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Starfield | Review Thread

What scores do you think StarfieId will get?

  • 40-45%

    Votes: 3 0.5%
  • 45-50%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 50-55%

    Votes: 1 0.2%
  • 55-60%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 60-65%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 65-70%

    Votes: 2 0.3%
  • 70-75%

    Votes: 5 0.8%
  • 75-80%

    Votes: 15 2.3%
  • 80-85%

    Votes: 81 12.5%
  • 85-90%

    Votes: 241 37.3%
  • 90-95%

    Votes: 243 37.6%
  • 95-100%

    Votes: 55 8.5%

  • Total voters
    646
  • Poll closed .

GHG

Gold Member
Play the game, ignore the scores.

Major League Baseball Please GIF by Detroit Tigers
 
LMAO at the 37% gaffers who voted 90-95 MC. Who are those people ?
To be fair, I believe I picked that range cause I expected even more MC manipulation and more sugar coating and excusing of issues with Xbox games.
I mean Stevivor gave it a 8 . . . I mean come on!!! It's like they were trying to make me wrong!
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
This is actually why it's getting those reviews... We are all pushing forward while the game is annoying and boring because we have fate in Bethesda and we hear people saying "later on it becomes good" but the problem is: the boring and the annoying part we played doesn't vanish. I'm playing the game and some times when I turn off the Xbox I can't wait to return to it... but sometimes I actually need to "force" my self to play at it again hoping in a "good run". It's a good game but 80 fits perfectly as a score.
Yeah, I mean numerical scores are a poor tool to assess a game by anyway. I am having a great time with it, but it was slow to start and I sometimes lose interest in the main story. There are things I don't like, but I keep getting sucked back in.
 

Humdinger

Member
Next thing I'm hoping for is a big Post Honeymoon period whiplash for people who defended and loved Starfield. [....] Bethesda needs to get the message that their approach to game design is an old dog performing the same old tricks.

I don't think that'll happen, because if you love and defend something, you have too much cognitive dissonance to overcome. If Bethesda gets backlash, it won't come from the people who love and defend Starfield. It will come from people who are Bethesda fans but who were disappointed in Starfield.
 
Next thing I'm hoping for is a big Post Honeymoon period whiplash for people who defended and loved Starfield. It's not that I'm wishing ill will on the game, it's fans, on Xbox, or any of that. I sunk so many hours into Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 (yes I love that game, eat a dick), because I loved Bethesda RPGs so much. But they need to evolve and they need to do better.

If the 20 year wait for the The Elder Scrolls VI amounts to "Skyrim, but with better graphics!" that would be such a letdown and slap in the face. To see the same Creative Engine jankiness, same load screens every minute, same outdated physics, same bugs, same NPC behavior, etc etc. Bethesda needs to get the message that their approach to game design is an old dog performing the same old tricks.
I really like their old dog and really love their old tricks.
 

Madflavor

Member
I really like their old dog and really love their old tricks.

Cool. Your old dog just got absolutely mogged by a bunch of Belgian nerds because they evolved and finetuned their craft.

I don't think that'll happen, because if you love and defend something, you have too much cognitive dissonance to overcome. If Bethesda gets backlash, it won't come from the people who love and defend Starfield. It will come from people who are Bethesda fans but who were disappointed in Starfield.

Agreed, and I think it'll be enough. It's gone down quite a bit in the review scores, and there are plenty of journalists and influencers talking about how outdated it feels. Imagine Bethesda pulling this again with TESVI after a near 20 year wait. It'll have a huge launch regardless, but I can't imagine most people would be happy with a stagnant formula after two decades. The die hard fans like you said, won't care they've been served a steaming bowl of mediocrity once again.
 
