Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[ultra loser]

That's one thing fixed

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

Right, here is my rather long review on Shitfield:

Should be posted on the front page. Polish hamster Darth Roxor, what does it take for something to get published?

 

[RobotSquirrel]

That's one thing fixed

now make a mod that removes all the ugly art.
Hey why are there no NPCs now?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

For a game to so utterly fail in so many aspects takes a considerable team effort

Huh? The LL mods aren't even out yet!? Talk about jumping the gun.

 

[Kiste]

all game journalists would criticize and call the halflings "pedophilia".

I'll fix this for you:

all game journalists would criticize and call the "halflings" pedophilia.

 

[likash]

I did not expect this

W8 untill the users reviews are up. Critic review means shit since most of them are shills.

 

[Morgoth]

Wait.... I thought there were no sentient Aliens in Starfield.

Todd has surprised us again.

 

[man-erg]

Thoughts after a few hours:

Starfield is not about Space itself, Space is just there to help the narrative. To compare it to sci-fi books it would definitely be most like The Expanse. It's rooted in current tech, current society, it's very Americana and any physics is thrown out the window. As such it doesn't even matter that you can only fly ships in orbit, it's not like full space piloting would have anything to offer. The gaming loop is pretty clear: land on planets, survey and mine to build/sell/research and do missions for various corporations/cartels/whatever. All very "humanlike".

It's a shame that after so many years of development, this is all they have to show for. Especially when there are many great sci-fi books out there. And I'm not talking about mind benders rooted in physics like what Cixin or Weir write. There are honest work sci-fi page turners that have just enough creativity to make it worthwhile: mix up the society maybe add some aliens that aren't built on mitochondria, give genetical alteration a proper go, etc. I guess the good part is that adding some creativity into the basic loop is definitely moddable, somethingsomethingstartrek.

I'm not gonna talk about the wokeness, it's Americana like I said. So I guess trying to portray whatever te fuck is happening in the States right now makes sense.

There are significant improvements to the Creation Engine across the board. I especially liked the way beards are rendered while facial animations are decent enough.

The one thing that really surprised me was how insipid the first hour was. Every BGS game I've ever played had really awesome introductions. Not this one though, not at all.


And that's about it from me, I don't see any point in playing it further. I'm a bit shellshocked really at how poor it is.

You got it! It's 2023 America. In space. Not 300 years in the future. The opening scene in the mine. It looks exactly like a mine of today - except everybody's wearing space suits. And women are in charge. Repeat for every scene in the game.

The sci-fi elements are non-existant. Any half-decent sci-fi writer will cringe at how unimaginative it all is. Put everybody in space suits seems to be the limit. The list of plot holes and absurd anachronisms is endless. Take the computers you log on to just as one example. The look just like todays computers. But computers have changed dramatically in the last 40 years, yet won't change again in the next 300? Repeat this for every single aspect. The space ships aren't even as sophisticated as modern fighters.

Struggling to see how anyone can see this as an improvement over Skyrim or FO3/FO4. They were shallow and flawed, but even a grumpy old cynic like me got some casual enjoyment out of them. Already bored after 5 hours of EarthinspacesuitsField.

 

[NecroLord]

Wait.... I thought there were no sentient Aliens in Starfield.

Todd has surprised us again.

Bethesda and making good looking character models.
Not even once...

 

[Bendu]

My favorite part so far: Had some some illegal contraband on my ship. Got caught. Was interrogated by UC SysDef and they offered me a deal to infiltrate the Crimson Fleet. Told them to fuck off. Now UC SysDef is my enemy and I'm trying to find the Crimson Fleet by myself.

Anyway, here are some more impressions:

Spoiler

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

It's a feature.

https://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-sa...othing-there-but-they-certainly-werent-bored/

lmao.

The devs were more concerned with helping players discover strange new pronouns, and explore gay niggers' assholes than they were adding any substance to the gameplay.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Right, here is my rather long review on Shitfield:

Should be posted on the front page. Polish hamster Darth Roxor, what does it take for something to get published?

Money and/or neutral-positive wording.

 

[NecroLord]

It's a feature.

https://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-sa...othing-there-but-they-certainly-werent-bored/

lmao.

The devs were more concerned with helping players discover strange new pronouns, and explore gay niggers' assholes than they were adding any substance to the gameplay.

