The game sounds fine, but there are so many good games this year it will be VERY easy to wait for patches, mods, and a price drop before playing this one. Thanks for the review!~
Yup. I especially want to finall get to play Cyberpunk. I played it for a bit, heard about the patch coming in months and eventually dropped it for the better experience. I will absolutely wait for Starfield to patch itself up a bit before coming into it.
It has an 85% on steam, which for all the hype, complaints, bugs and hardware requirements is very impressive, so I’d say it’s more than fine But apart from that I totally agree
This is why I love Easy Allies. A fair and honest review of Starfield. There are some things that can be improved on in the game but the overall experience is one that brings everything together in a beautiful package. You can play how you want to play.
@@draco2xxits above average and most planets in real life are empty not colorful skies and bright terrain like NMS which are also empty. And im not sure if you really played it but the tech procedurally generates points of intrest. These areas have more to offer than star citizen , NMS and elite where planets actually have nothing to do besides. More importantly starfield is a story driven rpg. I dont know how they did it but each faction has almost full campaign length stories. Alongside an insane amount of smaller stories that pop while on an already elaborate side quest. Its a real triumph in terms of player choice. Im 30 hrs in and never touched main quest. Most of your time will be spent engaging multiple stories. Which i think is what a space rpg should do.
Bethesda's problem is that sometimes they are way too ambitious for their own good, like did the game really need those 1000 planets and bring back the procedural generated content? the reason why the best games in the open world genre and even semi-open world games like BG 3 are so good is because they are full of handcrafted and unique content that makes exploration rewarding, this is what made older bethesda games so good, its really sad that they got rid of it in favor of size.
_great review, thank you. The only thing I don't quite agree is the comment about how exploring planets gets old fast because there's not much content. Planet exploration is the reward in of itself. The majestic vistas, the ambience, the new life forms we can find. The game really doesn't have to have more than that (although there's plenty of quests in them). The feeling of planet exploration can fall apart the moment we start to turn this scifi game into a fantasy world.
Agreed. I'm about 30 hours in, and still love exploring planets even if I end up discovering literally nothing. I think it comes down to the expectation of pace you bring to the game.
Play it in the dark, with a decent set of headphones turned way up, & take your time.... i explored a (relatively) barren moon last night. Took well over an hour to visit a temple, scan a few planet traits, explore an epic cave system which contained (i kid ye not) a few minable resources & nothing else. Took some cool pictures. There was even a moment on the surface with a series of earth shaking booms. Not explosions but like, geological activity, or maybe some huge beast nearby. But there was no apparent cause! Suspense, atmosphere, isolation.... very cool.
I think it's more a criticism of the points of interest, rather than exploration itself as such; people want things to find while exploring, but the points of interest seem biased towards the same mines and structures over and over. But there's actually way more in there, there just seems to be a really low chance for more unusual ones to come up. I'm nearly 420 hours into the game now, and for the first time I've encountered a Dogstar Automated Factory, Colony War Barracks and a mining rig overrun by alien creatures in the past week. I think there might be something screwy with the randomisation, though I'd also like to see more variations of common buildings like mines, listening posts etc., gimme more weird stuff to find.
of course there is no need for 1000 dull planets, especially not in a game that doesn't deliver the feeling of endlessness and freedom in space. but making huge promises always pay off by creating attraction and generating sales. it's not only with games, it's with everything: if you want to be successfull make big promises no matter if it is true
A co-worker of mine said Starfield is wack... he didn't like it at all. He got ankle surgery on Saturday. His wife & kids went to his in-laws overnight for labor day. He was bored, put Starfield on and took his time and (his words) gave it a real chance. He played for 14 hours straight... took a 2 hour nap & played for another 6 or so hours. Called me and said YOOOOOOOOO Starfield is the truth... after the 6 or 7 hour mark it clicked with (me). I get it.... the more you play, learn & experience... the more Starfield put its hooks in you. Now he's on his 3rd New Game + and according to him Starfield keeps getting better with every play through. *If he wasn't home healing for ankle surgery. I don't think he would have ever played Starfield again... and may have talked negative about the game in conversations with other gamers. Food for thought!
I understand why folks would want city maps, but I'm finding it very fun discovering the city layouts on my own, even if it takes longer. It feels more like a real place when you have to mentally map the city instead of just looking at a premade map. A good compromise may be to have several "you are here" style info maps around the cities that you can reference. That way it would still feel immersive, and you wouldn't have free access to the map all the time.
I did spend a number of hours in New Atlantis just discovering everything. I explored the entire place before leaving for anywhere else because it was so interesting and cool. It wasn't too troublesome without a proper map, but I would have preferred one. It's just easier when I don't have to memorize the locations of each store, etc.
@@XEzomoX Of course. My point is that I'd rather learn the world by looking around and being in it. It's easy with a map to fall into the trap of checking it constantly and never actually learning where things are in relation to each other in 3D space.
@@queenbean7071no, we keep our gps on. Nobody uses traditonal maps anymore. Youre mincing words. Stop clocking in to work on why maps in real life are bad now bc bethesda couldn't make one. Stop.
personally I am absolutely loving Starfield and it's already my personal GOTY having just over 50 hours into the game now. However I agree with an 8/10 grade. I think 8 is the perfect score for the vanilla experience overall but mods will certainly bring it up to a 10/10 must play before long. I can't wait!
@@queenbean7071Or, like me, they were hoping Bethesda had evolved their writing, direction, game design & dungeon design approach. Unfortunately it just feels like they are happy to rest on their laurels and as such, Starfield feels like a 2012 open world game, with the graphics of a modern game.
@michaelandrews117 a 2012 game in what sense? It's proceudrel generation is definitely very extensive The ship building system is one of the most complex ever. Story wise maybe but the MSQ of Bethesda game she's never been the main draw OR the best show of their talent. (Is this kinda bad? For sure, but again this is normal for bethesda) I still standby the point that many people were expecting stuff the devs said wouldn't be included
@@queenbean7071The procedural generation hurts the game because the vast majority of planets you see will be empty with the occasional random event and the same looking outposts everywhere, and the dialog/persuasion/consequence system is weaker than Deus Ex Human Revolution which came out in 2011.
@SojiRo23 I agree the precederal generation limits content but I don't believe it does so for starfield any more then NMS. NMS has a less realistic style allowing it to give planets more variety, though starfield has much better points of interest as they dint look like snapped together pieces. Also I've enjoyed the persuasion mechanics, there is quite a variety of what you can do
The best reviews, clearly points out the pros and cons on all games with no bias. Will be waiting for the mod improvements before I jump in. Thx easy allies 👍
@Vicioussama and that's your opinion, which is fine. I wish people were more like you though. I hate how polarized reviewers are. Its like every game has to be a 10/10 masterpiece that I'd die for or its the worst game to ever exist
For me this is the Bethesda game I've been wating for since Skyrim. Feels like they really took the criticism of Fallout 4 to heart, this is so much more a fun roleplaying game with deep engaging sidequests and tons of content. I get the criticisms but for me its vastly outweighed by the good stuff, just in love with this game. But the conversation around it is just horrible. Games don't need to be for everyone. I didn't really jive with BG3, i thought it was boring and tonally all over the place... but that's ok. I get why others love it so much and am happy they are enjoying it. I'm not going out of my way to find BG3 comments and shit all over it and demand everyone agree with me. I don't understand why people seem to have a hard time having that attitude about Starfield. Let people enjoy it for what it is.
Excellent review guys having pros and cons in a very balanced way! I hate when people focus on the score and not the actual contents of the review. Giving everyone a great picture of what to expect is all I can ask from a review, especially if I’m going to sacrifice my time and money to play it. ❤
I wasn’t going to get this game but once I heard it felt like a Fallout space epic, that’s all I needed to hear. Love Fallout and love exploring different planetary environments so, I’m definitely in 👍
@@justarandomstranger279 Tried pretty much everything it has to offer, played since early access You will love the first hours of it, but when you notice how repetitive and bland everything is, that's when the game falls apart. Characters are uninteresting and the main story plot is kinda meh. The side chains are actually more interesting. Horrible performance due to the old creation engine just being terrible these days. In the end the game is a 6 or maybe 7 out of 10.
@@jnssmnsnidk what performance issues you are going through, but everything on PC for me has been 60fps and above with no crashes or major bugs at all. Which is surprising for Bethesda. I think people are wayyy more critical of this game because it's Bethesda. Like EA, Blizzard etc. They are just a fun thing for people to hate. So they put the games under a microscope while the games that are truly failing at what they try to do, go free.