You know what I meant.
It's not a new IP at all, though. Many Harry Potter games have come out before it. The lore, art direction, music style etc... all existed already. It's not like Starfield where they project was made from a blank canvas. That's not to discredit Hogwarts in any way. Most stuff in the game is original due to the time setting and nature of the game and it's an absolute triumph for a first game in that style especially considering the developer.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
It's not a new IP at all, though. Many Harry Potter games have come out before it. The lore, art direction, music style etc... all existed already. It's not like Starfield where they project was made from a blank canvas. That's not to discredit Hogwarts in any way. Most stuff in the game is original due to the time setting and nature of the game and it's an absolute triumph for a first game in that style especially considering the developer.
You're being this dude,
135.png


No shit. Again, you know what I meant. In the same way Spider-Man, etc.. New for the studio, new for this gen, and new style that will probably be a franchise due to its success.

Not new IP as in the property itself.
 
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You're being this dude,
135.png


No shit. Again, you know what I meant. In the same way Spider-Man, etc.. New for the studio, new for this gen, and new style that will probably be a franchise due to its success.

Not new IP as in the property itself.
I'm not being that guy. There's a huge risk in developing something brand new. We don't see it often especially in the AAA RPG space. That's why I feel games like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Starfield are actually very underappreciated.
 
Cool. Your old dog just got absolutely mogged by a bunch of Belgian nerds because they evolved and finetuned their craft.



Agreed, and I think it'll be enough. It's gone down quite a bit in the review scores, and there are plenty of journalists and influencers talking about how outdated it feels. Imagine Bethesda pulling this again with TESVI after a near 20 year wait. It'll have a huge launch regardless, but I can't imagine most people would be happy with a stagnant formula after two decades. The die hard fans like you said, won't care they've been served a steaming bowl of mediocrity once again.

Totally different type of game. A great game, but they are not the same at all at least IMO. Cool thing about it is that you don't have to play this or TES VI, no one has a gun to your head.
 

Raven117

Member
If the 20 year wait for the The Elder Scrolls VI amounts to "Skyrim, but with better graphics!" that would be such a letdown and slap in the face. To see the same Creative Engine jankiness, same load screens every minute, same outdated physics, same bugs, same NPC behavior, etc etc. Bethesda needs to get the message that their approach to game design is an old dog performing the same old tricks.
And you know who already does this stuff MUCH better? CDProjektRed....Im going to go ahead and call my shot...I think Phantom Liberty is going to show just how much further CDProjectRed is with respect to Bethesda.
 

Madflavor

Member
Totally different type of game. A great game, but they are not the same at all at least IMO. Cool thing about it is that you don't have to play this or TES VI, no one has a gun to your head.

It’s not about them being different rpgs. From a development standpoint the big difference here is that Larian continues to evolve and push the limits of their craft and style of game they’re known for. Bethesda doesn’t. In many ways Starfield actually regresses from the standard Bethesda formula. Todd doesn’t want to hone his vision for RPGs anymore. He just wants to stick to what he knows. What he knows was incredible GotY worthy shit back in 2006 - 2011. Not in 2023.

As a result we have two big budget RPGs this year with a gulf of quality between them. We have a solid Space Exploration RPG, instead of a great one. Anyone who says “Well in MY opinion it’s great” Is just settling.
 

XXL

Gold Member
Yesterday, I said I thought the game was an 8/10....the more I think about it, I think 7/10 is more fitting.

There are just too many things I hate about this game. For example, having no minimap is completely unacceptable and some of the quests are pretty good, but most are just fetch quests.

There is some good in there, it's just buried under annoying shit constantly.
 
It’s not about them being different rpgs. From a development standpoint the big difference here is that Larian continues to evolve and push the limits of their craft and style of game they’re known for. Bethesda doesn’t. In many ways Starfield actually regresses from the standard Bethesda formula. Todd doesn’t want to hone his vision for RPGs anymore. He just wants to stick to what he knows. What he knows was incredible GotY worthy shit back in 2006 - 2011. Not in 2023.

