Played 8 hours last night so this is a very early impression. I love clutter looters and didn’t expect much else from Bethesda’s Fallout/Scrolls main studio. The Bethesda crafted areas are excellent if you are looking for what I call a Fallout / Elder Scrolls clutter looter. Lots of stuff to loot, the FPS combat is much better than Fallout 4 or 76. Don’t expect a space sim like SC or NMS this is a Bethesda Fallout/Scrolls style game with a bunch of additional systems on top of it.
First person combat
I’ve played both SC and NMS. While exploring a station in Starfield I thought to myself… this is what SC should have been for their foot exploration. The derelict stations in NMS are rather static environments and never cared for them much. What surprised me about the Starfield AI is they will “flee” or “flank” by running past you at times. I’ve lost track of enemies at times because of this and have had to go hunting for them.
Ship travel
There is fast travel. If you are looking for a space flight sim this is not for you. I don’t have an issue with fast travel as I get no thrills from traveling in space 1:1. There is simulation and there is stupid… SC leans a bit too heavy into the latter. Don’t expect 1:1 space travel in Starfield, it isn’t made for that.
Ship combat
Again this is not a space flight sim. Most recently coming off Everspace 2 I do miss the strafing controls and pedal usage, but that game is star fighter like combat. Starfield does have a ship editor and seems to be more about load out than fighter style combat. Think a bit more like Expanse style combat. I don’t have much time in this area of the game so I can’t say a whole lot more about it.
Initial impression
I love Bethesda clutter looters and this one is in space. Going to eat up the Bethesda crafted clutter looter areas. The 1,000 worlds will likely function as a massive canvas for future mods.
It took me about 14 hours in to reveal a major game mechanic that Bethesda didn’t even mention. it’s wild how big this game is I did some goofing around and side stuff but not that much.
There are strafing controls, but I think you have to have at least one rank in Piloting the game calls it thrusters. Hold space to enable strafing controls (on controller it’s hold RB and then use the left stick to strafe up, down, left and right. I don’t know exactly how it works on M+KB.)
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Edwin Evans-Thirlwell - Unscored
A short, sparky and colourful 2D PICO-8 blaster about a space captain fighting fascist robots.
This one is a parody/joke about someone who put a game on itch titled Starfield. Kind of shitty for RPS to allow. Especially since it’s directly connected on OpenCritic to Starfield the Bethesda game.
It’d be extremely unethical to score it. It’s still pretty bad to have added it to the 2023 Starfield opencritic page. A few reviewers no longer score their reviews because score in general is not a great way to recommend something. A blurb on recommendation is ideal. Like “If you are okay with X, Y, Z and are a fan of the genre then you might like Starfield.” Unscored reviews are becoming more common because of that.
Eh, it’s more that fun should be restricted to your own website. Not an aggregator website meant to show facts at a glance. Thus you are potentially ruining the factual glance.
I find grids helpful when I’m the game master, because they simplify the job of fairly resolving distance and AoE mechanics, and speed the game along. Also in big strategy games, because they allow me to plan ahead on a map with many (often stacked) units without unfair surprises.
I’m enjoying the gridless approach here, though. The computer handles the geometry crunching, there aren’t too many actors for me to keep track of, and the freedom of movement lets me play with tactics that would be impossible on a grid.
Worth noting: I don’t think D&D has ever required a grid, so it might be inaccurate to say this game has gotten rid of it.
Fair enough. I started with 3.5 and the PHB does have a section on the battle grid, though of course it’s never listed as a requirement, only an aid. I think there are certain times the grid really helps the strategy, both in tabletop and video game scenarios. Something as simple as ‘I want to block this doorway’. With the grid, it’s very obvious which squares need to be occupied. With a GM at the table I suppose you could just say ‘I block the doorway’. But, at least so far, every time I’ve tried to block a doorway in BG3 (limited play time, granted), they’ve just moved right past me, making me look rather foolish, and usually leading to my early demise.
I’ve played more BG3 now, and maybe I’m an idiot, but I can’t figure out how to block anything. E.g. I’ll stand at the top of a ladder to block enemies from climbing up, but they’ll happily climb up and walk right through me. Or standing on a narrow beam, and somehow they go to stand next to me on the narrow side to push me off? What am I missing? How are you able to block any space?
Ahoy, matey! If ye be lookin’ to improve the seedin’ of yer torrents, I’ve got a few tips that’ll make yer digital treasure spread faster than a sailor’s rumor in a tavern. First off, make sure ye be havin’ a proper port open on yer ship – aye, that’s the port-forwardin’ business. Next, check if yer ship’s crew, I mean, yer torrent client, be allowed through the firewall. Ye don’t want no scallywag blockin’ yer signal.
