Xbox (Series X - $750 and Series S - $500) - 10/11/20

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

The gripes I am hearing about Starfield.. they sound valid. All the different gameplay mechanics sound serviceable but nothing stellar. I guess the game is the sum of its many parts.. but does that just mean a look of okay mechanics make an okay game.

I have been watching for this eagerly.. I have a few reviewers I listen to and trust. SkillUp being one of them so I am looking to see what he says.

[pilonv1]

Downloading it now, taking a few hours on Steam sadly

[Froggy]

I don't really like fallout (depressing scenario and aesthetic). Or Skyrim but I love space games. This sounds pretty good taking the parts of those I did like (exploring, world building) with a world I like. I'm just shocked it's not a shit show.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Post your Starfield impressions. I'm not hyped to play. It seems a solid Bethesda-style RPG. The pre-game hype citing its vastness and procedurally generated locations suggested a fairly immersive and interactive space travel game and it appears it's not that with most of the criticism being levelled at multiple loading screens taking the place of boarding your mode of transport and travelling to a destination. I'm still quite keen. The soundtrack sounds amazing. It's a crowded year for great games so Starfield has some stiff competition for those of us with limited time.

[Rorschach]

So, I'm a sucker and bought the Premium Upgrade for $53AUD, means even though I don't own the base game as I am renting it through Game Pass, I am able to play early. First impressions is that it's been a crash-fest for me. I mean, it took me 5 attempts simply to create a character with the constant crashes. This shouldn't be a thing as I completely wiped my OS drive - fresh installation of everything. The first hour was frustration central. Constant crashes in the cities and dialogue - space and battle sequences fared better. The farther I have progressed in the game the better it is getting in terms of stability but I am hoping there is a patch for the PC version. Given the instabilities I'm going to play on the Xbox for a bit. Not sure if I'm just unlucky as a friend of mine has a lesser system but running it without an issue.

As to actual impressions, positives:

- It is a really good looking game. I feel, on the 3 hours I've had with it so far, this is what Star Citizen was promising when it launched. It's not completely seamless in the transitions from planet to space and there are plenty of loading screens. However, the world looks and feels well realised so far.

- Firefights feel good and the weapons have the same kind of heft that Halo does.

- Space battles are particularly cool. It's less Star Citizen and more Everspace.

- I like the exploration side of things, very much like Mass Effect.

- Really good sound effects and soundtrack, very much like Fallout 4.

Negatives:

- Mine are mainly technical; just the crashes. It would be a more enjoyable experience if not for the constant crashes. Also, no exclusive fullscreen mode, just bordless window - WTF.

- The biomes reminds me a lot of Outer Worlds, as do the way characters move and speak. Not necessarily a bad thing.

If I didn't get this relatively cheap I would have just waited for a sale - not at $120AUD just for the base game. I recently got The Outer Worlds in Humble Bundle, I'll probably finish that before sinking time into this.

[pilonv1]

Had no issues on Steam so far from about and hour of play.

But PC performance is dogshit, every preset turns FSR on automatically and it still runs like crap. There's no texture quality settings (WTF) and if you use a nVidia card there's no DLSS option. There's no Field of View option either. It does look quite nice though.

Gameplay wise it just does feel like Fallout x Mass Effect for me. You'll spot all the Bethesda gameplay hallmarks. Which is fine but I'd not really read much about it and thought it might try a few new things. I think if you enjoyed Mass Effect or The Outer Worlds you'd very much like this though. The no space travel bit makes sense logically from a development standpoint but from an immersion standpoint feels stupid.

I'd agree with Rorschach that I'd be giving it a go on Gamepass first, because it's not the groundbreaking game everyone seemed to be talking about. Luckily I got mine free with my 6700XT. I'll be going back to Baldurs Gate 3 for a while and wait to see if they can optimise it and what mods come out. This probably sounds more negative than I am on it, since I do love these Bethesda games, but it doesn't feel new, it just feels like a reskin of Fallout.

[flipswitch]

Thanks for the Starfield impressions. Might get it down the road when it’s on sale purely to play on Deck . Some disappointments as expected, and yeah it’s a typical Bethesda at heart.

I’ve watched some of the technical stuff on YouTube and very solid experience on console on day 1.

[Rorschach]

But PC performance is dogshit, every preset turns FSR on automatically and it still runs like crap. There's no texture quality settings (WTF) and if you use a nVidia card there's no DLSS option. There's no Field of View option either. It does look quite nice though.

This. It is poorly optimised on PC - all of the effort appears to have gone into the console side of things (fair enough). I played some more last night. It's a decent game but it launched in a year with absolute killer games already out. I'm going to leave it now. I want to finish BG3 first and then on to Phantom Liberty. Hopefully by the end of the year it is fairing better.

