Are user reviews on places like Metacritic or Steam ever relevant? Review bombing happens consistently any time anyone is slightly miffed at something, which in gaming is literally all the time.
I'm not exposed to that many "gamer takes" lately, luckily. I watched a recent dunkey video on Starfield reviews, that had some thumb-headed idiot screaming in falsetto about the pronoun switch (oh, the horror, for such a thing to exist! oh, the humanity!). Other than that I haven't seen that much complaining about that specific thing. While it could still be about that, I also think it could easily be getting underwhelming scores because it's... a bit underwhelming. (So far, anyway, I haven't played a lot yet)
I hate Steam’s review system, though. Binary yes or no is not useful to me. I want to know if a game is good (maybe a play eventually) vs absolutely amazing (where I might prioritize playing it right away). Such granularity is also useful because a 10/10 might be worth it even if it’s not my favourite type of game, but a 7/10 can be very worthwhile if it is the type of game I adore.
It’s a shame that user reviews on sites like Metacritic are just consistent trash. Too many users only know 0 or 10 and the user reviews are often review bombed. I wish regular users could at least give numbers like critics. No professional critic is gonna give a game a 0 because of a handful of problems, for example, but average people will totally give a game a zero for that. Only problem with critics is that they often have a perspective that makes them detached from the average person, since they spend all their time reviewing. Ideally user reviews would fill that gap, but users are incredibly fickle.
I think Steam’s Yes/No system is the best option we’ve got for user review scores. As you said yourself, for most people, it’s either 0 or a 10. And while granularity can help, it’s worthless when it differs on a user to user basis. One users 5 is another users 7. And is the difference between a 1 and a 2 even remotely the same between a 9 and a 10? Probably not.
The biggest argument I could see is that “Mixed” option where it’s neither option, but I feel like that doesn’t really help anyone overall and is just indecisive.
If you just ignore a score of 0, then why even have it and conversely, why not show the same treatment towards the equally as ridiculous score of a 10?
for the most part it seems to work better than on Metacritic or other review sites with 5-10 star ratings. a lot of people are very unreasonable with 0 star reviews where they’ll give it a 0 for a slight inconvenience even if the game is completely playable
might as well lump the 0-4 star people together on a 10 scale
I’ve seen some pretty absurd complaints, like the not being able to land on gas planets, or people complaining due to ridiculously high but present area limitations.
Absurd complaints always seem to surround the media people whom people blame of being “woke”, which is why I usually give the media being criticized the extra benefit of a doubt since people will make or criticize shit for reasons they don’t say out-loud. I usually find out it’s not really that bad, but it’s just amplified because they create an environment of criticism that other people that have no underlying agenda still follow.
Then there’s the real complaints about performance, which I personally haven’t experienced because of a top tier PC (although I’m curious what people on the Xbox have to say, as Microsoft would hang them if it wasn’t playable on it as one of their new hallmark exclusives for it), and people not liking the Bethsoft sort of gameplay loop, which this is and has definitely improved upon IMO. Not only will this game be played for years on end like Skyrim, but I suspect it will also spark a much needed MMO off-shoot in the space genre just like their Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games did.
Just tried starting it this morning on a Series X. It crashed 5 times on less than two hours. The last time, I was barely into the “learn how to pilot a ship” part of the tutorial, and I’m already over this. I’m so disappointed. I was really looking forward to getting sucked into a new game.
I’ve played about 40 hours so far on a Series X. It froze on loading twice in that time, but otherwise I’ve had no performance problems. I even tried remote play streaming from my Series X to my PC and it worked well also.
That said, Starfield is fine. It’s not great- I don’t think it would be considered GotY even if BG3 and TotK hadn’t come out this year- but it’s otherwise solid. If you like the Bethesda formula, Starfield plays it absolutely straight (for better or worse). The usual critiques of Bethesda games in general apply- it has that look of a Bethesda game, the NPCs have the facial animation range of a post-botox Barbie, Radiant quests abound, the exploration gameplay loop is pretty shallow, etc.
Don’t get me wrong- there’s a lot it could do better, much of which other games already do. It’s a sci-fi fi version of Skyrim, and that’s good enough for me, but it probably won’t live on in the gaming zeitgeist.
I would agree with you in that if Starfield has any longevity, it would be because it would serve as the foundation for mods rather than on its own merits. But I disagree that it could stand on its own as-is.
