Starfield (PC / Xbox)

[Finsbury Girl]

Just hit Neon for the first time. Side quest central I cannot leave this place

[Finsbury Girl]

Game continues to be hilarious, somehow I managed to join a street gang in Neon and the running commentary from Andreja was priceless.

[Lebowski]

Put a bit of time into it over the weekend, following the story is pretty fun gun play is decent lack of ammo and having to constantly swap and scavenge for bullets early on is not so much fun, I don't feel like a space explorer though i feel like someone clicking from one area to another, it really is fast travel simulator isn't it.

It got me thinking this is not the massive leap forward really as you can clearly see behind the curtains from a pretty early point. It may be me wanting to much but why cant we have no mans sky with the story and missions of this, one of the things that didn't sit well with me with no mans sky was the lack of anything interesting to do on each planet pushing you on to explore. they could of got rid of the ships and had it so you have to just step into a teleport-er to go to different planets as the freedom the ship has is restricted to fancy loading screens and orbits around different planets.


Imagine the first mission of Starfield but instead of going though a series of menus and being shown stock landing and hyperspace animations your pursued to the moon by the pirates and forced to land when your ships weapons are disabled. With only one pirate ship remaining you take refuge in the moon base the final ship still hot on your heels, you make a final stand and then take them out one by one. With the immediate pirate threat dealt with you scavenge their ship to fix yours and limp on to new Atlantis.

The Reality was exit planet with a cut scene, flight a few pirates in orbit, click on moon. cut too loading screen and animation of you landing on the moon, explore base, return to ship click on next thing, cut to loading screen and landing animation.

[Tobal]

struggling to get back into it after week away with no PC and playing Lies of P and bit of cyberpunk for the last week... i almost want to start again as i feel i've wasted 6 perk upgrades on weapon and suit mods (there is no respec in the game), which are so boring and lame compared to what you could do in previous games.

Definitely feel the they removed to much in a attempt to streamline the game to limit bugs and cater to the mainstream, everything is just so sterile, no rpg stats, small bitsized content maps reached via loading screen after loading screen, no VATs, lame dragonborn powers (so far after getting 5 of them), no grit, no blood, no gore, no depth to the stealth (decades old Deus EX embarrasses this game), no body dragging, to many named characters can't be killed, ship building/flying (at least where i am) is extremely limited without spending perks on it. Only thing thing this game has going for it is the amount of quests you can just bumble over and the gun play.

Doesn't help mods for the gamepass edition are a right pain in needing to copy stuff to 2 locations and often doesn't work as it's most mods are tested for steam. Once i finish with LoP, think i'll return to just do mainline the constellation quests and call it a day till the modding community put some life back into the game.

[MartyG]

No RPG stats? There's a screen full of that data, including a breakdown of all the different crimes you've committed.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm incredibly early on this but already I'm not a fan of the UI or anything related to 'space'. The rest of it, basically the bulk of the game that is just like Skyrim/Fallout I'm fine with and enjoying though

[Finsbury Girl]

I haven't played too much in the last week or so but all I've done is fly around the high level systems to find high level gear. I still haven't found anything remotely close to the spacesuit in the mansion but have found some great guns that just melt ****.

I modded the

->Open Spoiler<-

Mantis

as per a youtube video and whilst I am not OP like in the video I can still (after a lot of reloads) manage to dog fight the high level ships. Still have not done any more of the main missions after finding the first dragonborn power and am doing (very slowly) the Vanguard questline which has interrupted my Space Ranger questline

[Lebowski]

struggling to get back into it after week away with no PC and playing Lies of P and bit of cyberpunk for the last week... i almost want to start again as i feel i've wasted 6 perk upgrades on weapon and suit mods (there is no respec in the game), which are so boring and lame compared to what you could do in previous games.

Definitely feel the they removed to much in a attempt to streamline the game to limit bugs and cater to the mainstream, everything is just so sterile, no rpg stats, small bitsized content maps reached via loading screen after loading screen, no VATs, lame dragonborn powers (so far after getting 5 of them), no grit, no blood, no gore, no depth to the stealth (decades old Deus EX embarrasses this game), no body dragging, to many named characters can't be killed, ship building/flying (at least where i am) is extremely limited without spending perks on it. Only thing thing this game has going for it is the amount of quests you can just bumble over and the gun play.

Doesn't help mods for the gamepass edition are a right pain in needing to copy stuff to 2 locations and often doesn't work as it's most mods are tested for steam. Once i finish with LoP, think i'll return to just do mainline the constellation quests and call it a day till the modding community put some life back into the game.

Lies of P drawing me away too, (why no first play thread) i read a really interesting opinion piece about the lack of innovation on show here the thing that stuck with me the most was when you think how a game like Elite did space exploration in 1984 to have it reduced to clicking on a planet and watching a loading screen is not something we should be seeing in a game in 2023, especially not from a developer as big as Bethesda.

[Tobal]

No RPG stats? There's a screen full of that data, including a breakdown of all the different crimes you've committed.

while those are roleplaying stats, i'm referring to the classic staple STR/DEX/CHR etc, etc with modifiers effecting everything from your attack to talking, stuff they use to do. I'll also add i miss the critical hit finishers, being able german suplex or slash a neck in skyrim or head smashing slowmoe power swings in fallout.