@@thedurtylemur2282 60 fps is what i call unplayable for any game with FPS combat. I have a 13900k paired with a 4090 and the performance for a 2023 game with this mediocre graphics is a joke. The creation engine is one of the worst parts of this game. It rules out the possibility for seamless transitions between zones and turns it into a loading screen simulator. Can't even enter a tiny house without having a loadscreen. It's SO outdated. Your comment about people hating on the game just because it's Bethesta is dumb. I've not played any of their other games ever.
Best reviews on the net. I strongly believe Bethesda games are love or hate. For me they essentially defined what an open world game should be. Slow, steady and a hell of alot of fun with a ton of exploration. To me you can't beat the pace of a Bethesda game, they aren't always action packed, nor are they always the best. But they always seem to draw me in with their mysterious story lines and odd ball characters. As always easy allies knocks it out of the park with their review 👏👏
Because it is. But on space. It's the same engine it's the same formula it's the same mid writing and it's the same bug fest that they won't fix but leave it to modders to fix
8 seems about right for this game let's be honest give or take a .5 down or .5 up depending on the person but about what I personally expected nothing really groundbreaking or game of the year worthy tbh just solid
I'm 32 hours in and I've still barely been anywhere (mostly Akila City, New Atlantis and the Key); 6+ of that has definitely been burned purely on ship customisation. Been having a blast with the game, though I've found it harder than normal to settle on a character I like the look of (fortunately the Enhance! store on New Atlantis lets you change for only 500 credits). Only major bug I've really encountered is using a controller on Windows; if I switch to keyboard to bring up a game overlay (e.g- Windows' game bar, Radeon driver overlay etc.) then my controller inputs stop working and I have to restart the game. Fortunately the game loads pretty fast, and this is avoidable, but it's annoying. Otherwise it's been the usual physics glitches with a fully open world game; enemy whose boost pack malfunctioned ended up wedged through some geometry, that sort of thing. It's not a perfect game by any means, but it is a lot of fun so far, and I can definitely see me replaying it a bunch of times, especially as more mods become available. I'm already thinking up some mods I'd like to make, and ship-building has proven really addictive so far even though I've barely progressed yet (it can be very expensive).
My personal score for this game prior to this review is a solid 8/10. I agree with the majority of what Easy Allies are saying. Im 20 hours in and thoroughly enjoying it. Its not exactly a revolutionary game (say to how Elden Ring was for the Souls formula). However its an enjoyable experience personally! My Series X has been in a bag for the past 10 months so its a great reason to use the console. Personally however i wouldnt deem it a system seller.
I give it a 9 easy and I've yet to finish any significant storyline, I've just been jumping from random quest, adventure to the next. Higher once some QoL stuff fixes happen or we get mods which will fix it on Xbox at least, since those are probably already available for PC or soon will be.
@@UA-camCensors I really think you need to re-read what I said. I bought the Series X probably around 9 months after getting my launch PS5. Played it for a few months and then it collected dust in a shopping bag. It's a nice reason to clean the dust to play the game but I wouldn't necessarily run out to a store now to purchase the console to simply play Starfield. Hope that clears things up for you.
@@librarygary1618 hahaha 😅 some people have to much time on there hands I suppose. All the resource he's using to reply to all comments he could be investing on exploring 1 of the 1,000+ planets 🤷♂️
How DO you all review BIG games like this. In the discussion last week (before the weekend at least) it seemed like a few of you Allies were playing it- so is that 70 hours EACH or just your perspective after 70+ hours? I still expect this to be a much more expansive review than those that came out before pre-release- Thanks so much for waiting to do this review!
I don't care what anyone says Starfield is a solid game and if the game is this good without mods imagine what we're in for after the modders get their hands on the SDK.
So happy for the decisions they've made to correct after Fallout 4. We love BGS firstly for open world RPG simulation and interactivity, no other dev/publisher wanna even touch something similar and get the engine/tools necessary up and running. except Rockstar did do their take with RDR 2 and you have Nintendo, but Zelda is not a choice driven RPG and RDR 2 not really either. All we can hope for is someone else within Xbox uses the BGS engine+tools, or they license out. New Vegas was a gift. We're also waiting 5-8 years between games at this point. Second, you have replayability and roleplaying with different characters. Third, you have modding scenes which just go insanely hard, can't wait.
Only bugs I encountered so far are NPCs/Companions getting stuck into something for no reason, sometimes the Weapon Inventory menu would be all black but the entire UI still works, some NPCs will forget the quest instead of guiding you to your destination, and delayed voice over lip sync at the start of a conversation but gets fixed on the next line.
@@HOPGamingZone agreed but most of these will be fixed by unoffcial patch mods until BGS fix it themselves. Guess the modding community is just waiting for BGS to make a move since I definitely reported these issues.
One thing I am surprised that no reviewer I heard mentioned so far is that yes, the facial animations are nt superb, but the tech executing these animations definitely is. Every movement stretches or bulks ups underlying flesh and muscle, skin stretches or furrows under the eyes or on the forehead and I've even seen a thick neck deform from jaw movement. Considering this must be dynamic, as they wouldn't have mocapped it this scale, I would say the overall facial animations are pretty impressive. I've seen the first convincing in a video game ever in this game, just because of all that natural skin deformation on the cheek and under the eyes.
i agree The only issue I've had is sometimes the character models do some weird things Got jumpscared once by a character nearly turning their neck 180* to look at me
@@Supadrumma441 that's the difference between completely static, mocapped animations, and dynamic animations in an open world with 30 times as many actors
Cyberpunks animations are not individually mocapped. They use a program called Jali to provide animations. Starfields facial animations and worse than fallouts. @@lgolem09l
I've loved Bethesda games since Fallout 3. I love space and sci-fi themes. But for some reason I just can't get into Starfield. I feel like I just don't care about the world(s) or characters. After about 6-7 hours of play I checked out, probably won't come back to the game sadly. I hear a lot of people say that they can't stop thinking about this game when they're not playing it but the second I turned it off during my first playthrough I had more of a desire not to come back to it. I think part of it might also be the burnout of "open world" games. I just don't have the time to explore fictional worlds anymore and would rather focus on a shorter game with a great story or/and great gameplay. In Starfield, I turned on the scanner and saw all the things I could pick up in a room and was like nah, this is just too much, stop making every pencil and ashtray an item I can carry, I will never pick these up.
It's a good game but they tried to bite more than they could chew and failed in a lot of aspects, they should have gone for one handcrafted solar system and focus on that.
25 hours in, hit a bad bug on the crimson fleet quest line and lost 3hrs. I don’t feel like going back now though it doesn’t feel like an open world game at all.
Not surface-to-orbit flight, no interplanetary travel, and no pole-to-pole exploration on planets themselves are all HUGE bummers. I guess the Bethesda engine is too old for that kind of thing.
That whar I was thinking too, its likely they had similar vision for Starfield in terms of free exploration that for example No Man's Sky or Star Citizen have but if you do game with that scope, its gonna require sacrifices in some other areas and its quite clear even if they wanted to, the game engine didnt allow them to go that route, no matter how much they have tried to recode over their old engine. Perhaps Starfield could have been even better game if they had gone for much more reduced scope and tried to do it more like Destiny or the Outer Worlds in term of scope and size. Just few planets/zones/locations seperated by loading screens but that each world would have been more detailed and distinct but I guess that would have reduced the grand vision they had for Starfield too much. But since the space exploration and combat is just a curiosity, I think dropping all of that entirely might have made the game better if on the other hand taken something off from the "grand space exploration feeling", but imho they should have made the decision to either improve it or drop it all together since its clear the game engine could only go so far.
This is the third Bethesda game I've tried (after Skyrim and Fallout 4), and I've finally realized why their games don't click with me. They feel like garbage man simulators. So much of what I'm doing is just walking around picking junk off the floor, then organizing the junk. Anyway I bounced off this game pretty quick, hopped between a few other Game Pass games since I got the free trial, then started up Baldur's Gate 3 instead and didn't look back.
The opening statement, that my friends, is one killing opening to a review. This is why I love the Allies so much and have been a follower since the GT days. I tell all my friends, don’t look to meta critic for information. Find the reviewers that being fair, balanced and critical thought to the process and avoid the noise. The top tier production value is icing on cake 👌 Great review y’all.
