Wait, there’s great door mechanics?
to the Xbox store cabbie and don’t spare the horses
to the Xbox store cabbie and don’t spare the horses
Gaming Starfield | Metacritic (Series X): 83, OpenCritic: 86
- Thread starter Jimble
- Start date
IGN and Gamespot gave it a 7. Can’t say I’m surprised at all.
This was only to be expected. The whole idea of a 1000 worlds game with Bethesda’s not so great recent track record and general design of games that hasnt aged well, was always going to lead to something far more generic than people were expecting.
To be fair, as @b82REZ said above, if you read some of those 9/10 reviews they are actually more critical than not about the game.
Almost every review I've read so far has said the fast travel and weight mechanics are woeful and the combat is way too easy and lackluster thanks to poor AI, but is decent enough. In fact that seems to be the vast majority of mechanics are good enough. Which is par for the course for Bethesda games, but they don't then have the writing level of someone like CDPR to account for that. Although that being said, apparently there are quite a few hidden gem side quests.
Yep, though they do usually build great worlds, spreading it over 1000 planets is way too much. I think it's worse that you can't even fly to them as it's all fast travel which, as I said above, all the reviews I've read so far are very negative about.
This ending to the GameInformer review seems to sum up all the other reviews I've read so far:
(8.5 btw)
Which is pretty much the way I'm looking at this with the last paragraph. It will be the universe and finding everything that appeals to me. Although I might be super pissed off about the space combat, I mean that isn't even hard to get right!
(8.5 btw)
Which is pretty much the way I'm looking at this with the last paragraph. It will be the universe and finding everything that appeals to me. Although I might be super pissed off about the space combat, I mean that isn't even hard to get right!
A strange but bold move. You want your in-depth RPG feel, you'll have "the vendor is beside the big neon sign across from the police station" instead of a dollar sign on a map.
It would probably wreck my head really because I'm old and don't have the time for as much gaming as I want these days but it's brave of them.
Watched a couple of reviews. I'm super hyped still. Think that'll do for me until I can finally play this week, want to go into this relatively blind 
Even the 7 by ign reads more like a 4 or 5. Ouch.
Yeah exactly. For these big open world games you have some proper hook that keeps the gamer invested. Witcher 3 has brilliant writing. Zelda has sandbox gameplay systems. RD2 again writing and exploration. Bethesda’s older games were great for their time but I don’t think their recent games have moved ahead enough with the times. This seems like a more polished version of what they’ve done previously.
Also on the seconded bit - what makes the entire genre of space exploration so intriguing is the wonder. For me, the fascinating, frightening and utterly delightful feeling of taking my spaceship to one of the handful of planets / objects in Outer Wilds is one of the best in gaming, and the simple travel systems in Fallen Order, Borderlands 3 etc can never replace it. Reviewers also seem to be lamenting this feature in Starfield and saying it compares badly to No Mans Sky - I get it.
Having said that, for those who just want the Bethesda expeience - this seems to be something they can happily get lost in.
The typical Bethesda experience is no longer the prime open world experience it was in 2011 though. Even fallout 4 felt pretty dated on 2015 coming out on the back of games like The Witcher 3. It’s a shame if this really is just typical Bethesda and they haven’t tried to raise the bar like other modern sandboxes.
Those were some other better times where critics made more sense. Skyrim would be 84 avg if reviewed by current 'critics'.
All the reviews I've read, and unlike me traditionally I've gone through a lot, are exactly like that. Every single one has a tone of disappointment, largely to do with the space travel/traversal in general, but generally about all the gameplay elements being pretty bog standard.
Very few are even going into much detail at all about the base/ship building, which were supposed to be among the highlights and why it's locked at 30fps.
It all seems so apathetic and at odds with the scores they are giving.
In the Xbox thread Damo has posted a decent video where she talks about the space/ground traversal. It's basically all pretty static and empty. The traversal on foot stuff IS limited, but the worlds are so empty it's more a case of it not mattering because you won't want to do it rather than a problem. Which isn't a good thing in itself.
In fairness after seeing the early scores from Gamespot and IGN I assumed most follow suit and this would end high 70’s/ early 80’s.
