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Way back in the early days of the PC, circa 1986, a game was made called "Star Flight." It was a revolutionary achievement that created what would later be named "Sandbox games." The game basically plopped the player in a starship, with a galaxy full of stars that had planets, and let them mine, capture wildlife, engage in piracy, fight aliens, or whatever they wanted.
Fast forward to 2023 and Bethesda has rolled out a modern take on this model with Starfield. The name isn't an accident, Bethesda proudly acknowledges their inspiration for their new game.
So, is it any good? Does it live up to 25 years in development? Let's take a look.
First off, Microsoft bought Bethesda games and made some VERY questionable decisions about Starfield. The first one was that they took the PC game in development and turned it into an XBox exclusive in an attempt to bolster their fading XBox line. Oh the game is still on PC - as an XBox port, but Nintendo and Sony are both shut out.
I find this to not only be a bad business decision, but also a terrible technological decision. All modern games should be designed for the PC and then ported to consoles. Start with the highest technology and port down.
By designing for XBox, the game is confined to XBox limitations. Particularly AMD hardware, no ray tracing or DLSS here. Which leads to the first question, graphics. Well, this is NOT Cyberpunk 2077 by any means. It looks, and undoubtedly is, the Fallout 4 engine upscaled. The player models for closeup dialogue are good, but everything scales way down when not in dialogue. The artwork is very well done, so it would be wrong to say the visuals aren't good - but this is definitely 2018 technology, not 2023 - and this is driven purely by the XBox.
Many people had expected Skyrim in space. That is not what this is, it is Fallout in space. The pace and feel of the game are very much Fallout - which is not a bad thing, Fallout 4 is one of the best games ever made. The story starts out slow, but is solid. The characters are well fleshed out - though far too woke for my tastes. The promise of "do anything" is absolutely there, all the crafting options from Fallout - with settlement building replaced by spaceship building - but some of the ships that have been built are nothing less than spectacular.
I'm playing on PC and the controls are good for the most part - though menus are nerfed by the XBox centric nature. Still, everything responds well to a mouse/keyboard. I've run into several serious bugs, but they have all been one-off, reload and they are gone. Some are really annoying, screen stutters that are exceptionally bad. A few triggers that just wouldn't fire. But reloads have got me past all of these so far.
Combat is fun, with a huge selection of weapons that all feel unique. Space combat is meh, seems like an afterthought - even though this is a space game.
Some Bethesda people split off a few years ago and released a game called Outer Worlds - that clearly is the same genre. Outer Worlds has a more advanced graphics engine and really a good game. But it isn't the massive open world that Starfield is.
Given the competition from not just Outer Worlds, but also Chris Robert's Star Citizen, Starfield needs to fill some massive shoes to hit high marks, and it just doesn't quite make it. It's a good game, but can't climb to great, much because of the XBox decision.
My rating, 7.5 out of 10
Fast forward to 2023 and Bethesda has rolled out a modern take on this model with Starfield. The name isn't an accident, Bethesda proudly acknowledges their inspiration for their new game.
So, is it any good? Does it live up to 25 years in development? Let's take a look.
First off, Microsoft bought Bethesda games and made some VERY questionable decisions about Starfield. The first one was that they took the PC game in development and turned it into an XBox exclusive in an attempt to bolster their fading XBox line. Oh the game is still on PC - as an XBox port, but Nintendo and Sony are both shut out.
I find this to not only be a bad business decision, but also a terrible technological decision. All modern games should be designed for the PC and then ported to consoles. Start with the highest technology and port down.
By designing for XBox, the game is confined to XBox limitations. Particularly AMD hardware, no ray tracing or DLSS here. Which leads to the first question, graphics. Well, this is NOT Cyberpunk 2077 by any means. It looks, and undoubtedly is, the Fallout 4 engine upscaled. The player models for closeup dialogue are good, but everything scales way down when not in dialogue. The artwork is very well done, so it would be wrong to say the visuals aren't good - but this is definitely 2018 technology, not 2023 - and this is driven purely by the XBox.
Many people had expected Skyrim in space. That is not what this is, it is Fallout in space. The pace and feel of the game are very much Fallout - which is not a bad thing, Fallout 4 is one of the best games ever made. The story starts out slow, but is solid. The characters are well fleshed out - though far too woke for my tastes. The promise of "do anything" is absolutely there, all the crafting options from Fallout - with settlement building replaced by spaceship building - but some of the ships that have been built are nothing less than spectacular.
I'm playing on PC and the controls are good for the most part - though menus are nerfed by the XBox centric nature. Still, everything responds well to a mouse/keyboard. I've run into several serious bugs, but they have all been one-off, reload and they are gone. Some are really annoying, screen stutters that are exceptionally bad. A few triggers that just wouldn't fire. But reloads have got me past all of these so far.
Combat is fun, with a huge selection of weapons that all feel unique. Space combat is meh, seems like an afterthought - even though this is a space game.
Some Bethesda people split off a few years ago and released a game called Outer Worlds - that clearly is the same genre. Outer Worlds has a more advanced graphics engine and really a good game. But it isn't the massive open world that Starfield is.
Given the competition from not just Outer Worlds, but also Chris Robert's Star Citizen, Starfield needs to fill some massive shoes to hit high marks, and it just doesn't quite make it. It's a good game, but can't climb to great, much because of the XBox decision.
My rating, 7.5 out of 10
Even your own site says you're wrong.