As a result we have two big budget RPGs this year with a gulf of quality between them. We have a solid Space Exploration RPG, instead of a great one. Anyone who says “Well in MY opinion it’s great” Is just settling.
I feel some of what you're saying here - examples being NPC behavior in Starfield vs say Skyrim (reactions/scheduling/etc), but the NPCs in some cases in Starfield are there to accomplish different purposes - like in New Atlantis a lot of them are just there for flavor, they don't even have places to go in order to sleep or carry out full routines. I agree that sucks, but at the same time it doesn't bother me as much as if the same thing were to happen in a future TES VI. I would have a huge problem with that, but I don't expect it to be the case. I've always had some level of beef with Bethesda being that I'm a fan since Daggerfall and they continue to remove features I consider to be key components of the games (entire schools of magic, spell crafting, whatever it may be), but I still really enjoy the games and am willing to look past some alterations and no one can ever take the older games away from me, I'll always be able to go back and play them. But I understand what you're saying, nothing wrong with wishing for "better", but as long as it's better in terms of what Bethesda is trying to do and not transforming their work into something else (IMO).

I disagree regarding settling - Starfield can be great and Baldur's Gate can be as well. I think Baldur's Gate was a more "wow" moment for me, especially after having played the first two games earlier this year it's easy to appreciate what they've done there (not saying you'd need to play the first two games to appreciate III, it just helped put it further into perspective). I didn't really know what to expect from Baldur's Gate outside of CRPG and it blew me away - I did know what to expect mostly from Starfield and it settled around that level.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
Neither Respawn nor Insomniac own an IP in the same league (sales-potential-wise) as Elder Scrolls or Fallout. SpiderMan is not an IP owned by Insomniac, it's simply licensed by Sony. This is the main reason the Zenimax purchase was magnitudes more expensive. Not to mention you are not mentioning that Microsoft acquired more than just one development studio with this acquisition.
We'll see what happens to those franchises without PlayStation attached to them. I highly doubt they'll repeat the success of previous entries.
 
We'll see what happens to those franchises without PlayStation attached to them. I highly doubt they'll repeat the success of previous entries.
Sales numbers wise, you are most likely correct as removing PlayStation removes million upon millions of potential customers. However, Phil Spencer and Microsoft calculated that loss when they purchased Zenimax and they determined those lost sales are worth the investment.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
And you know who already does this stuff MUCH better? CDProjektRed....Im going to go ahead and call my shot...I think Phantom Liberty is going to show just how much further CDProjectRed is with respect to Bethesda.
Cyberpunk is low key gonna be game of the generation once all is said and done. Some people will never forgive, but the game is fucking great and with Phantom Liberty it will finally be complete.
 

twilo99

Gold Member
I've never really cared about single player games until BG3 and Starfield but based on what I've been able to get out of the games I'd give BG3 a 8.5-9/10 and Starfield 8/10
 
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HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
You tell me.

"Neither Respawn nor Insomniac own an IP in the same league (sales-potential-wise) as Elder Scrolls or Fallout."

What does that matter in conjunction with the poster making a comparison of $229m vs the 7.5B Microsoft paid for Zenimax? Is it strictly down to the weight those games used to pull? Sony spent much less and the results are speaking for themselves. That's what I got from his post.
 
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You tell me.

"Neither Respawn nor Insomniac own an IP in the same league (sales-potential-wise) as Elder Scrolls or Fallout."

What does that matter in conjunction with the poster make a comparison of $229m vs the 7.5B Microsoft paid for Zenimax?
The value of intellectual property owned by these companies is one of the major determinations of their monetary worth. I didn't think that was too hard to comprehend.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Right. Therefore, Insomniac is currently the better buy. ;)
Bethesda is like 8 studios though, they're like damn near half of the upcoming release schedule at this point. Bethesda was a good buy.

Activision on the other hand, I have no idea what they fuck they are thinking.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
Bethesda is like 8 studios though, they're like damn near half of the upcoming release schedule at this point. Bethesda was a good buy.

Activision on the other hand, I have no idea what they fuck they are thinking.
I didn't say Bethesda (Zenimax) wasn't a good buy.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
The value of intellectual property owned by these companies is one of the major determinations of their monetary worth. I didn't think that was too hard to comprehend.
Cool. What is that monetary worth?

If both the Elder Scrolls and Fallout properties are poised to take massive hits, as you admitted, what does that mean? I'm only asking because apparently you're the expert and I'm incapable of this simple comprehension.
 
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