88 meta is a good score. Still not the killer game of the year contender MS no doubt need.
88 meta is a good score. Still not the killer game of the year contender MS no doubt need.
The praise in the reviews really do seem to being made through gritted teeth.
Must say though I love the look of ship customisation.
Must say though I love the look of ship customisation.
Yeah and that really reminds me of the reviews for Cyberpunk in that regard. At least this sounds like it is largely playable though.
A couple specifically say the combat is better than in Cyberpunk at least. But that's not really something to shout about. Especially as it seemingly has the same problem of awful AI which makes it all trivial.
ACG really likes it which gives me hope
Which modern sandboxes though? The Witcher maybe with storytelling and less rigid characters, but otherwise very similar. Rdr2 was incredible but had its flaws too (controls mainly).
What others are there pushing the boat out? Most seem to suffer from repetitiveness, especially side missions.
The AI combat looks awful. It's like the A-Team with its aiming.
Skyrim would be an 84 if released today though. When Skyrim was released I was absolutely awed by the lore and the size of the game. More so even than Oblivion or Morrowind. There were so many possibilities, they felt endless, and the game was so good to play. Morrowind and Oblivion were great but clunky. Skyrim opened with a freaking Dragon attacking a city and it looked great.
A few years later and Skyrim feels a lot smaller. It's not endless. Each city is actually tiny.
For me, personally, it's similar to how Command and Conquer felt. At the time, when saturated in the lore, each game felt massive. Each release was an endless experience. The GDI/NOD/Allies/Soviets lore was so deep, the games were so brilliant.
But when you start to pick the games apart, you realise they are just fun games. The lore gets chipped away.
God knows what I'm on about.
I haven't read this thread so it's probably been posted but I just want to tag @Redlambs and share this:
https://www.eurogamer.net/starfield...tent-experience-on-xbox-series-x-and-series-s
https://www.eurogamer.net/starfield...tent-experience-on-xbox-series-x-and-series-s
Yeah this is the review I watched. His reviews are typically on point.
Sounds like the lack of talk on NG+ is because it inherently comes with spoilers? Are there any that go into detail on it? Sounds like rolling the credits quickly is important as ng+ opens things up. Doesn't quite fit the 'play how you want' style that you usually find in Bethesda games though and nobody wants to play 30 hours before you get to the 'real' game (a la Diablo 4).
Seems they did a good job generally with graphics, performance and polish but I wish they'd used that time for quality of life stuff too. It was always going to be systems heavy but I'd prefer some options to make it easy for lazy bastards like me. Things like no maps is an absolutely baffling decision. That's not even QOL it's just standard expectation.
Seems they did a good job generally with graphics, performance and polish but I wish they'd used that time for quality of life stuff too. It was always going to be systems heavy but I'd prefer some options to make it easy for lazy bastards like me. Things like no maps is an absolutely baffling decision. That's not even QOL it's just standard expectation.
Both those games have moved forward in some way or another though. Zelda definitely so. But if you look at the space aspect too, there's loads of games that by far pre-date this and do way better in the "sandbox" aspect, like the X series for example (which started early 00's iirc). If you look as the adventure building aspect, there are tons of games way better than this looks. Granted not so many on console, but they are there.
It's a huge ask to tackle all the elements of course, but typically games bring something to the table. Whilst I'll personally still like this and am still hyped (and bummed I can't stay up to play it, first game in ages I've thought that about!) it's not helped by Howard hyping up special parts which clearly aren't that special.
Yeah this all lines up with what I've read and think. Some odd choices going on and weirdness around NG+.
The bit about the travel reminds of me the problems with fast travel.
Look at map -> Click where you want to go -> Suddenly you are there.
Personally I almost never use fast travel, so I doubt I'll enjoy this.
Look at map -> Click where you want to go -> Suddenly you are there.
Personally I almost never use fast travel, so I doubt I'll enjoy this.
His main take away was that he couldn't wait to go back and play BG3 after writing his review.Yeah, they always have to bump up the final score. It's nothing new. There was a guy on here once who posted one of his reviews for an online mag and it was full of disappointment and then at the end it was something like 9/10. It was a good laugh for a while!
