My thoughts on Starfield
My thoughts on Starfield
GOTY contender or no?
I found the game to be enjoyable. It is pretty; space hasn’t looked this good in a long time graphically, the HUD is exceptional and minimal while showing enough information, and the game runs well on my PC. However, some drawbacks make the game fall short of BG3 for my GOTY.
Gameplay
This is where the game shines the most. Bethesda games are usually very buggy upon release and with the Fallout series, the shooting left more to be desired. I never was a fan of the shooting in Fallout, but the story and other aspects of the game kept me engaged and going. Starfield improves on the shooting a lot. The game actually feels pretty responsive and the gun designs are cool. The shooting is still not on-par with Destiny or Borderlands, but it has improved enough that I am enjoying that part of the gameplay.
This is seriously the least buggy game Bethesda has released. I have encountered one bug where I ended up needing to load a saved game and progress back to where I was. This only lost me about 5-10 minutes of gameplay, thankfully. I won’t disclose what caused this bug because of spoilers. My suggestion would be to continue to save as much as possible.
Exploration is fairly weak. This may be my fault that this was such a letdown for me, admittedly. No Man’s Sky has spoiled me because you can take off from a planet, enter space, and then land on another planet in the same system. It is an intense feeling of unknowns when you pilot your ship and break into another planet’s atmosphere that no one else has charted yet. Well, unfortunately, this style of exploration does not exist in Starfield. You can’t fly from space to the surface of a planet. A gaming journalist actually tried that, and it took 7 hours and once the player reached the planet, they clipped through. Exploration in Starfield is filler content that honestly adds very little to the overall game.
Graphics
This game is pretty. Space looks outstanding and filled with asteroids, space stations, etc. The weapon and character models are well done. This sounds super weird, but I think my favorite part of the presentation of the game is the HUD. It is simplistic but tells you everything you need to know about your character.
Story
This is the part where I am very conflicted. I found the story lacking and I am almost thinking it is because Baldur’s Gate 3 has spoiled me. There are many choices you can make in Starfield, but none of them seemed to really matter. There are some choices that make a slight dent in the story, but they were all inconsequential. If you are looking for an RPG with choices that actually influence your story and how you progress, try Baldur’s Gate 3. Your choices matter in that game.
Wrap It Up Russ
Starfield is good but not great. Prior to release, it was easily my most anticipated game of 2023. Now that I have played it and completed the story, I realized I may have set unrealistic expectations for the game. They improved the shooting mechanics, but the story is only average, and your decisions have minimal impact.. I still enjoy and recommend it if you are a fan of Bethesda’s other games.