"Lifemates"?
Is that a new fancy word they use in brave new world for husband and wife?

 

[VerSacrum]

Some real dystopian shit right there

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Is that a new fancy word they use in brave new world for husband and wife?

"Husband"? "Wife"?

Oh, do you mean a lifemating between an egg producer and a sperm producer? Like, with old-style bonus hole sex?

Wow. How old are you, grandperson?

Starfield is an inclusive game about the future. Such archaic terminology has no place there.

 

[Mortmal]

It's true that the beginning is bland and insipid. But were we spoiled by Baldur's Gate 3? Its introduction is immersive, original, alien, and super epic. The narrative is excellent, and each NPC has an actor's performance. Who could forget Raphael, for example? Here, the problem is that they haven't evolved much, if at all, from Fallout 4. The game certainly has redeeming qualities and some fun to be had, but all of it seems so amateurish now. There's not much to impress on the screen. The ship landing and taking off are pretty good and well-detailed, and some interiors are very well made. However, the first town I see seems far below something like Cyberpunk 2077, which was also harshly criticized at its release. Still, I don't see anything justifying such high specs. As for the gameplay, there's no evolution, and the shooter parts, especially the AI, are far below what you could get in Half-Life or Stalker.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

It's true that the beginning is bland and insipid.

That's not the problem to me.

There are a few ways to hook a sci fi audience and SF doesn't do any of them.

One is a unique sci fi premise. Stargate, for example, had an alien device that sent people to other planets. But Starfield's Contact ripoff powers are not unique at all. It reminds me of Assassin's Creed alien powers. Same with the been there done that setting in general.

The next way is with great characters and a great story. But this is a Bethesda game, so we know that's not going to happen.

Another way is to create a world that people want to live in for some reason. Actually, I'd say this is the most common, and most essential element to most good sci fi franchises. Even Fallout draws you into the setting with Mad Max freedom and adventure. But the gay nigger saturated galaxy (seriously, iirc I've seen two gay niggers already and I haven't even played the game) hardly does that.

Why would I want to live in this future with nothing worthwhile in it? I go to space and NPCs eyeball me. I explore planets and find the same worms, lizards, or floating eyeballs over and over. My ship barely does anything interesting other than going from point A to B.

I would sit through a slow start all day long if the game were to put me in a setting like the old Star Trek series. Or if it had some unique, brilliant twist that I'd never seen before. Or even if it had fantastic characters.

Starfield has none of this. Fast start, slow start, it's still an empty box as far as I'm concerned.

 

[jackofshadows]

Playing subj for several days now. Tl;dr: trash but playable kind of trash. Like junk food kind of game yeah.

The thing is: while Fallout 4 was a bad game either way, despite the fact my bum had been burned out long time ago regarding what they did with Fallout 3 I was still highly irritated with F4 at times when something especially retarded popped out related to the setting (anything really, lets say brotherhood of steel even). But here it'ss their own setting and that's doing them a huge favour.

This shit is buggy. Not unplayably buggy but the insidious thing is that almost all of it goes into saves. So quests are braking, NPCs might be gone for good and for another example my ship's starway from some point works only straight to cockpit and vise versa, the other option is always "unaccessible". If you're gonna play this, do manual saves a lot. Or not because apparantely the game is designed for consequent ng+ runs

The pefrormance is really bad while graphics are so meh with godawful grey filter all over it (you can forget about the colours). Not even fair to compare this to CP, while it's a reasonable thing to do actually because at the very least one big hub location and quest branch were clearly inspired by it (is so pale in comparison). It's also a loading screen simulator as probably many have already mentioned. I cannot even imagine how it plays w/o ssd.

The main draw feature for me was ship building and it's nice but underwhelming because -surprise- most stats are tied to the key components 1 max each so basically the rest is mostly flavour. In order to make possible big ships they've managed to provide -gasp- ladders but they're so annoying to use that what you really want is to avoid them. Therefore not much to choose from 3 classes and the preferable shape. Well, and weapons ofc but I didn't test them all properly yet.

The "puzzles" are especially retarded in this one it's not even funny. As someone said Swen is ingenious in letting stupid people feel smart with BG3 (shove people from cliffes, burn the web and so on) here Todd is weirdly doing the opposite. Especially baffling the new getting your speshul powers mechanic is: you have to fly from one bubble to another n times. It was a stunningly retarded thing to do for the first time but they offer you to do it all over 24 times. What the actual fuck even.