Not a bad review I just……and honestly this is my first BGS game so no I’m not a fanboy of any kind but I love space games like Mass Effect, Halo, NMS, etc. But when I hear when ppl say you land on a planet and there is nothing to do….I seriously ask myself if these reviewers are playing the same game I am. See what reviewers fail to always leave out is “how” they are playing a massive game like this. If you have a review who doesn’t like to scan, gather resources, do resource management, and cries because you have to walk or jet pack to a point of interest, no wonder they will say something like there is nothing to do on this planet. It’s because they land look around for like 2 mins and leave. I have spent over 70 hours on this game, I have only been 2 like 2 systems to explore planets, and yes some outpost are copy and paste but that’s not what I am there for. I am there to be an explorer and for the rpg element of it get xp to level up. When you fully scan and survey resources, plants and animals it gives you xp, when you go to points of interest it gives you xp, when you battle spacers or pirates at those points of interest it gives you xp and you can bank a lot of credits. Then you have your activities, missions, misc, factions, main story. There is actually SO MUCH to do whether your exploring or playing missions. And there is always an incentive behind everything you do because you get xp, credits, gear, etc. like because I was just out exploring is how I even found and did the mantis mission. It’s an rpg, and if that’s not your thing why even review or play a game like this, that is how most of not all rpg are played so I’m not for sure why acting like this is a new thing lol
I absolutely love this game. I'd give it an easy 9.5. It's exactly what I wanted, as a long-time Bethesda fan. I already put well over 100 hours into this game and I expect to put in many hundreds more over the next 5+ years. I'm level 59, I've done basically every quest, every faction quest and looted almost every temple. I have 80% of the achievements. So if someone knows how good Starfield is, it's me. Stuff like the lack of free space/planet exploration as opposed to loading screens are things that I really suspect are just not that important to most people despite so many reviews pointing it out. Considering the scope, depth and breath of the game, it's actually kind of unfair to dock points for something like this when so many games have like 20% of the content/scope and still have similar problems and score higher. The game wasn't even promised to be built this way either. Todd said you can land anywhere on the planet, and you can. Even the first trailers showed the loading screens/animations as well - no promise was made that this was going to be like No Man's Sky. Like, you gave The Outer Worlds a 9 out of 10, and it's just astonishing to me that Starfield couldn't score at least that much considering just how much of a better game it is compared to The Outer Worlds. And don't get me wrong, I love The Outer Worlds, but Starfield is a much superior game in basically every area and it's scope is also 10x bigger. Obviously, some kind of bias or unreasonable expectations entered this review, as it did at many other outlets. There's no justification for Starfield scoring lower than The Outer Worlds. None. It appears you're judging Starfield on a standard that you frankly haven't set for other similar games.
It's like a 5 or 6 for me. Was really hoping I'd enjoy it more. Playing bg3 right before made it even worse cause I enjoyed that so much more. I'll probably give it another try in a year or so
@@andrewnicon The game is slow in the first hours. You must develop your abilities and complete the side missions because they are wonderful, and you will obtain many skills. The game opens up to more fun in the game. It takes some time, but after that, the game will become extremely enjoyable in missions and exploration. Many players do not understand how the game works like this. Bored should not speed up the story
Starfield's short-comings come from Bethesda balancing realism with fiction/fantasy/fun. On one hand, too much realism (becoming encumbered for example) seems like a nuisance, while the removal of some realism (fast travelling and not piloting your ship to land) is a complaint. And honestly, I don't think many of the complaints have any real merit. Space is boring. There really isn't anything to do there. The fun we have as human beings comes from interacting with other human beings and other life forms. If the Earth was barren of life, you'd become bored out of your mind, very quickly. I'm not sure what people were expecting in out-of-space exploration, when it was disclosed that only about 10% of the planets had life, which is actually closer to reality, and that was disclosed before release. Now, imagine this, if Starfield implemented realistic sim piloting, what do you think the complaints would be? Well, much like how carrying around a lot of stuff slows you down in real life and will drain oxygen faster (even on Earth), people would complain that landing/take-off is too complicated. The barrier to entry (especially for younger people, like kids) would be a huge, legitimate complaint and gripe. If landing/take-off was too easy, it would be unrewarding (like space fights mentioned here). Too realistic becomes too difficult. Make up your mind? There was no way to make a game this vast, that satisfies everyone. Even Star Citizen quickly becomes boring when you're playing by yourself. The thing about Starfield is, ANYONE can pick it up and play it. Too realistic; many people wouldn't be able to get into it. Too simplified, and we have people complaining that certain things aren't realistic. Never mind that space travel and space exploration is pretty darn boring, in itself. Overall though; a very solid and balanced review, although there are some takes I don't agree with.
Fair criticisms honestly. I lean more towards an 8 but I can definitely understand people even giving it a 7. Now that the game is in players hands it’s rated a 3.75/5 on Xbox own storefront, a 7.5 out of 10 so most players are feeling about the same. Hopefully Bethesda can be quick with their updates without leaving everything to modders to fix it for them
On frametrap Damiani lambasted this game. I also noticed at the beginning of this review it said "WE" instead of "I". This leads me to believe that in order to avoid backlash, easy allies had an intervention and had Damiani up the final score from what he originally would have given it. Bc on frametrap...damiani definitely wasnt given this game what "they" gave it here.
LOL, there was no intervention. This is the score Damiani decided to give it and there were no substantive changes to his script. He also didn't lambast the game on Frame Trap. It's a complex game with both highs and lows, as Damiani's script reflects. -Bloodworth
Great review. Was surprised to see Damiani tackling it because if I remember (probably fuzzy memory) he isn't really interested in Bethesda RPG's, and never really played Skyrim until much later. Maybe that's the exact type of person the public needs reviewing Starfield though, someone who won't immediately gush over the next Bethesda game. Seems like a fair score and definitely a PC purchase for me!
I think people will quickly realize that procedural generated environments are just a gimmick unless your game is focused on simulation and crafting like No Man's Sky. For more narrative games like Starfield, I take 2 or 3 handcrafted, highly detailed worlds or areas over thousands of empty planets any day.
The "1000 planet" promise is irrelevant with how they designed and limited planet exploring. Plus youll see repeating patterns and caves and what you thought was unique sights repeat themselves after exploring only 20 planets. All which are pretty empty and boring. Far from what they were boasting about.
@@silvershroud6263 Judging based on 20 hours. Not saying that’s what my score will end up as but after 20 hours 8/10 seems fair to me. EDIT: ah never mind. Judging by your comment history you’re not mad that I’m making a 20 hour judgment, you’re mad that I think an 8/10 is fair. LOL
modern technology isnt as advanced for this game to be released in this generation, nasa still discovering things in space and other advanced space technology still haven't even invented yet. modern time 300 years from now, it wouldve been released with more realistic lot less empty planet. we simply lack the space wisdom
Loading screen simulator with the WORST inventory management in a game where you spend 30% of your time in the inventory. It actively made me stop looting
From what i've seen from the game. Nothing makes me want to play it. From loading screen simulator to bullet sponge enemies to the owl effect when talking to people, guards that do no react. The bland planets with nothing to do. All of this makes me long for the EZA review for BG3.
Listen you're not a BGS stan, we are feasting on this game and looking forward to mods .maybe you were at one point, whatever it is it's cool, there's enough games to play to put it mildly.
@@jamster126lol was commenting as i sat on the toilet, unless you have a problem typing on a phone/on anything idk how you came to that conclusion, it really wasn’t all that time consuming lol. Assuming you’re triggered and not thinking straight. 😂
Seems like a very fair review of the game. One of only a handful of reviews where the flaws of the game are actually taken into consideration, instead of brushed aside with the ridiculous excuse: 'it's a Bethesda game'. I really wonder why one of the biggest studios in the world is being held to a lower standard? If this game was made by anyone else, reviews would have destroyed it.
I know it's a very selective audience but as a 28 yo with a 9-5 dayjob this kind of game is perfect for me to pick up and put down whenever especially the space stuff. With it being on gamepass is definitely a bonus.
I'm surprised how much the reviews differ so far. It's such a huge game there's apparently a lot of variety in the experience. As just one example, MrMatty is a UA-camr who has thoroughly played all the big Bethesda RPGs. In his 70h impressions video he says the space combat in Starfield was one of the most engaging parts (the total opposite of Easy Allies here!), and that unlike Fallout and Skyrim he found the exploration underwhelming but the main story as the studio's strongest ever. ua-cam.com/video/vZkcQqupli4/v-deo.htmlsi=qNmQh_PWuIsnB_z9 I haven't played so I'm not saying either perspective is more right. It's just interesting to see what even pros want and expect can differ so much.
Fully agree. I think that's both the beauty and the curse of Bethesda Studio Games. They create expansive games and incorporate a multitude of mechanics that resonate with a portion of the player base, while a smaller percentage become completely enamored with them. They include all these different elements to appeal to both the general public and niche audiences. It's astonishing that this approach works at all.
The apparent focus on fast travel, limited space travel and lack of attention to the overall gameplay experience while in space is really disappointing. There are plenty of skill based shooters out there with a sci-fi setting, so the ground combat is not a selling point for me. I also don't really like survival elements, but it sounds like that stuff is pretty light in Starfield. I'm also hearing about a lot of bugs, which you didn't really go into here. I'm sure Bethesda's perspective on the bugs they couldn't squash is "hey, modders will fix it, amirite?". The gameplay shortcomings and current bugs make this one a pass for me. Considering this is the first new release my PC wouldn't be able to run, I'm not too disappointed that I need to wait until the holidays to build a new rig.