I'm reading through a number of reviews and you can literally feel the disappointment at some of the gameplay elements through the screen. All fall back to "but it's so big and set in space!". Which, tbf, is my justification for being hyped before even playing it too
To be fair, that's not any kind of decent claim
Though in seriousness, it seems that on the PC at least it's fine for a launch. On Xbox the performance and bugs are off, but not game breaking or anything. I'll be testing both this weekend.
That falls in line with what all the reviews (even the stupid 10/10 ones) are saying. Less about the bugginess, but more about the emptyness (which makes you miss a lot of the best content apparently) and the fast travel system.
What are sandbox gameplay systems? Probably going to get murdered for saying this but TOTK in particular gets a lot of leeway because of the Zelda tag for what it doesn't achieve as an exploration game, for all the good it obviously does. My experience on an emulator was filled with sections of vast emptyiness, basic NPC's and a lack of enemy variety for example but it's rarely ever spoken about in the reviews. Not denying it's a fantastic Nintendo game but it's not up there with the other open world games you mentioned for me. Particularly RDR2 and TW3.
The best games are the ones with fun traversal admittedly. Driving in GTA, swinging in Spiderman, grinding in Sunset Overdrive - even grappling in the new Halo.
I don't think flying between planets is ever fun personally so that doesn't bother me. But I'd want the traversal around the planets themselves to be fun.
You're not wrong. The exploration in TotK was rubbish for anybody who already experienced the same novelty in BotW. Critics didn't mention it at release but the fact so few are still talking about TotK speaks volumes to me.
Surely you must. There's plenty of gameplay of the player flying around in the ship taking down pirates or whatnot, so I had assumed you could at least fly around the solar system you are in. Strange.
Yep, TotK is great, but it is basically an expansion to BotW. That is why BG3 should win GOTY as we didn't get this great of a cRPG for a long time.
I've read that. A lot of hit and some miss as expected, but seemingly polished and nowhere near as buggy as expected which is a nice surprise. I'll be trying this out on the X next week, though I won't be comparing it to the PC version since it's obviously not fair.
But all in all, bar the awful 30fps and draw distance issues, it seems that it's a decent launch technical wise which is great.
TW3 isn't really a sandbox and RDR2 can be considering a light one but in a different way to Zelda. Zelda lives and dies on people's creativity and what you can come do with it. You are given the tools and left to get on with it, and it all works, that's real sandbox. It's like Gmod on PC, absolutely wonderful game but you'd play it and wonder what the feck it is and give up in minutes. Those games, like any genre, aren't for everyone.
Starfield has had a lot of hype about it's sandbox nature, but it turns out it's heavily restricted on that front. Which is a big shame, and it is a lot like CP and Bioshock:Infinite where they promised all sorts of wonderful stuff and come up short. That doesn't mean it's not going to be a great game though, but it definitely is weird at just how restrictive some of the aspects like space travel is considering they made a huge deal about the ships and building them.
Nope. Look in the Xbox thread at the video Damo posted. It's woefully static, the area above planets are basically rooms.
Admittedly I didn't read beyond the headline. I just saw the opportunity to slip you a potential banana skin and thought I can't pass that up because I might not get another chance for a while
I'm losing my life to the ship and weapon customisations. The ship stuff in particular is right up my alley, which is what makes the actual use of it disappointing
Admittedly I didn't read beyond the headline. I just saw the opportunity to slip you a potential banana skin and thought I can't pass that up because I might not get another chance for a while
Fair enough mate
Better luck next time!
Can't wait to try this, but am so busy with work that I will wait for the 6th.
Very curious about trying out the doors. I think they were pretty decent in Skyrim, so if Bethesda exceeded that here I can only dream
Very curious about trying out the doors. I think they were pretty decent in Skyrim, so if Bethesda exceeded that here I can only dream
Well, I’m just gonna make a horlicks (nippy here tonight) and off to bed for a few hours and setting my alarm for kick off.
Can’t wait, even after going against my instincts and reading this thread.
Can’t wait, even after going against my instincts and reading this thread.
Good to hear. Looks like I'm buying a Series S.