing The Talos Principle 2 - a puzzle adventure game - and the story around a bunch of human-ish robots faffing around a thousand years in the future and navel-gazing Philosophy 201-style while playing gigantic cell-phone laser puzzle games is completely holding my attention 200%. Seriously, go play TTP2.
Starfield spoilers below…
the main gameplay story around Constellation and the “it’s not new-game-plus” universe reset time loop in Starfield is just such a wet fart. I’m worried Bethesda spent energy developing the mechanisms to randomize story stuff each time you loop and didn’t apply that energy to things that people actually care about in a sandbox RPG with spaceships. For example, organizing the insides of your spaceships (you can put your toilet in the middle of the bedroom in your in-game apartment, but you can’t decorate your ship!), or even actually building a ship from scratch (you have to start with a ship and Save As!) It’s almost like they tried to go after some of that roguelite vibe with a big swing and completely missed. You lose all the fun stuff you’ve done and you only keep your unlocked skills which get harder to unlock the higher you go.
That’s great news! I haven’t gotten around to it, but I absolutely love Mario platformers, including the ‘New’ series, and i can really appreciate all the little quirks and manipulations of expected mechanics Nintendo tends to throw in at various points. And I have zero doubt it’s a better GOTY contender than Starfield.
i’ve been enjoying it, but it hasn’t hooked me nearly as much as odyssey. i think it might be because i’ve found the levels to be almost trivially easy, except when i find they are nearly impossible ( i’m looking at you double jump badge. )
that said, i like it as a nice little pass time that can be picked up, and put down whenever. the “mini games” within some of the levels, with their own mechanics and special challenges, are super fun ( if short. ) and there really is quite a lot of content ( and twists on the mechanics ) … with not a bug to be found.
I think this is less spoilers and more general gameplay complaints
Given how poor the few things you can personalize in a ship go (anything you place in a container resets and sometimes even it gets lost every time you do a modification or switch ships), I think is a good thing There are mods that allow you to buy empty rooms for your ships and personalize them as you would on one of the purchasable homes.
Honestly I kinda was wanting the opposite. Sometimes I just would prefer to drop a prefab colony instead of fiddling with the controls - though I have to admit I made some decent places by creatively playing with some elements. And speaking of the toilets makes a sound of disgust the outpost options for toilets is absolutely ridiculous, even more if we consider what we find in npc outposts!
That probably is more spoilery:
As for the new-game-plus, what is a chore is that you only get “weird” universes 15% of the time. I think that would have to be the main appeal of a NG+ but to experience all of them you probably would have to go through hundreds of resets!
It not only compares poorly to this year’s crop of games, but it also compares poorly to previous years, like: you want better story in a free roaming first person game, you have CP2077. You want better space simulation, you have Elite. You want better space Exploration, you have No Man’s Sky. These are mature games that fortunately had the time to get the bugs ironed out and features added, and make Starfield look really bland. And comparisons have been made, aplenty, specially because how it was hyped around!
It doesn’t help that bethesda had like 8 years to develop this game (this was mostly started when Fallout 4 was released) so most people was expecting something else. I think the main reason I’ve been enjoying this game as I have been is because I went in with 0 expectations, as Fallout 4 was a horrible disappointment for me.
Starfield also doesn’t really pay off on things that it dangles right in front of you. You see people with all kinds of robot helpers, and while your first companion is a robot you can’t customize it, nor can you get/make a new one. You also see a robot dog but you can’t get one either when in Fallout 4 you could get dogs as companions.
The game also dangles weapon skins in front of you but you can’t unlock them, you can only get them as paid DLC.
I’ve also heard that if you were to buy an apartment/house in a city there’s a chance that everything you’ve put down as decorations could get wiped when the story progresses to a certain point and it basically resets the map.
I could be here all day talking about the things the game could be doing better tbh
Was gifted Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield at the same time, both as birthday presents. So, I have no buyer’s remorse or feel I need to justify a purchase.
Starfield is good (not as good as Elite Dangerous), but Baldur’s Gate 3 is a quantum level of better.
TTP2 was a surprise. The first one felt a bit sterile, the way Myst does, but the puzzles were interesting. TTP2 feels totally different, though I’m not that in love with the religious elements of it.
A very small level that disappears if you look at too hard? Or a different meaning of quantum?
Anyway, the most recent game I’ve played is, um, probably Vampire Survivors (verdict: very silly fun), or, Quake 2, that got a remaster this year, so it’s counts as a new game right?
Funnily enough, I’ve seen mods that do most of this (except the bug that wipes out your homes, though maybe starfield community patch does lol). I do agree, though. That’s basically why I said it needs 5 years of community patches to be considered GOTY
Vampire survivors is pure gameplay goodness, I spent way too much time playing it Best bang for the buck since " I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1"