Well written but after listening to your review i Ifeel that a 7 would have been a more realistic score. How did you get to an 8? Im waiting to play it this evening on gamepass and ill make my own decision in a few weeks.
I think this is a fair review. The quality of life omissions along with the limited space exploration and visual unevenness make an 8/10 a reasonable score for this game. And that is a great score by most standards. I'm not sure where I am on a 1-10 scale with Starfield as I'm only about 18 hours in, but I look forward to playing a whole lot more of this ambitious game.
The reason of the backlash (appart from PS5 trolls) is that Bethesda did a terrible PR for the game. They went out of their way with the space exploration angle. I did catch from the videos they released pre launch that the travels themselves would take place by cutscenes, but most people didn't, and Bethesda didn't do anything to clear the air on this subject. So it is only logical that people would believe that they would play nomansky mixed with Skyrim. Instead of that, they have a mix of Mass effect and Fallout4.
I know this is not what Starfield is but last night I solved one “quest” by totally ignoring what the npcs told me to do and sneaking and using magic to stealth break people out of jail. Another by convincing this guy who was torturing someone to have his cult like followers kill him and he happily jumped on the table. The freedom is so wild in bailouts gate 3 that I can’t get over it. I’m gonna give Starfield a try in the future but kind of feeling I should wait for mods.
Ye, plus 7/10 in their books is still good where in some other it might be "average", thats why they so often give that score instead of 8 for example. Overall it sounds like Starfield is one of those games you really have to play a lot to get into loving it and you also have to be able to look past some of its short comings in order to love it. Overall seems like Bethesda had very grand vision on Starfield, almost like No Man's Sky, but it came impossible for them to do it quite that way when it comes to exploration and thus they had to go for the design choice that they did in regards of traveling/loading screens etc. But on the other hand they still managed to do in Starfield what they usually do best so that compensates lot of the flaws, atleast if you are willing to look past the shortcomings and flaws
No other intelligent alien life to interact with, no flying into a planet in real time, no diving underwater, no nebula, no quazars, no other interesting space anomalies that make space wonderous. But I guess I was expecting space exploration, and this is an RPG that just takes place in space. No wonder and awe of space exploration included. Not saying it's bad, it's just not my game.
@@Teremeik. not sure why you’re at’ing me. Guessing you’re insecure about your own intelligence though, genius, When you’re having such trouble forming a coherent sentence, but it could be because you’re triggered and not thinking straight. 😂
Having to play a game for the purposes of critical reviews seems like a truly miserable experience. It’s so much more enjoyable to just ask myself if I’m having fun with a game or not and simply decide to keep playing until I’m tired of it or move on from it because it’s not for me.
How long have you played? Because I was bored after 20 hours and I don't see any reason to play this game any more. Beside couple of interesting quests, this game is painfully repetitive, crude, and not immersive.
Gotta disagree, what would have totally destroyed my immersion with traveling would have been of point of iteredts in space would gave been reachable "manually" in aby reasonable amount of time.
Lovely review but one thing that stuck out to me is fast travel being more painful because of long load times, from my experience load times haven't been more than 3 seconds long. Really not long at all.
It’s interesting the standard people have for Bethesda games because the Outer Worlds, a game that is basically a smaller version of Starfield with worse gunplay, less exploration, and a game that won’t even allow you to pilot your ship through space, received a higher score. I respect this review and agree with it for the most part, just the number system in game reviews should be done away with imo
@@michaelandrews117 yea I didn’t finish outer worlds and Starfield was also feeling pretty slow… at first. But then I joined the vanguards and all of that changed Lmao. I feel like they brought the devs in who wrote the bloody baron quests in witcher because these are incredible. Feels like starship troopers meets cowboy bebop. The level of twists and turns are akin to oblivion’s dark brotherhood
@@michaelandrews117 I’d give it a 9, but honestly it’s personal taste…. All that matters is if the person who is playing is enjoying themselves at the end of the day
Not gonna lie, I thought Damiani would roast this game when I learnt it was him who was going to review it. Got the roast, but I expected a 7.5. Good shit though, Damiani.
Yea 8 seems WAY too high considering the main selling points about the game (exploration and space combat) are very disappointing, not to mention the quality of life needs.
The game sounds fine, but there are so many good games this year it will be VERY easy to wait for patches, mods, and a price drop before playing this one. Thanks for the review!~
Yeah I was just about to start Act 2 in Baldur's Gate when this game came out lol. Now I've got two massive games on the go 😅
you wrong this game is great
Yup. I especially want to finall get to play Cyberpunk. I played it for a bit, heard about the patch coming in months and eventually dropped it for the better experience. I will absolutely wait for Starfield to patch itself up a bit before coming into it.
It has an 85% on steam, which for all the hype, complaints, bugs and hardware requirements is very impressive, so I’d say it’s more than fine
But apart from that I totally agree
@@Cheesepuff885% is okay. And wait for the actual reviews to come in instead of the super fans who bought early access.
This is why I love Easy Allies. A fair and honest review of Starfield. There are some things that can be improved on in the game but the overall experience is one that brings everything together in a beautiful package. You can play how you want to play.
still a mediocre game though simple fact that the planets are empty, you can't even travel to the sun or getting your space melted trying to
@@draco2xxits above average and most planets in real life are empty not colorful skies and bright terrain like NMS which are also empty.
And im not sure if you really played it but the tech procedurally generates points of intrest. These areas have more to offer than star citizen , NMS and elite where planets actually have nothing to do besides.
More importantly starfield is a story driven rpg. I dont know how they did it but each faction has almost full campaign length stories. Alongside an insane amount of smaller stories that pop while on an already elaborate side quest. Its a real triumph in terms of player choice. Im 30 hrs in and never touched main quest. Most of your time will be spent engaging multiple stories. Which i think is what a space rpg should do.
@@draco2xx What is not a mediocre game in your opinion?
@@iMikeZero one that at least gets it's menus right. The menus in Starfield are utter trash
Damiani you're a champ for taking on this beastly review. Well done sir.
Bethesda's problem is that sometimes they are way too ambitious for their own good, like did the game really need those 1000 planets and bring back the procedural generated content? the reason why the best games in the open world genre and even semi-open world games like BG 3 are so good is because they are full of handcrafted and unique content that makes exploration rewarding, this is what made older bethesda games so good, its really sad that they got rid of it in favor of size.
They should have gone with quality over quantity
Instead of 1000 generic planets they should,ve gone for 8 or 10 unique planets with their own stories, backgrounds and missions.
Almost all content on the planets is handcrafted
@@RellightStop lying dude, the evidence is right there.
@@Rellight and thats exactly why you bump into the same asset clusters all the time, lol.
_great review, thank you. The only thing I don't quite agree is the comment about how exploring planets gets old fast because there's not much content. Planet exploration is the reward in of itself. The majestic vistas, the ambience, the new life forms we can find. The game really doesn't have to have more than that (although there's plenty of quests in them). The feeling of planet exploration can fall apart the moment we start to turn this scifi game into a fantasy world.
Agreed. I'm about 30 hours in, and still love exploring planets even if I end up discovering literally nothing. I think it comes down to the expectation of pace you bring to the game.
Play it in the dark, with a decent set of headphones turned way up, & take your time....
i explored a (relatively) barren moon last night. Took well over an hour to visit a temple, scan a few planet traits, explore an epic cave system which contained (i kid ye not) a few minable resources & nothing else. Took some cool pictures.
There was even a moment on the surface with a series of earth shaking booms. Not explosions but like, geological activity, or maybe some huge beast nearby. But there was no apparent cause!
Suspense, atmosphere, isolation.... very cool.
I think it's more a criticism of the points of interest, rather than exploration itself as such; people want things to find while exploring, but the points of interest seem biased towards the same mines and structures over and over. But there's actually way more in there, there just seems to be a really low chance for more unusual ones to come up. I'm nearly 420 hours into the game now, and for the first time I've encountered a Dogstar Automated Factory, Colony War Barracks and a mining rig overrun by alien creatures in the past week. I think there might be something screwy with the randomisation, though I'd also like to see more variations of common buildings like mines, listening posts etc., gimme more weird stuff to find.
of course there is no need for 1000 dull planets, especially not in a game that doesn't deliver the feeling of endlessness and freedom in space. but making huge promises always pay off by creating attraction and generating sales. it's not only with games, it's with everything: if you want to be successfull make big promises no matter if it is true
A co-worker of mine said Starfield is wack... he didn't like it at all. He got ankle surgery on Saturday. His wife & kids went to his in-laws overnight for labor day. He was bored, put Starfield on and took his time and (his words) gave it a real chance. He played for 14 hours straight... took a 2 hour nap & played for another 6 or so hours. Called me and said YOOOOOOOOO Starfield is the truth... after the 6 or 7 hour mark it clicked with (me). I get it.... the more you play, learn & experience... the more Starfield put its hooks in you. Now he's on his 3rd New Game + and according to him Starfield keeps getting better with every play through. *If he wasn't home healing for ankle surgery. I don't think he would have ever played Starfield again... and may have talked negative about the game in conversations with other gamers. Food for thought!
