Starfield (2023)

I'm about done with this game now (the main quest) and I think I'm at about a 3.5 out of 5 overall for it.

I think the game has good bones. There is potential all throughout, with ambitious ideas, interesting characters, wonderful music, fun combat, challenging puzzles and more.

The problem is they threw everything and the kitchen sink into it, and you end up with a lot good, but not much great.

Honestly, the main quest might be the weakest part of the game. A bunch of "find X in Y" missions in levels that all look the same, with similar enemies. Completing the main quest is not a super long endeavor (about 35 hours), so if you do that alone, this will feel like almost a short game.

The side quests and extra material is where the game shines. If you want to be a bounty hunter, or a space pirate, or build ships to sell for even bigger ships, or settle colonies, then you start getting a very interesting game that still might not have lived up to the hype, but maybe would have been better received.

I wish the mainline quest had more missions like "Entangled" that were fun, challenging, with satisfying combat and thoughtful puzzles, with NPCs that mattered, with decisions that have good or bad consequences. If more of the game was like this mission, then yes, this game might have lived up to the hype, but instead most of the missions are very similar, hitting all the same beats, with all the same enemies.

Overall, not the best game I've played, but not the worst. I enjoyed it, but I can see why many people didn't enjoy it. I'll give Bethesda credit for attempting a new IP in a time when remasters, remakes and sequels are the preferred game of choice for major publishers, but by cramming so many ideas into this, it becomes the game of many colors, but the master of none.

Ok, now I can see why people might not like this game.

Redoing the same mission over and over and over again is lazy game design.

1. Land on planet.
2. Go to supposed "abandoned" area.
3. Fight same bad guys.
4. Buildings have very similar layouts, even down to where weapon/storage crates are, as well as computers/notes.
5. Go into mine.
6. Mine has the same look as other mines, with the same bad guys in the same places, as well as the same items.
7. Find McGuffin
8. Rinse and repeat

While I still like the game overall, and likely will see it through to the end, the flaws are starting to show through for me.

Entangled is the kind of mission that, if the game had more missions like it, probably would have made the game live up to the hype it failed to live up to (and I say that as someone who likes the game).

Creative puzzles to solve.

Fun combat to partake in.

NPCs that actually offer things and don't just stare at you with empty platitudes.

Decision making that can result in positive/negative consequences.

The game needed more of this, and less of the "go through another similar looking area, fight enemies and find the Mcguffin" formula that it mainly relies on.

I dropped this game about 4 days after release, shortly after release, 1 year ago. I just picked it up again, hoping some time would help my expectations adjust and... wow. This game is atrocious. Still an absolute let down, and every "improvement" they've made seems to be half baked as well. New map, oh hooray, too bad it's awful and the placed markers don't even work.

I swear this game is so tedious to play. Hats off to anyone who got to enjoy it, I am very jealous, because I really want to. It really feels like I am met with serious resistance every step of the way, while trying to play it. From the clunky, complete nonsense UI and the ridiculous amount of diving and button presses it requires you to do in even the most simple tasks, to the awfully balanced, stiff combat.

Almost nothing feels good in this game, yet I am starting to at least get some moments where it can feel good for a bit. Funny enough, those are usually the moments where I am just running around selling stuff or not really engaging in the main loop of the game.

I was feeling this way for a while, but what pushed me to make this Grouvee update is the fact that main mission map markers are broken absolute nonsense. So on top of all the menu dives and button pushes, the worthless new map, I still can't figure out where I am going. It's infuriating.

When Oblivion and Skyrim characters did weird things while talking to you in a conversation, it was kind of cute, definitely expected of the era. When NPCs glitch out in Starfield, it's just fully expected. Characters randomly changing their pose IMMEDIATELY mid sentence, the dead eyes, the laughable face animations... I am consistently wowed that they thought that this was okay to release. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't know more about the business and the fact that it's indeed very tough to produce a game of any size, let alone one like this.

I don't know what happened, but it's just sick. It really makes me worry for TES 6. I enjoyed Skyrim when it came out, but now looking back, I tend to agree with many of the people who feel that the series has devolved/dumbed down in many ways. That combined with the failure of Starfield and the general ugliness of FO76, the meh of FO4, really makes me wonder about the direction going forward.

Starfield is a game I will continue to play and try to enjoy, despite all of this.

What a mess!

The Good:

• Graphics. Bethesda RPGs finally have people that don't all look like they have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
• Voice Acting. It doesn't sound like the same half-dozen people are doing all of the voices in the game. And the voice actors they picked all did a really good job.
• The amount of gameplay. Bethesda RPGs always want you to keep playing after you "beat the game". This one is no exception. If you're the kind of person who wants hundreds of hours of game, the way they seem to handle New Game+ would appear to be good for you. (Personally, it takes a lot to convince me to play the same game more than once -- this game didn't cross that bar.)

The Bad:

• The story. There really wasn't much there. Maybe all of the substance is in New Game+. I ain't got time for that (dot gif).
• The gameplay loop. Fast travel to some planet, 200 meters from an abandoned mine. Go into the mine and get Artifact. Fast travel back to The Lodge to drop off the Artifact. Rinse & repeat over & over & over.

The Ugly:

• The map system. It's trash. Unless I totally missed it, there is no actual World Map for any world you visit. Just a list of Fast Travel locations, and a janky garbage starchart you use to get to those worlds. As such, I just found myself following waypoint markers for the entire game. It makes the game feel extremely linear and actively dissuades any of the usual Bethesda sidequesting.
• Outposts. Yeah, you can build settlements again, like in Fallout 4. Technically. But between the vast variety of resources, the scarcity of many of those resources, the high resource requirements to build, and your small carrying capacity... I just built a lone useless airlock on a couple planets, and was never able to expand beyond that.
• The "2 Different Versions of the World" game puzzle. I was lost, running in circles in that goddamned "Entangled" mission for over 2 hours. That mission was the closest this game came to a riveting story. Then they torpedoed it with obnoxious gameplay that goes on about 90 minutes too long. I very nearly dropped my score to 2 stars because of this mission alone.

Hey, so.....

I've only played an hour of Starfield so far. And it seems... good? Good performance & frame rates on my PC. Good graphics. Good voice acting & facial animation. Even good shooting...

There's still plenty of time for the game to go south. But I can't help but think that the hate around this game just might be one more example of online gamers sucking at being people.

If you go to some modern art museums, a common feature is the gold painted shit.

That is the Starfield experience:

Excellent combat. Incredibly beautiful ships, planets, guns and armour. Cool vistas.

However, there is no logic to this world, no politics to speak of. No story connecting everything. The writing is bland and dull. There is no intrigue. You can gain levels but.... theres no reason. The game looks like it should be fun, your head says it's fun, your heart at times says it is fun. But I just, don't care. The game does not in any way make me care.

Fundamentally, the games systems don't build into each other, they are at odds and illogical - poorly explained.