[Madmya]

I played just shy of 2 hours last night and I thought it was just great. It reminded me of the original Mass Effect, where you are just totally sucked into this universe with awe and wonder.

It's still a very preliminary impression, but I can see how there are so many ways to play this game already.

[pilonv1]

I'm definitely keen to get back into it and give it more of a go. Just the PC performance and wrapping up Baldur's Gate in my way for now.

[flipswitch]

EDGE BG3 10/10. Interested in what Starfield will receive.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

I'm about 9 hours in.. just got my first artifact.

The good -
The gun play is fun.. very fun in fact though I'm still finding it difficult to aim accurately. I'm hoping I will calibrate to it soon but storming a ship or facility was great.
The story is interesting.. though it's treading old ground..

The bad - ugh the item management. It's very cumbersome. I hope I just learn to live with it soon.
I'm playing on the series X and it's playable but I'm struggling to understand the hype when I have played games like Horizon Forbidden west where the characters, NPCs and overall mechanics are far more polished in a world with far more detail and diversity.

The ugly
I'm just finding the graphics to be very meh. The level of detail.. I just feel like Horizon has spoiled me. Starfield has moments but it just feels a bit blocky and uninspired. Textures feel very bland and repetitive which doesn't help things in terms of it looking like a brand new release for this current gen. It doesn't look like a new Gen game.. or have I just grown accustomed to this gen and it's just not that impressive? Not in comparison to other games.. that's for sure.

Overall though.. I'm liking it.. even if the menus are clunky.

[unfnknblvbl]

New Forza looks good, but apparently you have to tweak loads of settings to get steering wheels to feel right. I guess it's time to get a playseat?

[Rorschach]

Starfield. In a nutshell - I don't like it at the moment. I've tried hard to like it, when it works it plays well, the gunplay is decent and it looks...adequate. Outside of that, it's a disappointment for me, for the following reasons:

- It's a technical mess. I would say this is a bigger bugfest than vanilla Cyberpunk. There is no consistency to the crashing in this game. I can play for hours without a beat, log back in and it crashes constantly - no matter what you are doing. At the title screen? Crash. Trying to fly to a new system? Crash. Modifying your ship? Crash. Selling items? Crash. Walking around on a barren planet surface? Crash. I know some are having more luck with this game than I am but I am running a half decent setup at 1440p with the latest Nvidia drivers and it isn't improving.

- The worlds are boring and, unless I missed something, there is zero vehicle traversal. Even having a deployable buggy like Mass Effect would have been cool.

- The menu and inventory system sucks. It's complicated, hard to find things and the ship upgrading system is like Mechano.

Overall, I'm just glad I wasn't hanging my hat on this game. Fortunately have Phantom Liberty coming up plus Baldur's Gate to go back to.

[pilonv1]

- The worlds are boring and, unless I missed something, there is zero vehicle traversal. Even having a deployable buggy like Mass Effect would have been cool.

This is my main issue. They've made space boring AF. There's no sense of discovery like Fallout or Oblivion or Skyrim. It's just a bunch of boring areas.

I'll definitely play it once I'm done with BG3, but it needs some mods and some extra content desperately.

[Peppermint Lounge]

I started it and am enjoying it, though I'm in New Atlantis at the moment knocking off some early boring AF fetch quests. This adds to the lacklustre New Atlantis first impression - simultaneously ugly visuals and taxing on hardware. Other areas/locations look pretty nice and I generally like the overall presentation of the game. I can see why a SSD is mandatory. The negative reviews didn't overstate how many load screens there are.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

I'm playing on the Series X and I've not had any crashes but I have had issues where things kinda stop working? Scanning for example.

I'm enjoying it though I do feel as I play it more, there are glaring omissions in terms of good gameplay and quality of life things.

The map system? What the actual fuck. The star map is.. for the most part just annoying. And unless I am mistaken.. there are no city maps so I spent a good part of a fuckin hour wandering around the maze that is Akila City trying to find a particular shop. Simply put - they need an info kiosk that allows you to DL a map and then boom - you have a reason to have said city map.

The game just looks flat. Just because a you can do reflective surfaces doesn't mean you should. the ground and big areas can be flat but when the textures make it look super flat and shiny.. it just breaks immersion and shows how much they've added but it's only paper thin in terms of decent world building.

For all the dialogue, you still have the glaring oddities of characters not communicating. The very first people you speak to Lin and Heller.. I eventually recruited Lin and she was upset that Heller got taken hostage... when they meet up again - not a single reference to it. At all.

7 out of 10 really seems accurate to me atm. It's one thing to have all these options but when the options play out and there isn't really any meaning or impact to them it just feels sparse. Mass Effect - while not as big a game - it was more curated and when certain characters meet up again - there would be banter between them which gives actual meaning to your past interactions with them.