I appreciate the lack of spoilers in your reviews.
I understand why folks would want city maps, but I'm finding it very fun discovering the city layouts on my own, even if it takes longer. It feels more like a real place when you have to mentally map the city instead of just looking at a premade map.
A good compromise may be to have several "you are here" style info maps around the cities that you can reference. That way it would still feel immersive, and you wouldn't have free access to the map all the time.
You know we have maps in real life right?
I did spend a number of hours in New Atlantis just discovering everything. I explored the entire place before leaving for anywhere else because it was so interesting and cool. It wasn't too troublesome without a proper map, but I would have preferred one. It's just easier when I don't have to memorize the locations of each store, etc.
@@XEzomoX Of course. My point is that I'd rather learn the world by looking around and being in it. It's easy with a map to fall into the trap of checking it constantly and never actually learning where things are in relation to each other in 3D space.
@@XEzomoXyeah, but when you visit a new city in real life you sont keep your face planted into a map. You'd be looking around
@@queenbean7071no, we keep our gps on. Nobody uses traditonal maps anymore. Youre mincing words.
Stop clocking in to work on why maps in real life are bad now bc bethesda couldn't make one. Stop.
personally I am absolutely loving Starfield and it's already my personal GOTY having just over 50 hours into the game now. However I agree with an 8/10 grade. I think 8 is the perfect score for the vanilla experience overall but mods will certainly bring it up to a 10/10 must play before long. I can't wait!
I feel like most of the disappointed people are the people who've not played many Bethesda games and expected more of a NMS with insane graphics
@@queenbean7071Or, like me, they were hoping Bethesda had evolved their writing, direction, game design & dungeon design approach.
Unfortunately it just feels like they are happy to rest on their laurels and as such, Starfield feels like a 2012 open world game, with the graphics of a modern game.
@michaelandrews117 a 2012 game in what sense?
It's proceudrel generation is definitely very extensive
The ship building system is one of the most complex ever.
Story wise maybe but the MSQ of Bethesda game she's never been the main draw OR the best show of their talent. (Is this kinda bad? For sure, but again this is normal for bethesda)
I still standby the point that many people were expecting stuff the devs said wouldn't be included
@@queenbean7071The procedural generation hurts the game because the vast majority of planets you see will be empty with the occasional random event and the same looking outposts everywhere, and the dialog/persuasion/consequence system is weaker than Deus Ex Human Revolution which came out in 2011.
@SojiRo23 I agree the precederal generation limits content but I don't believe it does so for starfield any more then NMS. NMS has a less realistic style allowing it to give planets more variety, though starfield has much better points of interest as they dint look like snapped together pieces.
Also I've enjoyed the persuasion mechanics, there is quite a variety of what you can do
The best reviews, clearly points out the pros and cons on all games with no bias. Will be waiting for the mod improvements before I jump in. Thx easy allies 👍
Meh I’m gonna stick with BG3.
Amazing game, not perfect, but so much to love. People should celebrate when there is a good game.
imo, like every Bethesda game, it's mid. Not bad, not great, but fine.
Its seems a good game but I prefer play Baldurs gate 3 or Armored Core
Its the 3.6 Roentgen of video games. Not great but not terrible either.@@Vicioussama
@Vicioussama and that's your opinion, which is fine.
I wish people were more like you though. I hate how polarized reviewers are. Its like every game has to be a 10/10 masterpiece that I'd die for or its the worst game to ever exist
In a year Full of great games good just doesn’t cut it.
For me this is the Bethesda game I've been wating for since Skyrim. Feels like they really took the criticism of Fallout 4 to heart, this is so much more a fun roleplaying game with deep engaging sidequests and tons of content. I get the criticisms but for me its vastly outweighed by the good stuff, just in love with this game.
But the conversation around it is just horrible. Games don't need to be for everyone. I didn't really jive with BG3, i thought it was boring and tonally all over the place... but that's ok. I get why others love it so much and am happy they are enjoying it. I'm not going out of my way to find BG3 comments and shit all over it and demand everyone agree with me. I don't understand why people seem to have a hard time having that attitude about Starfield. Let people enjoy it for what it is.
Ye there are different types of RPGs and not everything is for everyone and thus not every damn RPG is comparable with eachother.
Excellent review guys having pros and cons in a very balanced way! I hate when people focus on the score and not the actual contents of the review. Giving everyone a great picture of what to expect is all I can ask from a review, especially if I’m going to sacrifice my time and money to play it. ❤
I wasn’t going to get this game but once I heard it felt like a Fallout space epic, that’s all I needed to hear. Love Fallout and love exploring different planetary environments so, I’m definitely in 👍
You will sadly also definitely be disappointed :(
@@jnssmnsnmay I know what's your take on it?
@@justarandomstranger279 Tried pretty much everything it has to offer, played since early access You will love the first hours of it, but when you notice how repetitive and bland everything is, that's when the game falls apart. Characters are uninteresting and the main story plot is kinda meh. The side chains are actually more interesting. Horrible performance due to the old creation engine just being terrible these days. In the end the game is a 6 or maybe 7 out of 10.
@@jnssmnsnidk what performance issues you are going through, but everything on PC for me has been 60fps and above with no crashes or major bugs at all. Which is surprising for Bethesda. I think people are wayyy more critical of this game because it's Bethesda. Like EA, Blizzard etc. They are just a fun thing for people to hate. So they put the games under a microscope while the games that are truly failing at what they try to do, go free.
@@thedurtylemur2282 60 fps is what i call unplayable for any game with FPS combat. I have a 13900k paired with a 4090 and the performance for a 2023 game with this mediocre graphics is a joke. The creation engine is one of the worst parts of this game. It rules out the possibility for seamless transitions between zones and turns it into a loading screen simulator. Can't even enter a tiny house without having a loadscreen. It's SO outdated. Your comment about people hating on the game just because it's Bethesta is dumb. I've not played any of their other games ever.
Fantastic review. Feels like just yesterday that I was listening to Brandon review Skyrim for GameTrailers 😭
gametrailers the best.
Best reviews on the net. I strongly believe Bethesda games are love or hate. For me they essentially defined what an open world game should be. Slow, steady and a hell of alot of fun with a ton of exploration. To me you can't beat the pace of a Bethesda game, they aren't always action packed, nor are they always the best. But they always seem to draw me in with their mysterious story lines and odd ball characters. As always easy allies knocks it out of the park with their review 👏👏
Another stellar Easy Allies review , you guys are the best in the industry
You could call it an interSTELLAR review.
Not even close
This review as a lot of untrues
Still waiting for the hogwarts legacy review
@@marketlg24 nobody cares about that game anymore lol
Smashed it Damiani, an excellent review.
It really feels like the same game they've been making for 20 years.
Because it is. But on space. It's the same engine it's the same formula it's the same mid writing and it's the same bug fest that they won't fix but leave it to modders to fix
@venkaramon And just like the rest of their stuff, it'll still sell like hot cakes regardless.
That’s a positive for me lol
@@Chewio_well people are beginning to get tired of it, that for sure especially if they won't fix all these loading screen
@@notslucis9977 I don’t see them doing that honestly. I think it’s a engine limitation more than anything
8 seems about right for this game let's be honest give or take a .5 down or .5 up depending on the person but about what I personally expected nothing really groundbreaking or game of the year worthy tbh just solid
It's a hard game to ignore despite it's shortcomings. I'm addicted lol
80% talking the negatives, and yet still score 80...
Yeah the score did not equal his talking points. Seems like it’s a 6.5-7 but didn’t want to deal with all the backlash - and I don’t blame them
I'm 32 hours in and I've still barely been anywhere (mostly Akila City, New Atlantis and the Key); 6+ of that has definitely been burned purely on ship customisation. Been having a blast with the game, though I've found it harder than normal to settle on a character I like the look of (fortunately the Enhance! store on New Atlantis lets you change for only 500 credits).
Only major bug I've really encountered is using a controller on Windows; if I switch to keyboard to bring up a game overlay (e.g- Windows' game bar, Radeon driver overlay etc.) then my controller inputs stop working and I have to restart the game. Fortunately the game loads pretty fast, and this is avoidable, but it's annoying. Otherwise it's been the usual physics glitches with a fully open world game; enemy whose boost pack malfunctioned ended up wedged through some geometry, that sort of thing.