Now, here be the trick to gettin’ more swashbucklers to join yer crew – keep that torrent active, savvy? No need to be a lazy landlubber and abandon ship as soon as ye finish downloadin’. The more ye be sharin’, the more likely others’ll join the ranks.
And let’s not forget about those trackers, the navigational stars of yer torrentin’ voyage. Find yerself some trackers with plenty of hearties on ‘em, and add ‘em to yer torrent – that’ll give ye more chances to connect with fellow buccaneers sailin’ the same waters.
Last but not least, be mindful of yer upload rate, matey. Don’t be a hog, sharin’ is carin’ in the high seas of torrentin’. Set yer upload rate to a fair share, and ye’ll be well on yer way to becomin’ a respected seeder in the pirate bay. Arrr, happy torrentin’ and smooth sailin’, ye digital pirate! 🏴☠️
Shooting out of a cannon with the wings hat and flying around in Mario 64 was such a pure fun experience for my kid brain. The switch in music and just soaring around a 3d level was really something special at the time.
It’s not perfect or anything, but it feels like a release with very pure intentions and people seem to resonate with that. No micro transactions, no lootboxes, no DRM (not even Steam’s is implemented), no release day DLC, fast hotfixing, and maybe with the promise of classic expansion packs. The sort of practices that people want to encourage, packaged with a formidable and generally well put together game.
When bigger, more corporate dev studios come out and give it free marketing by saying how unrealistic it is to make games like it… that’s free, excellent publicity.
It’s also bright and colourful and slightly cartoonish in a way that, say, Pillars of Eternity wasn’t. I wonder if this makes it feel slightly more mainstream, slightly more ‘fun’, and a bit less like a stodgy old CRPG from yesterday (and to be clear, I loved PoE the way I loved BG and BG2).
It’s also got enough wild shit in it to grab a few headlines that way.
Yeah, it feels a bit less grimy doom and gloom, despite the narrative and themes. Being fully voice acted, and well, helps to no end with what can otherwise turn in to a wall of text reading slog.
Since everybody in this thread got themselves into a big fucking tizzy about it because they have no actual problems. People for many years now have used it to jokingly put down their hobby obsession, e.g. “normies don’t glue green foam to toothpicks to make trees for their model trains like I do”, and while some people are huge wierdos who use it as a perjorative, the fact that they exist doesn’t matter and refusal to consider context is idiotic.
And to add to this, there's a Humble Bundle right now with the Steam versions of both of those games included. I've also been playing the Enhanced Editions on Steam recently, and they've worked just fine on Linux.
Something with environmentalist and sustainability goals and principles rather than forms of destruction. I don’t want to kill things or chop down trees or blow stuff up. The world is difficult and I am tired.
As someone else mentioned, Terra Nil is exactly this, another good one is Eco. You do chop down trees and mine and stuff but the goal is to be environmentally sustainable. The goal is to stop a meteor from blowing up your planet but you need to sustainably get there otherwise you’ll end up polluting the planet and making stuff worse in the process. Underrated but really good
Community organizing, the game… Movement building, organizer training, etc… It could be something pretty low tech and still be interesting, thinking like Oregon Trail or a MUD.
This is going to sound snobby, but until you’ve played metal gear I don’t think you’ve experienced the pinnacle of stealth. That series basically defined (access arguably perfected) the third person stealth action genre.
If you don’t want to play them all, I highly recommend metal gear solid 3 and V. But the “demo” ground zeroes game is a great way to get a feel for the series in a more contained experience
Runner ups in my mind that others mentioned:
Splinter cell
Thief
Deus ex (you can choose stealth in this game but it isn’t specifically a stealth game imo)
Dishonored (superb)
Prey (essentially dishonored meets system shock)
You gotta go grab some metal gear, though. Oh how I wish I could experience those games for the first time again.
Thief Deus ex (you can choose stealth in this game but it isn’t specifically a stealth game imo) Dishonored (superb)
Was surprised to not find these games in the main list. Thief and Deus Ex (I play it stealthy as much as possible) have been my go to stealth games. And no matter how you try to play Skyrim it always ends with stealth archer. 😅
I fucking love those games to death, Thief was so fucking dark and gritty when it first came out and I was so scared when the guards walked past me as I was hiding in the shadows after water arrowing a torch, lol.
And Deus Ex I with it’s multiple storylines, choice making and takes on philosophy was mind blowing.
However, they’re easy to cheese by modern standards which might be to their detriment when it comes to new players. You can easily blackjack your way through Thief I.
Thief III: Deadly Shadows probably holds up the best gameplay wise, though Thief II has the best storyline imo.
Deus Ex I also has some very unfortunate voice acting choices (incl. white people putting on Asian sounding accents), which I, in the 90s, was ignorant about, but now as an adult it’s a cringy struggle to listen to, tbh.
