Sure, but this is metacritic. They're 10 points too lenient on most things.
Starfield | Review & Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Gamernyc78
- Start date
Something I havent seen much discussion on is just how bad the elder scrolls 6 could potentially be. The current engine they use is beyond outdated and is genuinely ugly. But here is where the problem lies, they may be stuck with it because their reputation in alot of way is tied up with the modding community. Sure they could make a new engine but that may along time, like 6-8 years altogether and if its not as easy to mod that could be scandal in and of itself.
Not only that but this game was in development BEFORE MS acquired them so we dont know what a bethesda game fully under a game pass, MS regime will look like. Especially if this game had a 200-400 million dollar budget and is selling as bad as some of us assume. This more than anything was the 7.5 billion dollar game and well, i cant imagine they are happy it behind close doors.
Not only that but this game was in development BEFORE MS acquired them so we dont know what a bethesda game fully under a game pass, MS regime will look like. Especially if this game had a 200-400 million dollar budget and is selling as bad as some of us assume. This more than anything was the 7.5 billion dollar game and well, i cant imagine they are happy it behind close doors.
The problem right now, beyond their refusal to commit the necessary resources to completely rewrite and modernize their engine, is that they lack creative talent. They don't have what it takes to write compelling narrative anymore. They don't take the time to make sure the stuff they write makes sense and maintains internal cohesion within their universe (e.g. npcs randomly hiring you, someone they've never met before, to do security for their most prized possessions etc).
Good to see they have developed since the Fallout 3 ending where a radiation-immune companion will refuse to go into the death chamber in your place because reasons, even while acknowledging he could survive it but you will be killed in there.
Its funny because im almost certain just like how many big games came out inbetween Fallout 4 and Starfield, there will be equally as many big open world games and rpgs that will come out before the next elder scrolls that will make it not seem as grand as people are making it out to be.
Time keeps on moving whether they put out games or not. Skyrim will be two decades old by the time the next elder scrolls comes out, younger people have no allegiance to BGS
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Well, the truth needs to be known.
But some of the video reviews in here nail it IMO.
It's a game that feels like it should have come out on the 360 in terms of how its put together. But then Mass Effect did it all better, so even by that standard it's subpar. I did record some more things I thought were absolutely ridiculous, including the lead up to the ending sequence.
And here is the thing. I like RPGs, and I like Sci Fi. This should have been a home run for me, ignoring all the stupid bull surrounding it with what Microsoft did. But it's one of the most poorly executed games I can remember playing, in a long, long time.
I'll do a brief summary of my points, but again, they are repeated from some other people's video reviews.
-The exploration is pointless, unless you like to walk around barren wastelands for "exploration's sake."
-The characters have almost no real personality and are so stupidly written that you don't care about them or anything that happens in the game.
-Characters have borderline stereotypical accents that sound almost cartoony at times, but ... society is supposed to have existed in space for hundreds of years. Where are they picking up these regional dialects that somehow perfectly match up to their ethnicity when space is now a huge melting pot?
-The music is ok but also highly derivative of some actually classic works. So while it works in the game it also ends up feeling like a cheap copy of actually good things.
-The shooting feels awful, with no real feeling of impact or tactical feedback. I don't know how else to describe it. Also many enemies are complete bullet sponges, and have multiple health bars. Combat was infuriating at times. And yes I was upgrading weapons. One time I was unloading on a guy in the face with a machine gun and he literally said something like "I just took that one to the face!" ... while I was continually shooting him. I hate this part of the game. It's not good. It's not fun.
-The randomly generated stuff is boring as hell.
-The main cities are just not that well done. New Atlantis, Akila, Neon ... they would have fit right in with the 360 era, but I liked the Citadel in Mass Effect, way more than New Atlantis.
-Quests are stupid. The main game consists of picking up "artifacts," and that's largely it. You don't know what they are, or what they do and you're basically trying to figure that out. You get told where to go get them, and then you do. That's it. And there is no challenge. In one instance I had a character INSIST I was not getting what I was looking for. No way in hell I was told. Then I basically said "please?" and he goes "Oh ok. What you're looking for is in the room next to us." I thought I was about to have a difficult time getting this item, but nope. The entire game feels like this.
-The side stuff is maybe "more interesting" but that's stretching it. Everything kinda results in talking to people or shooting them, or picking something up. But I didn't see the point. Basically to get EXP so you can unlock more perks. Which leads to the next point ...
-A LOT of gameplay is locked behind "perks" and getting many of them will require many levels, and a lot of game time. Probably multiple run throughs, since you keep your levels when you do NG+. But I can't figure out the point. So you can play more Starfield and dominate more? I can already go right through it without these things, so making it even easier ... I don't get it.
-The ship building ... it feels really basic. The ships themselves are actually cool IMO, but again ... whats the point? Better dogfighting? Farther grab drive jumps? A different look? It's "there" to do, but it doesn't really serve a purpose. Though the end of the game does require you to have a ship that can jump farther light years ahead, literally out of nowhere.
-The dialogue/ character growth is a mess. For awhile I had the cowboy guy, Sam Coe, following me around. And he kept saying "hey, can we talk for a minute?" while I was trying to do things. I had actually already talked to him and exhausted the dialogue tree, but he STILL kept asking to talk and he would start with the same thing every time. "So what's it like traveling around with a Coe? Was it everything you thought it would be?" or something like that. Over. And over. And it makes no sense that this also happens in the heat of battle.
-This game copies so many classic sci fi bits that it just feels like it has zero identity.