It's not a perfect game by any means, but it is a lot of fun so far, and I can definitely see me replaying it a bunch of times, especially as more mods become available. I'm already thinking up some mods I'd like to make, and ship-building has proven really addictive so far even though I've barely progressed yet (it can be very expensive).
I feel you, this game is more valuable than the sum of it's parts.. I can't stop playing it... Help me, please...
Relatable. Starfield definitely isn't for everyone, but it sure feels good to be one of the ones it IS for.
"remedial" day job? Or menial
Excellent and fair review as always. Great work Damiani! L&R
I wasn't sure about this because Damiani clearly isn't really into Wrpgs but damn dude, you nailed everything in this one. Great review
My personal score for this game prior to this review is a solid 8/10.
I agree with the majority of what Easy Allies are saying.
Im 20 hours in and thoroughly enjoying it.
Its not exactly a revolutionary game (say to how Elden Ring was for the Souls formula). However its an enjoyable experience personally!
My Series X has been in a bag for the past 10 months so its a great reason to use the console. Personally however i wouldnt deem it a system seller.
So it was a system seller for you. Despite saying it wasn't. Next time think before you post.
I give it a 9 easy and I've yet to finish any significant storyline, I've just been jumping from random quest, adventure to the next. Higher once some QoL stuff fixes happen or we get mods which will fix it on Xbox at least, since those are probably already available for PC or soon will be.
@@UA-camCensors I really think you need to re-read what I said.
I bought the Series X probably around 9 months after getting my launch PS5. Played it for a few months and then it collected dust in a shopping bag.
It's a nice reason to clean the dust to play the game but I wouldn't necessarily run out to a store now to purchase the console to simply play Starfield.
Hope that clears things up for you.
@@Jordan-ev5ukit won't clear anything up, this guy is replying to every comment like he's Todd Howard on his burner account 😭
@@librarygary1618 hahaha 😅 some people have to much time on there hands I suppose. All the resource he's using to reply to all comments he could be investing on exploring 1 of the 1,000+ planets 🤷♂️
The lack of proper space exploration completely kills my excitement for this game
But can I play as a stealth archer?
How DO you all review BIG games like this. In the discussion last week (before the weekend at least) it seemed like a few of you Allies were playing it- so is that 70 hours EACH or just your perspective after 70+ hours? I still expect this to be a much more expansive review than those that came out before pre-release- Thanks so much for waiting to do this review!
Beginning is slow but I'm loving it now
I don't care what anyone says Starfield is a solid game and if the game is this good without mods imagine what we're in for after the modders get their hands on the SDK.
So happy for the decisions they've made to correct after Fallout 4.
We love BGS firstly for open world RPG simulation and interactivity, no other dev/publisher wanna even touch something similar and get the engine/tools necessary up and running.
except Rockstar did do their take with RDR 2 and you have Nintendo, but Zelda is not a choice driven RPG and RDR 2 not really either. All we can hope for is someone else within Xbox uses the BGS engine+tools, or they license out. New Vegas was a gift. We're also waiting 5-8 years between games at this point.
Second, you have replayability and roleplaying with different characters. Third, you have modding scenes which just go insanely hard, can't wait.
Only bugs I encountered so far are NPCs/Companions getting stuck into something for no reason, sometimes the Weapon Inventory menu would be all black but the entire UI still works, some NPCs will forget the quest instead of guiding you to your destination, and delayed voice over lip sync at the start of a conversation but gets fixed on the next line.
sounds like things they should have easily fixed before release.
@@HOPGamingZone agreed but most of these will be fixed by unoffcial patch mods until BGS fix it themselves.
Guess the modding community is just waiting for BGS to make a move since I definitely reported these issues.
‘The only bugs’… the bar is so low for Bethesda, stop buying these unfinished and bland games
Only bugs and go on to list bugs that in any other games would have been trashed.
One thing I am surprised that no reviewer I heard mentioned so far is that yes, the facial animations are nt superb, but the tech executing these animations definitely is. Every movement stretches or bulks ups underlying flesh and muscle, skin stretches or furrows under the eyes or on the forehead and I've even seen a thick neck deform from jaw movement. Considering this must be dynamic, as they wouldn't have mocapped it this scale, I would say the overall facial animations are pretty impressive. I've seen the first convincing in a video game ever in this game, just because of all that natural skin deformation on the cheek and under the eyes.
While there is some unevenness in quality among NPCs, yeah, I'd say they look and animate pretty well for the scope of this game.
i agree
The only issue I've had is sometimes the character models do some weird things
Got jumpscared once by a character nearly turning their neck 180* to look at me
After seeing Cyberpunk 2077's facial animation, this game is a joke.
@@Supadrumma441 that's the difference between completely static, mocapped animations, and dynamic animations in an open world with 30 times as many actors
Cyberpunks animations are not individually mocapped. They use a program called Jali to provide animations.
Starfields facial animations and worse than fallouts. @@lgolem09l
I’ve put around 50 hours into …my GOTY so far.
I've loved Bethesda games since Fallout 3. I love space and sci-fi themes. But for some reason I just can't get into Starfield. I feel like I just don't care about the world(s) or characters. After about 6-7 hours of play I checked out, probably won't come back to the game sadly. I hear a lot of people say that they can't stop thinking about this game when they're not playing it but the second I turned it off during my first playthrough I had more of a desire not to come back to it.
I think part of it might also be the burnout of "open world" games. I just don't have the time to explore fictional worlds anymore and would rather focus on a shorter game with a great story or/and great gameplay.
In Starfield, I turned on the scanner and saw all the things I could pick up in a room and was like nah, this is just too much, stop making every pencil and ashtray an item I can carry, I will never pick these up.
looks like that metascore's going lower
(inb4 "UHMMM WHO EVEN CARES ABOUT METACRITIC 🤬 THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY BRIBED BY SONY" comments)
Indeed. Fools will be fools.
That moment when Tears of the Kingdom on Switch feels more next-gen than a Xbox Series X game.
What about that moment?
@jeffnduran it says a lot about starfield
@@jeffnduran
You need mental help
Curious about what moment u r talking about
TOTK feels more next gen than _most_ games on the market.
You can build crotch-fire wielding mechs for goodness sake 😂
Good job EZA. And Thanks.
It's a good game but they tried to bite more than they could chew and failed in a lot of aspects, they should have gone for one handcrafted solar system and focus on that.
It might be too similar to Outer Wilds instead of No Man's Sky then...
...actually, yes please.
@@MrWhygodwhy no mans sky has seamless space travel launching and landing. please, dont compare it to this $H1T..ahm.. Starfield.
@@vault29a Sounds like you just compared them.
25 hours in, hit a bad bug on the crimson fleet quest line and lost 3hrs. I don’t feel like going back now though it doesn’t feel like an open world game at all.
Not surface-to-orbit flight, no interplanetary travel, and no pole-to-pole exploration on planets themselves are all HUGE bummers. I guess the Bethesda engine is too old for that kind of thing.
That whar I was thinking too, its likely they had similar vision for Starfield in terms of free exploration that for example No Man's Sky or Star Citizen have but if you do game with that scope, its gonna require sacrifices in some other areas and its quite clear even if they wanted to, the game engine didnt allow them to go that route, no matter how much they have tried to recode over their old engine.
Perhaps Starfield could have been even better game if they had gone for much more reduced scope and tried to do it more like Destiny or the Outer Worlds in term of scope and size. Just few planets/zones/locations seperated by loading screens but that each world would have been more detailed and distinct but I guess that would have reduced the grand vision they had for Starfield too much. But since the space exploration and combat is just a curiosity, I think dropping all of that entirely might have made the game better if on the other hand taken something off from the "grand space exploration feeling", but imho they should have made the decision to either improve it or drop it all together since its clear the game engine could only go so far.
Actually it's a decent game, if you keep your expectations in check!
This is the third Bethesda game I've tried (after Skyrim and Fallout 4), and I've finally realized why their games don't click with me. They feel like garbage man simulators. So much of what I'm doing is just walking around picking junk off the floor, then organizing the junk. Anyway I bounced off this game pretty quick, hopped between a few other Game Pass games since I got the free trial, then started up Baldur's Gate 3 instead and didn't look back.
That’s a respectable score.
+ or - a point if you dig the BGS formula.
The opening statement, that my friends, is one killing opening to a review.
This is why I love the Allies so much and have been a follower since the GT days. I tell all my friends, don’t look to meta critic for information. Find the reviewers that being fair, balanced and critical thought to the process and avoid the noise. The top tier production value is icing on cake 👌
Great review y’all.
Oof, that score was generously given. The review sounded like a 7 through and though.