I can’t play it because I own neither.a gaming PC nor an Xbox, but the impression I’m getting from all the reviews and reactions I’ve seen is that it’s basically a good game, if it had been released in 2008.
It looks like they did the best they could, but they did it using an outdated engine that simply cannot be used to make a modern game.
I’ve been seeing similar, with people saying they would have liked Starfield more if they hadn’t played Baldur’s Gate 3 first. That’s where I feel like a fair number of the “meh” scores are coming from. It’s like people are saying it’s really good, but not mind-blowing.
I played BG3 first. Near the end of it now. What could Bethesda have done to measure up to BG3?
Be less buggy? SF is a more complicated game than BG3. More stuff than can go wrong. Also BG3 has a lot more bugs later in game, in the part that hasn’t been out for early access for years now.
Have more story branches? If ME didn’t convince Bethesdas earlier games to put in more choices, why should BG3? Most people know what they get from these games.
Better writing? Thats a very subjective thing. And BG3 have a lot of already existing lore to build on top of.
Some times the quality of a game comes down to luck, timing, and what skill you got available. And trying to figure out which of two good games is objectively the “best” is a waste of time. We should be happy we got two good new games. In two different genres. And measure them against their prequels instead. Has the game evolved since the last game? BG3 has two parent games, BG2 and D:OS. It has improved on them both in combining them. Starfield was born from Fallout. Definitely an upgrade too, while staying true to what we expect in that line of games.
Thats my take on it. If a new XCom came out tomorrow, I wouldn’t be disappointed it wasnt BG3, I’d be happy and hope it had improved on XCom 2.
It’s not about “trying to figure out which of two good games is objectively the “best”,” but more like Horizon Zero Dawn coming out right after Breath of the Wild. Horizon is a truly great game, but it suffered from coming out right after what turned out to be a definitive open-world game. It’s not about better, it’s about timing. People would have had different expectations of Starfield had it come out before BG3, just because BG3 changed some people’s expectations of things like quests and ways to do them.
And again, I’m just going by what I’ve seen in reviews and something I’ve noticed in them. I’m never going to play Starfield (nothing against it, but I physically can’t play first person games), so I can’t say one way or the other about what the quests and worlds are like.
I would take the whole “old crappy bethesda engine” meme with a grain of salt.
IMO it is a good engine, it is getting updated by them on every new game like any other engine. And there are a lot of changes all over. For that reason modders have to develop new tools to create meshes, reverse egnineer the changed data formats, etc. Saying that it is the same engine as Skyrim or Fallout 4/76 is just not true.
It is also one of the most mod friendly engine. The content creation tools from Bethesda and modders make it really easy to work with, even for people not able to code themselvs.
And personally the game looks and works fine. Of course you can critique the game itself, but attacking the whole engine is exagerated. Sure it has bugs, and you can attack bethesda about not fixing them, but suggesting that they throw away the whole engine because of a couple of bugs or subjective “looks bad” opinions is ridiculus.
Also, I don’t think just using Unity or UE4 (where bethesda devs first need to learn them first) magically fixes every complaint and bug. But it might make the game not as easily moddable.
Is it just an exaggeration, though? It is old. It is... kinda crappy. I've played and loved a bunch of Bethesda games, but they do tend to fuck up in some pretty characteristic ways. So characteristic that they happened in Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallouts 3, NV and 4, and now apparently Starfield. In my hour or so of gameplay I already encountered the "corpses somersaulting around" thing, a tradition since at least Skyrim.
True, it doesn’t have raytracing, like most big game engines now. And the first city you come to is VERY plain and clean and oversized and underdetailed. It would probably be better if one started out in Akila or Neon or The Well somewhere with more details. But not every game, particularly one as open and customizable as this, can have EA level models or Cyberpunk level details. Nor is it the engines fault. Seen the Unreal Engine? How old is that one, 1998 i think? Nobody complains about that.
It is the fault of what they want to create. They want an engine that can do big open worlds, with interactable and persistent junk of all kinds, but that they can also very quickly create new content for. And is easily moddable with as little risk of mod conflicts as possible. And a very simulated AI, one that doesn’t need handhelding through pre-placed paths, but can navigate freely even through user-created buildings and chaotic situations. They end up looking dumber than other games AIs, but thats only because other games rely more on the illusion of a smart AI.
I agree! The content of the game is the issue, not the engine. Bashing Bethesdas engine is just a meme, at this point.
Linux is 32 years old, people wanting to throw everything away and start new, just because they don’t like certain aspects of it, are crazy.