And now for some spoilery bits. Proceed at your own peril if you don't want to know the biggest parts of the game (though you ain't missing much):
One of the biggest weaknesses is just how bad the story and characters are. At one point one of your team HAS to die, and it's supposed to be the person you are "closest to" that's left on whatever station you choose to not save (you have to pick one of two places to rescue, similar to Batman's choice in The Dark Knight). I just did not care at all. In my case Barrett was killed and I just thought, yeah sure this doesn't matter whatsoever. The characters are so goofy it's impossible to feel "attached" to any of them. Then that person actually shows up later which comes to the mystery of the game ...
So the artifacts .... you find out they are the key to basically opening a portal to the "multiverse." That's the secret. You run into someone that calls themself a "Starborn" (Bethesda can't get off this "born" stuff apparently), and these are people that have found the artifacts before, become Starboard, and then can jump to a new universe. The first Starborn you meet is called "The Hunter" and he is another version of a character you meet in the game, and then "The Emissary" who is the person who was killed earlier. So it's supposed to be a shock when you see them again. But they are just one version of that person that existed in one universe that had become "Starborn."
The idea is that, you know ... there are infinite number of universes with every possible outcome of events. It's literally the kind of idea/philosophy that I remember me and my friends discussing in high school, and I thought it was pretty pseudo-intellectual to talk about and act like you had any real insight to that idea even back then. And here Starfield is trying to present is seriously. It's also a bit of a mishmash of Interstellar and 2001 (you meet yourself much like Cooper sees that he was the one who was trying to communicate to himself/Murph throughout the movie.
And this is the key to New Game+. When you finish the game, you can step through the "Unity" and become Starborn yourself. You get a new suit, a Starborn ship, and weapons depending on some choices you made at the end. And then everything is randomized again. You can just keep playing the game over and over and they try to tie it into the story that it's because of "the multiverse."
Funnily enough, this "multiverse" is as shallow as a kiddie pool.
So the artifacts .... you find out they are the key to basically opening a portal to the "multiverse." That's the secret. You run into someone that calls themself a "Starborn" (Bethesda can't get off this "born" stuff apparently), and these are people that have found the artifacts before, become Starboard, and then can jump to a new universe. The first Starborn you meet is called "The Hunter" and he is another version of a character you meet in the game, and then "The Emissary" who is the person who was killed earlier. So it's supposed to be a shock when you see them again. But they are just one version of that person that existed in one universe that had become "Starborn."
The idea is that, you know ... there are infinite number of universes with every possible outcome of events. It's literally the kind of idea/philosophy that I remember me and my friends discussing in high school, and I thought it was pretty pseudo-intellectual to talk about and act like you had any real insight to that idea even back then. And here Starfield is trying to present is seriously. It's also a bit of a mishmash of Interstellar and 2001 (you meet yourself much like Cooper sees that he was the one who was trying to communicate to himself/Murph throughout the movie.
And this is the key to New Game+. When you finish the game, you can step through the "Unity" and become Starborn yourself. You get a new suit, a Starborn ship, and weapons depending on some choices you made at the end. And then everything is randomized again. You can just keep playing the game over and over and they try to tie it into the story that it's because of "the multiverse."
Funnily enough, this "multiverse" is as shallow as a kiddie pool.
So yeah ... I was not impressed with this game in any sense. The entire thing has no vision, no originality in any elements whatsoever whether it's story, visual design, music, anything. The execution on the important bits are bad. Don't get me started on item management, lock picking, crafting, encumbrance (ugh!), fast travel, how much loading exists in the game, the "powers" and how silly getting them comes across, and how they aren't even important, how menu driven the game is for absolutely everything you do. You don't even need to use your ship to travel. You can travel from the lodge to a moon base, or anywhere else, via the menus. But not always! And not while encumbered! Oh yeah, and if you're a software engineer, you can also practically "see" how they programmed certain parts of it because the game is practically sitting on top of some really basic software constructs. I know this is true of their earlier games but it just feels so obvious to me in this game for some reason.
I'll finish with what I think are pros. I like the visual design for the most part. The exteriors are almost universally atrocious looking, but some of the interiors look like a decent last gen game, and I really like that whole lived in Sci Fi vibe that this game has. I have noticed that PC footage seems to look quite a bit better than how I feel the XSX version comes across. The music does a good job at setting the mood, but my complaint is that I can identify "inspiration" down to specific tracks across like 4-5 movies. And that's just the ones I'm aware of, but some of them are so egregious the guy should be embarrassed.
This game simply does not need to be played. I don't regret doing so, because I wanted to experience it. But there is no moment where it "opened up" for me, or "got good." It was the same thing at the end as it was at the beginning.
Time Spent: 25 hours
My Score: 5 out of 10.
And these are my condensed thoughts. And they are my own. If you like the game that is awesome, I'm not trying to convince anyone they shouldn't. This is merely my experience with it.
Guess I just put in more effort than Bethesda.
Don't believe a word this guy says people, I have got some of his original quotes leading up to the Starfield release.And that was my prediction! 100%
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I didn't know this was that kind of party!
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I was on point and you know it!
LOL ok that made me laugh. I guess I didn't realize how that sounded when I wrote it, and now you've forever enshrined it so there is no going back.
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Yes, but their idea seems to be that Bethesda games should only be compared to previous Bethesda games, needs to be played hundreds of hours so that you can make an opinion of them and even then this does not seem to work that well.
So a week after the full release and the CCU already dropped under 200k.
The peak was 199k today
The peak was 199k today
Bethesda games were always bad, tbh, but they used to be big and expansive.
So, when TW3 was released and shat all over Bethesda games, the illusion was unmade and people realized these games are really, really mid.
Yes, TES6 will be bad, too.