Not a bad review I just……and honestly this is my first BGS game so no I’m not a fanboy of any kind but I love space games like Mass Effect, Halo, NMS, etc. But when I hear when ppl say you land on a planet and there is nothing to do….I seriously ask myself if these reviewers are playing the same game I am. See what reviewers fail to always leave out is “how” they are playing a massive game like this. If you have a review who doesn’t like to scan, gather resources, do resource management, and cries because you have to walk or jet pack to a point of interest, no wonder they will say something like there is nothing to do on this planet. It’s because they land look around for like 2 mins and leave. I have spent over 70 hours on this game, I have only been 2 like 2 systems to explore planets, and yes some outpost are copy and paste but that’s not what I am there for. I am there to be an explorer and for the rpg element of it get xp to level up. When you fully scan and survey resources, plants and animals it gives you xp, when you go to points of interest it gives you xp, when you battle spacers or pirates at those points of interest it gives you xp and you can bank a lot of credits. Then you have your activities, missions, misc, factions, main story. There is actually SO MUCH to do whether your exploring or playing missions. And there is always an incentive behind everything you do because you get xp, credits, gear, etc. like because I was just out exploring is how I even found and did the mantis mission. It’s an rpg, and if that’s not your thing why even review or play a game like this, that is how most of not all rpg are played so I’m not for sure why acting like this is a new thing lol
This is the *only* Starfield review that matters.
I absolutely love this game. I'd give it an easy 9.5. It's exactly what I wanted, as a long-time Bethesda fan. I already put well over 100 hours into this game and I expect to put in many hundreds more over the next 5+ years. I'm level 59, I've done basically every quest, every faction quest and looted almost every temple. I have 80% of the achievements. So if someone knows how good Starfield is, it's me.
Stuff like the lack of free space/planet exploration as opposed to loading screens are things that I really suspect are just not that important to most people despite so many reviews pointing it out. Considering the scope, depth and breath of the game, it's actually kind of unfair to dock points for something like this when so many games have like 20% of the content/scope and still have similar problems and score higher. The game wasn't even promised to be built this way either. Todd said you can land anywhere on the planet, and you can. Even the first trailers showed the loading screens/animations as well - no promise was made that this was going to be like No Man's Sky.
Like, you gave The Outer Worlds a 9 out of 10, and it's just astonishing to me that Starfield couldn't score at least that much considering just how much of a better game it is compared to The Outer Worlds. And don't get me wrong, I love The Outer Worlds, but Starfield is a much superior game in basically every area and it's scope is also 10x bigger. Obviously, some kind of bias or unreasonable expectations entered this review, as it did at many other outlets. There's no justification for Starfield scoring lower than The Outer Worlds. None. It appears you're judging Starfield on a standard that you frankly haven't set for other similar games.
It's like a 5 or 6 for me. Was really hoping I'd enjoy it more. Playing bg3 right before made it even worse cause I enjoyed that so much more. I'll probably give it another try in a year or so
you very very wrong this game is great if you play more than 50 hour
@@lofi1598 Ahh it just takes 3 weeks of regular playtime to make it good, that's very cool.
@@andrewnicon The game is slow in the first hours. You must develop your abilities and complete the side missions because they are wonderful, and you will obtain many skills. The game opens up to more fun in the game. It takes some time, but after that, the game will become extremely enjoyable in missions and exploration. Many players do not understand how the game works like this. Bored should not speed up the story
@@lofi1598 50 hours is too long to play a bad game, games should start getting good within 3 hours or its fundamentally failed.
@@andrewniconafter 8-10 hours it goes from good to great imo
Starfield's short-comings come from Bethesda balancing realism with fiction/fantasy/fun. On one hand, too much realism (becoming encumbered for example) seems like a nuisance, while the removal of some realism (fast travelling and not piloting your ship to land) is a complaint. And honestly, I don't think many of the complaints have any real merit.
Space is boring. There really isn't anything to do there. The fun we have as human beings comes from interacting with other human beings and other life forms. If the Earth was barren of life, you'd become bored out of your mind, very quickly. I'm not sure what people were expecting in out-of-space exploration, when it was disclosed that only about 10% of the planets had life, which is actually closer to reality, and that was disclosed before release.
Now, imagine this, if Starfield implemented realistic sim piloting, what do you think the complaints would be? Well, much like how carrying around a lot of stuff slows you down in real life and will drain oxygen faster (even on Earth), people would complain that landing/take-off is too complicated. The barrier to entry (especially for younger people, like kids) would be a huge, legitimate complaint and gripe. If landing/take-off was too easy, it would be unrewarding (like space fights mentioned here). Too realistic becomes too difficult. Make up your mind? There was no way to make a game this vast, that satisfies everyone. Even Star Citizen quickly becomes boring when you're playing by yourself.
The thing about Starfield is, ANYONE can pick it up and play it. Too realistic; many people wouldn't be able to get into it. Too simplified, and we have people complaining that certain things aren't realistic. Never mind that space travel and space exploration is pretty darn boring, in itself.
Overall though; a very solid and balanced review, although there are some takes I don't agree with.
Ive played for 60+ hours so far and so far im having a blast. Definitely in the top 3 bethesda games in my opinion.
paid actor
I am at 20-25 hours and only going through main quest and it is a blast
@@NPC-fg6upget a grip.
@@Donnie_Oculus I have a strong grip
@@NPC-fg6up Names literally NPC so calm down.
Best review ever and a fair score. Everything more is fanboy crap.
Fair criticisms honestly. I lean more towards an 8 but I can definitely understand people even giving it a 7. Now that the game is in players hands it’s rated a 3.75/5 on Xbox own storefront, a 7.5 out of 10 so most players are feeling about the same. Hopefully Bethesda can be quick with their updates without leaving everything to modders to fix it for them
On frametrap Damiani lambasted this game.
I also noticed at the beginning of this review it said "WE" instead of "I".
This leads me to believe that in order to avoid backlash, easy allies had an intervention and had Damiani up the final score from what he originally would have given it. Bc on frametrap...damiani definitely wasnt given this game what "they" gave it here.
LOL, there was no intervention. This is the score Damiani decided to give it and there were no substantive changes to his script. He also didn't lambast the game on Frame Trap. It's a complex game with both highs and lows, as Damiani's script reflects. -Bloodworth
Great review. Was surprised to see Damiani tackling it because if I remember (probably fuzzy memory) he isn't really interested in Bethesda RPG's, and never really played Skyrim until much later. Maybe that's the exact type of person the public needs reviewing Starfield though, someone who won't immediately gush over the next Bethesda game. Seems like a fair score and definitely a PC purchase for me!
I think people will quickly realize that procedural generated environments are just a gimmick unless your game is focused on simulation and crafting like No Man's Sky. For more narrative games like Starfield, I take 2 or 3 handcrafted, highly detailed worlds or areas over thousands of empty planets any day.
The "1000 planet" promise is irrelevant with how they designed and limited planet exploring. Plus youll see repeating patterns and caves and what you thought was unique sights repeat themselves after exploring only 20 planets. All which are pretty empty and boring.
Far from what they were boasting about.
20 hours in and I think 8/10 is very fair.
@@silvershroud6263Dude if you can’t review a thing after spending 20 hours with it…
@@SojiFro_0you gonna finish your sentence? You gotta work on that attention span bud. 😂
@@silvershroud6263 Judging based on 20 hours. Not saying that’s what my score will end up as but after 20 hours 8/10 seems fair to me. EDIT: ah never mind. Judging by your comment history you’re not mad that I’m making a 20 hour judgment, you’re mad that I think an 8/10 is fair. LOL
modern technology isnt as advanced for this game to be released in this generation, nasa still discovering things in space and other advanced space technology still haven't even invented yet. modern time 300 years from now, it wouldve been released with more realistic lot less empty planet. we simply lack the space wisdom
Loading screen simulator with the WORST inventory management in a game where you spend 30% of your time in the inventory. It actively made me stop looting
Fast travel simulator*
The inventory management and ui actively made me uninstall the game.
StarUI is already out baby. If on Xbox, RIP.
You guys arent reviewing BG3?
From what i've seen from the game. Nothing makes me want to play it. From loading screen simulator to bullet sponge enemies to the owl effect when talking to people, guards that do no react. The bland planets with nothing to do. All of this makes me long for the EZA review for BG3.
Anyone triggered by loading screens should go outside.
@@Donnie_OculusAnybody who comments as much as you do on one video needs to go outside.
Listen you're not a BGS stan, we are feasting on this game and looking forward to mods .maybe you were at one point, whatever it is it's cool, there's enough games to play to put it mildly.