I'm tempted to put the game down and let them fill it out a bit more in terms of content and the like but I have a feeling that having it on the Series X means that I won't truly ever see the game in a state that would warrant another play through. BGS would do well to properly harness the modding community and make the good mods from the PC version a reality for the Xbox game.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Starfield is fucking boring. The boring early New Atlantis fetch quest energy is still with me across multiple locations and a variety of characters. From one boring conversation with a badly animated mannequin portrait to another. Over and over. A constant stream of unrelated missions filling up my quest log which I know are going to be more boring conversations. Yes the game is a known notorious slog early on and it will apparently open up and show me its genius. It's going to want to be amazing to behold. The locations are incredibly average when compared to other modern games like Cyberpunk or Destiny. I was looking forward to Neon because it's apparently amazing. Wrong. The floors are just long, straight corridors with rooms off either side. Flat, simple and shallow levels lit up with colourful textures. And you can't go through a door in this game without copping a load screen. This is not an open world game. Alpha Protocol is more open than this thing. Everything in this game is a slog - load screens, having to walk everywhere, boring conversations with primitive looking NPCs, boring exploration.

I'll persist but it's not easy right now. If I'm remotely tired (which after putting the kids to bed I usually am) Starfield literally puts me to sleep. I'm looking foward to hitting up the ship customisation once I'm resourced enough to do so. I know Bethesda have gone all out there and I'm looking foward to putting something unique together.

[pilonv1]

You'll probably love exploring in BG3 then

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

Starfield is fucking boring. The boring early New Atlantis fetch quest energy is still with me across multiple locations and a variety of characters. From one boring conversation with a badly animated mannequin portrait to another. Over and over. A constant stream of unrelated missions filling up my quest log which I know are going to be more boring conversations. Yes the game is a known notorious slog early on and it will apparently open up and show me its genius. It's going to want to be amazing to behold. The locations are incredibly average when compared to other modern games like Cyberpunk or Destiny. I was looking forward to Neon because it's apparently amazing. Wrong. The floors are just long, straight corridors with rooms off either side. Flat, simple and shallow levels lit up with colourful textures. And you can't go through a door in this game without copping a load screen. This is not an open world game. Alpha Protocol is more open than this thing. Everything in this game is a slog - load screens, having to walk everywhere, boring conversations with primitive looking NPCs, boring exploration.

I'll persist but it's not easy right now. If I'm remotely tired (which after putting the kids to bed I usually am) Starfield literally puts me to sleep. I'm looking foward to hitting up the ship customisation once I'm resourced enough to do so. I know Bethesda have gone all out there and I'm looking foward to putting something unique together.

It has been a slog for the first 20 odd hours. I just got my first space power and that I will admit - was pretty cool. I'm curious to see what it will be like now that I have this new slant on combat which I will say is fun.. but the cities are just hard work in terms of traversal and finding exactly where you need to go. I have another new city to explore next so I'm interested to see if my utter dread of entering a city will be diminished.

I'm going to slog through though as I think if I can beat it - I can leave it for a while and see what it feels like with all the improvements when I decide to tackle the new game + which apparently is well considered.

[flipswitch]

How does it compare with say FO4?

[Peppermint Lounge]

It's taken its sweet time but Starfield has hit its stride with me. Usual Betheda things - enduring 20 hours of tedium before you uncover a sufficient number of mechanics and systems that add up to a good game. The load screen thing remains a serious misgiving though. If this space game actually made you feel like you were travelling in space then it would be at another level. I don't even need to go back to my ship. From one location on the ground I can highlight a mission, set a course, click land and I'm loaded straight to the ground at the next location. NPCs aside the visuals are great. Ship and building interiors can look really good. Textures are fantastic. It's also running really well for me. While load screens are as plentiful as I've ever seen in a recent game they are super brief.

[Froggy]

I've got about 3 hours in and stalled. Not really sure wtf is going on but so many other games to play I don't know if I'll go back to it anytime soon. Cyberpunk 2.0 has me interested now as I've been holding off and holding off but it sounds like it might actually be good now so I might head to that. If the story got me in this I'd be more invested but so far it hasn't grabbed me.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

Textures are fantastic.

I need to have a look at what the PC is doing because on the Series X.. I sometimes get some ugly low res textures in places. It all looks pretty as a picture but then when you are in the game, everything feels very still.. especially on planets with trees and grass. It's all very static and very last gen in how it all looks.

When it should be crisp and clean.. it works.. but otherwise.. I really do feel like this is previous gen looking game.

The load times haven't got to me.... yet. The menu/icon system though.. fuck me I spent 20min trying to fly to The Eye and just couldn't do it.. only to then realise there was a tiny icon I could press. Ugh.

[Rorschach]

I'm off Starfield now Cyberpunk is here. I'm not pouring hate on it but it has been underwhelming so far. Will wait until it has that major patch before continuing on