Starlink: Battle for Atlas (2018)

Okay, in the end it went faster than I would've thought. A... decent game, I guess. Nothing truly special about it. As cool as the idea of visiting several different planets is, the game does not offer any surprises and is quite repetetive. Doing the same things over and over and over and [...] again is something I accept in my Pokémon games every other year - but not in a 14ish hour experience. Three stars? Well, I guess, it does not take much to entertain me. The best thing about buying (and probably finishing) Starlink is the Arwing standing on top of my game shelf. At least I do not leave empty handed :D

After owning this since launch I was able to plow through the main campaign. This is a decent flight sim / shooter and I enjoyed the open world mechanics. This game reminds me a lot of what Assassin's Creed originally was when it first came out, and I hope it gets a sequel that opens it up more. If they give up on the toys to life thing, having a weapon wheel or something to switch out weapons on the fly would be nice. Also, the worlds were somewhat uninspired and very much seeing the same types of locations over and over to A. break into a building and get a treasure, B. Do a stunt course to get to a treasure that can be bypassed by flying to the treasure chest and cutting the engine, C. destroy a pirate base by reflecting attacks then pull the power D. Destroy a reactor, imp hive, or giant boss monster or E. Defend a base or do fetch quests / scan random animal quests. These were decently fun and I actually enjoyed them as much as it sounds like I'm complaining, but I wish they weren't copy pasted locations and that they were ... different ala Assassin's Creed might have same formulas but each location was varied so the map was a different layout or enemies were a variety etc. Also the unique locations per planet could have been more varied. I realized later than I care to admit that not all of the characters were equal and the powerups were far more useful on some than others. All in all a good first outing and I hope more comes that expand the universe and ideas.