The main quest despite the silly and cliсhed opening so far was pretty entertaining and I liked the *twist* quite a bit actually, was pleasantly surprised.

The game is really woke. Gays and lesbians everywhere, companions included (all THE nigger is babbering usually is his dead husband - yeah) but what's more important, thanks to this all factions looks very samey thanks to the diversity approach. To be fair, except the one sort of antagonistic faction and it's really cool (even though it's just kind of space muslims). I wish they've done all of them this differently. Also of course you won't hear or read anything spicy: it's all very safe and bland writing wise and therefore dull as fuck.

On the bright side, the common gameplay except for exploring empty planets/creating outposts (no idea who in his right mind will be doin that) is solid - they've improved level design, AI, guns variety is there, now there's also zero-g fighting, open space ship fighting (not really impressed with it so far and the controling scheme is annoying thanks to the console compromise). So once you're done with getting the preferable gear and learning some key skills it's enjoyable. If you can enjoy the usual if improved Beth gameplay loop that is.

 

[Swen]

Right, here is my rather long review on Shitfield:


Bethesda Game Studios is a company that broke ground on some truly revolutionary games like The Elders Scrolls: Arena, and its sequel Daggerfall. However a long line of commercial failures afterwards pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy. Its next game had to be a success to save the company, and the result was TES: Morrowind, a truly fantastic game of incredible creativity, set in a world unlike any seen before. It captured my attention like few other games have when it released in 2002.

Then they released the next game, TES: Oblivion. And they played it safe. Utterly safe. Gone was the fantastic creativity of Morrowind, replaced instead by the most bog standard fantasy world you could possibly create. All elements that could offend anyone were removed or heavily toned down. But it still worked, the joy of freely exploring such a vast fantasy world still held up even if the world was comparatively shallow. And with their next series of games, Fallout 3, TES: Skyrim, and Fallout 4, the formula held up. Successful, but increasingly safe, shallow games plagued by weak writing and increasingly inconsistent lore, held up primarily by the freedom of their open world and the endless modders supporting the games for decades after release.

That brings us to Starfield, the latest game from Bethesda, their first new IP in ages, and the final destination of their increasingly lazy, uninspired and utterly "safe" game design. Though I fail to understand why they were so hell bent on creating a "new" IP when they did absolutely nothing original with it. Starfield does absolutely nothing new, it's just a long series of sci-fi tropes done better by others without adding anything, or putting an interesting new spin on anything. With the recent Elder Scrolls and Fallout games they had the luxury of copying the homework of the great talents that created those franchises, but with Starfield they had to learn to walk on their own, and they faceplant right out of the gate.

The main story is the most tedious, derivative and repetitive slog I've ever experienced in a Bethesda game. Most quests are simple fetch quests, the EXACT SAME fetch quest, repeated for hours on end. The story takes forever to build any kind of momentum, and it barely reaches the pace of a gentle jog before it reaches its final unsatisfying end. It opens to a far inferior version of Mass Effect's inciting event, before going into some pseudo-religious claptrap and ultimately devolving into the most overdone sci-fi trope that has been plaguing popular culture in recent years. You'll know it when to get there, trust me. I can barely describe how much I hated the main story, and it certainly didn't help that I predicted most of the big story reveals along the way.

But what about the open world? It's always carried Bethesda games before. 1000 planets of adventure must be something, right? No. Bethesda dropped the ball here monumentally. The open world is basically a lie, an illusion of content. In truth the worlds you visit are little more than vast empty expanses of open terrain with the occasional copy/pasted structure dotted around. And it's extremely obvious how lazy it is, every "random" structure is identical down to the placement of every last item, enemy, and decoration. Worse yet is the fact that you can't fly directly to the structures, nor are there any kinds of mounts or vehicles available so you'll spend vast amounts of time walking to things. At least you can fast travel back, and good god you have to fast travel a lot in this game. Enjoy the loading screens.