Personally, I don’t really care about raytracing, or even improving the graphics that much, IMO they should reuse assets and code if that will make them invest more of their time to improve their writing, quests and let people go their own paths through the quests instead of just having 2 or 3 options (do the quest, don’t do the quest and sometimes rat the people out to the authorities). So that we have BG3 level of writing and quests, in different kind of game.
And for god sakes, do simple things like let companions whisper when sneaking.
Also, New Atlantis doesn’t look build for Humans but for giants, too much scaled up.
Is whispering while sneaking so easy though? It would double the voice acting budget, time, and the audio asset size. Theres no magic audio filter for making believable whispering out of regular voices.
Well, maybe there will be once game studios start using AI voice actors.
At the very least just lower the voice volume of companions in sneak even if it’s lazy fix. I don’t need breathy whispers in my ear for funny or throw away dialogue. But that’s just my thoughts maybe other people are different.
I told my wife I’d have been thrilled to get this game in 2016. In 2023 it does feel dated though, If they don’t update the engine significantly before their next game it may actually hurt sales.
You’ll have to buy the DLC, no doubt. I could imagine them bundling an extra state or two for the release though, perhaps the whole revamped west coast
I thought rogue one was an excellent movie but I always had a grudge against it for taking Kyle Katarn absolutely out of the picture in regards to retrieving the death star plans
Just make your own head canon. You can watch Andor and R1, play Jedi Outcast, and read the OG Thrawn Trilogy. That’s what I do. It’s all made up anyway.
Well you see, when Disney bought Star Wars, they took a look at all the amazing EU stuff and said “nah, we don’t need any of that!” and promptly threw it in the incinerator.
Exactly! Leave my attention span alone like the lonely whales that hunt for food alone in their feeding areas. I reccomend taking a whale watching trip, just make sure you aren’t seasick but ginger candies can help stave that off. By the way you can grow ginger yourself, just dry it for a few days and plant it 2 inches deep and keep it moist. Not tiramisu but sponge cake moist but I prefer tiramisu if it is well made. The cake should be cold and fresh like spring water on a hot day
I watched for a couple minutes then stopped. It’s clear they had no intention or interest in the Switch 2 before all the outrage so why bother to watch the next 18 and 30 seconds…
From what I watched it is heavily biased against Nintendo and from someone who clearly isn’t the target audience.
My interest in Nintendo has been slowly slipping away since the early 00s and I wouldn’t even call myself a fan anymore but videos like these are worthless.
I don’t know. I never had a Nintendo before my Switch, so many things in the video were uknown to me.
Yes, maybe the criticism leans toward the hateful side, but Nintendo is pushing it too far with their tactics these days.
Life goes on, I suppose. It seems gaming has hit its developmental ceiling, and companies are scrambling to find new ways to milk the cow for every drop.
Nintendo aren’t the monster they are being played as.
I do think the price is too high for the console, games etc but they have always been slow to the party in many ways. That also means they create amazing stuff that the others cannot and have forged their own path. Don’t hate on them for that aspect.
Well joining the party of others is not good, when the others do shit, is it? This is not for framing Nintendo the devil and other console companies as angels.
Global console gaming is dominated by three major corporations, all now focused on expanding profit margins (with ‘margins’ being the keyword). Nintendo, with its strong loyal fanbase and historically stable pricing, is the easiest target to start another round of game price hikes.
If this is basically battlefield 3 + I will happily spend the money and time playing a battlefield again.
If this has any of the BS that made 2042 suck so much ass I will be skipping it.
I miss having a solid battlefield game to play, but I’m not going to take any bullshit included. I don’t wanna see any fuckin wingsuits. No grapple hook Tarzan mother fuckers. No wall hack BS.
I want 4 classes. I want team objectives. I want maps that look like shit by the time a match ends because everthing has been pretty much been leveled by explosives.
Honestly. Leave it to EA to take what was a winning, recurring formula and shitting on it til irrelevancy. The fast, twitchy movement, weird tools, etc are not what made BF fun. You’re supposed to feel like a cog; nothing special, another soldier in your small squad looking for the small wins. Those don’t get clip farmed, though, and it’s a CoD/Warzone economy right now. I do have some hope with the gritty WW2 games like Hell Let Loose and Enlisted seeing some success, it’s swinging back out of that type of genre and back to the BF roots.
Question remains, the big issue may be progression and the definitely happening micro transactions and battle pass, and their implementation.
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