@@jamster126lol was commenting as i sat on the toilet, unless you have a problem typing on a phone/on anything idk how you came to that conclusion, it really wasn’t all that time consuming lol. Assuming you’re triggered and not thinking straight. 😂
@@Donnie_Oculus We have all seen your amount of comments on this video. Not fooling anybody 😂. Keep digging your hole though
We have Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Citizen and now Star Field. Apperently its hard to come up with something more original for the name.
Stargate,Starhunter…
Blame Star Wars for being successful 🤷♂️
Damians voice is downright nostalgic
Best video game reviewers for what feels like almost two decades now. Thanks!
See you guys among the stars
edit: gott a feeling I've been here before
Seems like a very fair review of the game. One of only a handful of reviews where the flaws of the game are actually taken into consideration, instead of brushed aside with the ridiculous excuse: 'it's a Bethesda game'. I really wonder why one of the biggest studios in the world is being held to a lower standard? If this game was made by anyone else, reviews would have destroyed it.
I know it's a very selective audience but as a 28 yo with a 9-5 dayjob this kind of game is perfect for me to pick up and put down whenever especially the space stuff. With it being on gamepass is definitely a bonus.
This might be one of the best games thats come out since Armored Core 6
Thankfully it's better than AC 6 which plays more like AC 3 HD version. But just with a worse sense of difficulty balancing.
@@crushingit5128stop
You say that like Amored Core didn't come out like three weeks ago
Speak for yourself. AC6 is a 10/10 for me, as a huge Souls fan and 1st time AC player. I loved the variation in difficulty. Fantastic game.
Booo, tired joke
Great review Y'all!
I'm surprised how much the reviews differ so far. It's such a huge game there's apparently a lot of variety in the experience. As just one example, MrMatty is a UA-camr who has thoroughly played all the big Bethesda RPGs. In his 70h impressions video he says the space combat in Starfield was one of the most engaging parts (the total opposite of Easy Allies here!), and that unlike Fallout and Skyrim he found the exploration underwhelming but the main story as the studio's strongest ever. ua-cam.com/video/vZkcQqupli4/v-deo.htmlsi=qNmQh_PWuIsnB_z9
I haven't played so I'm not saying either perspective is more right. It's just interesting to see what even pros want and expect can differ so much.
Fully agree.
I think that's both the beauty and the curse of Bethesda Studio Games. They create expansive games and incorporate a multitude of mechanics that resonate with a portion of the player base, while a smaller percentage become completely enamored with them. They include all these different elements to appeal to both the general public and niche audiences. It's astonishing that this approach works at all.
The apparent focus on fast travel, limited space travel and lack of attention to the overall gameplay experience while in space is really disappointing. There are plenty of skill based shooters out there with a sci-fi setting, so the ground combat is not a selling point for me. I also don't really like survival elements, but it sounds like that stuff is pretty light in Starfield. I'm also hearing about a lot of bugs, which you didn't really go into here. I'm sure Bethesda's perspective on the bugs they couldn't squash is "hey, modders will fix it, amirite?". The gameplay shortcomings and current bugs make this one a pass for me. Considering this is the first new release my PC wouldn't be able to run, I'm not too disappointed that I need to wait until the holidays to build a new rig.
World’s first fast travel simulator
Well written but after listening to your review i Ifeel that a 7 would have been a more realistic score. How did you get to an 8? Im waiting to play it this evening on gamepass and ill make my own decision in a few weeks.
I think this is a fair review. The quality of life omissions along with the limited space exploration and visual unevenness make an 8/10 a reasonable score for this game. And that is a great score by most standards. I'm not sure where I am on a 1-10 scale with Starfield as I'm only about 18 hours in, but I look forward to playing a whole lot more of this ambitious game.
Is it me, or does Jones sound a bit exhausted? Hope he’s doing alright.
The reason of the backlash (appart from PS5 trolls) is that Bethesda did a terrible PR for the game.
They went out of their way with the space exploration angle. I did catch from the videos they released pre launch that the travels themselves would take place by cutscenes, but most people didn't, and Bethesda didn't do anything to clear the air on this subject.
So it is only logical that people would believe that they would play nomansky mixed with Skyrim.
Instead of that, they have a mix of Mass effect and Fallout4.
I know this is not what Starfield is but last night I solved one “quest” by totally ignoring what the npcs told me to do and sneaking and using magic to stealth break people out of jail. Another by convincing this guy who was torturing someone to have his cult like followers kill him and he happily jumped on the table. The freedom is so wild in bailouts gate 3 that I can’t get over it. I’m gonna give Starfield a try in the future but kind of feeling I should wait for mods.
To be fair to IGN, that score is starting to make sense (I haven't played it, just observing the reviews).
Ye, plus 7/10 in their books is still good where in some other it might be "average", thats why they so often give that score instead of 8 for example.
Overall it sounds like Starfield is one of those games you really have to play a lot to get into loving it and you also have to be able to look past some of its short comings in order to love it.
Overall seems like Bethesda had very grand vision on Starfield, almost like No Man's Sky, but it came impossible for them to do it quite that way when it comes to exploration and thus they had to go for the design choice that they did in regards of traveling/loading screens etc.
But on the other hand they still managed to do in Starfield what they usually do best so that compensates lot of the flaws, atleast if you are willing to look past the shortcomings and flaws
Nice Review Damiani!
No other intelligent alien life to interact with, no flying into a planet in real time, no diving underwater, no nebula, no quazars, no other interesting space anomalies that make space wonderous. But I guess I was expecting space exploration, and this is an RPG that just takes place in space. No wonder and awe of space exploration included. Not saying it's bad, it's just not my game.
Someone did actually fly to a planet and it took 7 hours....No one wants that shit
@@tyrone7305facts. Except for people who have waaaaay too much time on their hands to waste on video games.
@@tyrone7305Yeah, Alanah Pearce flew 7 hours to Pluto, only for it to not actually be there. 😂
@@Donnie_Oculus I didn’t say fly TO a planet I said INTO. From space. That don’t take 7 hours genius.
@@Teremeik. not sure why you’re at’ing me. Guessing you’re insecure about your own intelligence though, genius, When you’re having such trouble forming a coherent sentence, but it could be because you’re triggered and not thinking straight. 😂
Having to play a game for the purposes of critical reviews seems like a truly miserable experience. It’s so much more enjoyable to just ask myself if I’m having fun with a game or not and simply decide to keep playing until I’m tired of it or move on from it because it’s not for me.
Hyped! Thank you for pointing out the highs and lows of your experience in a very coherent, thoughtful, review!!
How long have you played? Because I was bored after 20 hours and I don't see any reason to play this game any more. Beside couple of interesting quests, this game is painfully repetitive, crude, and not immersive.
8.0 is what I would rate it. Basically next gen Bethesda game says it all.
Gotta disagree, what would have totally destroyed my immersion with traveling would have been of point of iteredts in space would gave been reachable "manually" in aby reasonable amount of time.
Many reviewers are saying ship building is great. But what's the point anyway if you can't explore space?
Lovely review but one thing that stuck out to me is fast travel being more painful because of long load times, from my experience load times haven't been more than 3 seconds long. Really not long at all.
It’s interesting the standard people have for Bethesda games because the Outer Worlds, a game that is basically a smaller version of Starfield with worse gunplay, less exploration, and a game that won’t even allow you to pilot your ship through space, received a higher score. I respect this review and agree with it for the most part, just the number system in game reviews should be done away with imo
I'm an Obsidian fanboy and I *detested* Outer Worlds. Just such a bland experience, and so far, Starfield is pretty similar in quality.
@@michaelandrews117 yea I didn’t finish outer worlds and Starfield was also feeling pretty slow… at first. But then I joined the vanguards and all of that changed Lmao.
I feel like they brought the devs in who wrote the bloody baron quests in witcher because these are incredible. Feels like starship troopers meets cowboy bebop. The level of twists and turns are akin to oblivion’s dark brotherhood
@@jiketagg4251 Yeah I'm about 45hrs in and so far a 7-8/10 seems about right for the game overall.
@@michaelandrews117 I’d give it a 9, but honestly it’s personal taste…. All that matters is if the person who is playing is enjoying themselves at the end of the day
Well done Damiani 👍👍
Fair review. I think its a point higher but that was good to watch.
TBH all Bethesda games are 8/10 at best, for me. All except Morrowind. That game is a 10/10 for the music alone.
Good and interesting review. Spaceship comabt is like Wing commander from 1990. Map system are terribel, inventory even worse.
Not gonna lie, I thought Damiani would roast this game when I learnt it was him who was going to review it. Got the roast, but I expected a 7.5. Good shit though, Damiani.
Yea 8 seems WAY too high considering the main selling points about the game (exploration and space combat) are very disappointing, not to mention the quality of life needs.
Good enough for gamepass.
I’d say so.
$70+ for this is insane.
Great review. Fair and balanced.