The worldbuilding is some of the worst I've ever seen. There's no depth to anything. In playing it safe, every faction is just a generic stock entity, "space law enforcement", "space bank", "space bandits", "space pirates". Every character is a basic cardboard cutout, with terrible facial animations and wooden acting to boot. All animal and plant life across the galaxy is basically the same models, just with different names. It's all so bland and repetitive I can barely remember the names of any of the characters I encountered. There's nothing to distinguish one person or place from any other. Every area is equally diverse, with no distinguishing features to set them apart from any other. The worst example of this I experienced is when I found a 200 year old generation ship, launched at sublight speed from Earth to colonize another planet, and I discovered the people born and raised on said ship all spoke with clearly distinct Earth accents like Russian, African, English etc. Are you joking? Did the Africans isolate themselves in a ghetto in Cargo Bay 3 for two centuries? Did the Russians conquer and establish a fiefdom on deck 9? Bethesda's writers have clearly never experienced a truly multicultural society, because it doesn't work like this. After growing up together in a community sealed inside a spaceship they should speak the same English accent, and probably a strange form of English that distinctly diverged from what everyone else speaks after two centuries in isolation. But that idea was just too clever for Bethesda.

Then there are the bugs, of which there are many. This is pretty much part and parcel of any Bethesda game, but needs to be addressed. I've personally experienced a plethora of minor irritants such as t-posing corpses, wild physics and poorly scripted quests and triggers. This on top of many, many crashes and freezes. Save often is my advice. Hard saves, so that you can revert if necessary.

Beyond bugs there are also endless little irritating quirks that makes the game a pain to play. There are no local or interior maps, so finding your way around cities or buildings becomes irritating. Particularly in cities which have been built around long detours to get to anything, most likely to hide how small they really are.
The "skill challenges" you have to complete to progress character skills. It's just another system meant to slow the game down, to pad out the time it takes to get anything done. And the challenges are never anything interesting like, breaking into the secure vault of a band of religious zealots, or hunt a lethal predator loose on a space station that's falling into a black hole. No, it's just a grind. Do X thing Y number of times. I particularly hated having to grind space combat to pump up my Piloting skill so that I could use a ship with longer jump range.
Then there are escort quests, thankfully I haven't found many, but trying to keep a character with the survival skills of a clinically depressed lemming alive is never fun, especially with the sheer number of bloodthirsty aliens the game throws at you.

Ultimately a lot of the game's issues beside the stale writing and uninspired worldbuilding, boil down to engine limitations. The game is built on the back of the aging Creation Engine, which itself is an evolution of the Gamebryo Engine Bethesda has been using since Morrowind, over 20 years ago. Please Bethesda, let it rest. It can go no further.

To conclude, Starfield is all the bad connotations of the word "Bethesda" distilled into one game. This is the final destination for all of the lazy choices, overhyped features, stale writing, and "vast but shallow" design philosophy that Bethesda is known for. What else can I say but this? Bethesda. This isn't good enough any more! Your lazy, half-assed efforts aren't good enough. You had the unmitigated gall to ask 100$ for early access to this uninspired piece of ♥♥♥♥, the worst product you have ever cobbled together. If we are to have any hope of a decent Fallout or Elder Scrolls game in the future, there has to be a serious shakeup at Bethesda. And I doubt Todd Howard is the only problem as some have suggested. For a game to so utterly fail in so many aspects takes a considerable team effort. I can only hope that this game's failure is a wake up call and that the future will see some positive changes.

Final score: Bethesda / 10

Great review! Now do BG3 next

Infinitron give this man a job

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The "puzzles" are especially retarded in this one it's not even funny.

I saw one puzzle that just had a bunch of letters on the ground in rows. You had to walk over the correct letter or it would trigger the turret.

This would make sense in a fantasy setting, but in a sci fi setting, it's just silly. Where did the guy who built this get these giant letters to stick on the floor? Why did he not just use a keypad and password?

Astonishingly silly.

 

[911 Jumper]

Yeah, it's just a 3 second long character customisation option.

It's a shame this game is still gonna sell like hot cakes.

 

[JamesDixon]

Yeah, it's just a 3 second long character customisation option.

It's a shame this game is still gonna sell like hot cakes.

I love the midwit that has to create a strawman and ignores the actual meat of the position of HvB.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

 

[Nifft Batuff]

What's the necessity of spaceships and space combat if you can fast-travel everywhere?

 

[Irxy]

Yeah, it's just a 3 second long character customisation option.

It's a shame this game is still gonna sell like hot cakes.

To be fair, its better than the 4 (!) options you have to setup in BG3, all hidden in different sub-menues easy to miss, just to set your character's gender.
Don't see the comparable amount of rage in there for some reason.