Lies of P drawing me away too, (why no first play thread)

i was expecting to see one to, i've gotten far enough to have unlocked all the systems (i think, i'm up to the barren swap 17 hrs in, lvl 68, can't be much more hidden away) so i'll give it go later.

[MartyG]

while those are roleplaying stats, i'm referring to the classic staple STR/DEX/CHR etc, etc with modifiers effecting everything from your attack to talking, stuff they use to do. I'll also add i miss the critical hit finishers, being able german suplex or slash a neck in skyrim or head smashing slowmoe power swings in fallout.

These are in there, it's just implemented via the skills system - strength, health, intelligence, agility, speed, endurance, and personality are all part of those trees.

[charlesr]

Ploughed a couple of hours into this today. Combat naff. Space combat incredibly banal. Cutscene conversations had 3 or 4 options but none of them would reply anything useful. Like watching LOST. So felt like my supposed choices were pointless. A normal Cutscene where they just speak to me would have been better rather than this pseudo choice nonsense. Flying between places or just suddenly appearing back in my ship if I fancied was fast, but I've been used to Star Citizen now where it all is disguised or actually happens

On the plus side, graphics were lovely in many areas. Sound is cool too. Really wanted to like it.

But... Not for me. Shame.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm around 10hrs in so well behind most and I've not long since realised that I've done next to nothing of the main quest line, instead I got railroaded early on onto the Crimson Fleet quest line and am about to finish that one out. But, I've become used to navigating the menu's etc and so on and generally?

So - Cyberpunk 2077. I know it's considered to be an RPG but I've always really struggled to consider it as such. The other elements that go with that genre feel so watered down that I just see it as a story-led FPS. It's how it plays, how it handles action etc and that's absolutely fine.

Starfield... feels pretty much the same. RPG elements were already watered down in Skyrim but Starfield refines that even further. Any time my shots don't hit right I feel it's the background stats system doing its job but by and large you're just running and gunning in firefights. I don't mind the gunplay in this, it's not the best in FPS's but it's leagues above anything Bethesda has done in live action in these types of games before. The game is largely a nice looking title too. It's quite possibly the largest game too however it feels like the smallest too. Cities and planet areas are large but I feel absolutely zero pull to spend hours exploring them rather than following the quest icon and I've already incredibly doubtful that will change. Space exploration feels pretty much entirely pointless, like being forced to constantly use a fast travel system 2-3 times in a row to get to the next area.

Part of the appeal of Skyrim was that it was one coherent land mass that you had to walk and explore over time, checking each cave and dungeon etc but that feel isn't there with Starfield. Like Cyberpunk, the optioni is tucked away in it but the game feels like a pretty straightlaced FPS adventure and when I multiply my existing 10hrs over the course of the game I think burn out will set in long before any chance of long term hook to check everywhere will. That's fine, I don't need Starfield to literally be Elder Scrolls in space and the hours it will take will still be an impressive count by the end. Without it feeling like another game of that type I'm finding myself less bothered by how choices etc don't matter, it almost might as well be Borderlands or etc.

I'm enjoying it, but I do wonder if it might have been better to limit its scale more and then just have its devs get on with making the entry everyones actually waiting for.

[Neon Ignition]

About 2/3's of the way through from what I can tell, circling 21hrs in. Well past the point where the game is going to curveball me and set aside the bits I think work and the bits I think don't. The main stumble is the space battles, hate them when they occur. The way the game is designed means that for me it really has been best approached as a fairly linear FPS, the relentless planet hopping means that the natural exploration is completely sidelined in place of a million loading screens. I've explored a few planet surface off the beaten path locations and so far they've all proven a waste of time meaning I definitely have no interest in spending X amount doing more but if that progression through the missions remains I probably have another 10 ahead of me.

[Neon Ignition]

Last few missions must be shorter, just found out I'm on the last main mission questline now but have another damned space battle ahead of me.

[Lebowski]

Part of the appeal of Skyrim was that it was one coherent land mass that you had to walk and explore over time, checking each cave and dungeon etc but that feel isn't there with Starfield. Like Cyberpunk, the optional is tucked away in it but the game feels like a pretty straightlaced FPS adventure and when I multiply my existing 10hrs over the course of the game I think burn out will set in long before any chance of long term hook to check everywhere will. That's fine, I don't need Starfield to literally be Elder Scrolls in space and the hours it will take will still be an impressive count by the end. Without it feeling like another game of that type I'm finding myself less bothered by how choices etc don't matter, it almost might as well be Borderlands or etc.

I'm enjoying it, but I do wonder if it might have been better to limit its scale more and then just have its devs get on with making the entry everyones actually waiting for.

That's exactly whats missing here is a feeling of place or coherence between locations, Skyrim and Oblivion and even the Witcher 3 worked so well as it wasn't always about the destination but the crazy tangents you ended up going on between the main storys, no secret vampire quests no witches haunted house of horrors that you stumble across by mistake.

One of my favorite missions in the Witcher 3 you could really easily miss, The marsh land castle where everyone has been slaughtered you make your way to the top looting as you go once at the top you awake the dead inhabitants and have to fight your way back out. You have a choice to rescue this poor ghosts spirit or not, if you do it that then turns out it wasn't a good thing you did but you freed a vengeful ghost got more people killed and things would of been better if you had never found the mission and tried to be a goody two shoes.