There are others but this is one I just can’t believe is a thing. It’s so fucking simple to fix. Just start the volume on the lower end and if it’s too quiet I can raise the volume or just give me a volume slider first thing on initial load before any sound is played and let me find the right levels with a test sound before playing any menu music or something.
This and full white dev/publisher logo screens. I have a pretty large HDR monitor and whenever I boot up a Bandai Namco game I’ll flashback myself if I don’t look away in time.
Isn’t this what the volume on your sound system is supposed to do? Master volume in a game should be pretty much maxed out by default and the volume on whatever you use to output the sound should be set so loud isn’t blowing your ears out.
Unless you are actually complaining about sound levels of stuff that shouldn’t be loud (like menu clicking or background music) but that’s relative sound levels of different categories in the game, not the master volume.
Nah, I get what they are saying; games are just unusually loud. I can have my sound system’s volume when streaming YouTube or something on my PS5 set to a decent level but when I switch to a game I have to cut the volume in half if I haven’t messed with the settings yet.
Yeah basically this. My system volume is exactly where it needs to be for anything else I’m doing. Videos, music, voice calls, etc. I shouldn’t have to basically mute my system to not go deaf when I launch a game for the first time.
Reminds me of the first time I booted up Elden Ring. The title screen started up and I heard some music, but it was so quiet. I turned up the volume and then a second later thought I almost blew out the speakers on my headset.
This comment is so silly and yet I keep seeing it everywhere. What do you think the Xbox and Playstations are? What is it that xbox and playstation customers are looking for that this small computer isn’t?
No, it isn’t, in practice. Xbox and PS5 have more in common with my iPhone than my desktop PC or NAS when it comes to being able to do what I want with it.
It will be interesting to see how proprietary the Steam machine is. That’s how I’d end up classifying it as console or miniPC.
A clever enough person can get a useable general-purpose OS running on just about any hardware. The entire point is that it’s user-friendly out of the box.
So user friendly Linux running on it makes it not a console? For a while PS3 was just a couple button presses to get a full Linux distro booted on it. I don’t think anyone would argue PS3 wasn’t a console.
Wrong. MacBooks can dual boot Linux (windows too on the Intel MacBooks), and you can download code from wherever and run it. There’s a terminal you can run commands in. If you want, you can completely fuck it up. macOS is worlds apart from iOS, and MacBooks are more a proper computer than probably even the Steam machine we’re discussing here.
The pedantic argument was about personal computer, not just computer. I believe it was along the lines of push a few buttons, not hack the OS. Sorry I made you mad talking about MacBooks.
That’s not hacking, that’s development. They’re not bypassing locked bootloaders. If Apple pushes for making it impossible to run another operating system that’s another downgrade for sure, but you can still run whatever code you want on them, ergo, it’s a computer. It’s got a terminal, you can write and run your own code, you can download unsigned binaries, you can delete stuff and break the OS, that’s a computer.
Try running anything on an Xbox Series S/X or PS5. Locked bootloader means you’re fucked from the start, and getting past that is hacking.
That’s like saying an unlocked Pixel phone is a PC because you could technically develop an OS for it. Unlocked bootloader doesn’t an open system make.
I think we’re using different terms for hacking. You are using the exploit definition.
Yeah, that could very well be a PC. You could take the guts out, put it in a generic box, attach a monitor and peripherals, and have a Linux PC that drastically outperforms PCs of a couple decades ago, with similar functionality. Those were PCs then, why would the definition change?
Regarding the exploit definition, yeah, that’s the good one IMO. The other one is more akin to “life hacks” or “food hacks” and I think it’s silly. Using a butter knife as a screwdriver isn’t a “tool hack.” Putting Doom on a toothbrush isn’t hacking, provided no exploits were necessary. Putting Linux on a MacBook isn’t hacking just because it lacks documentation and the Asahi devs have to figure some things out before it works.
I would be curious to hear your definition of hacking, though. To me it seems if you’re calling Linux on Mac hacking, then there’s a million other things that are hacking and the word loses its meaning.
If Apple locks the bootloader then I’ll completely agree with you. And while I do agree it appears they’re heading in that direction and it sucks, a MacBook is far more “computer” than a console, even if poorly documented and thus difficult to develop for.
I’m not really following your response. Steam Machine’s feature set doesn’t make the Xbox Series X/S or PlayStation 5 into computers. Yes, they’re x86, but they’re so proprietary and locked down they’re not computers in the colloquial sense.
If the Steam Machine can dual boot Linux, which I bet it can, that’s much more a general purpose computer than either of those consoles.
I think the difference is that the Xbox and PlayStation are locked down to their respective ecosystems with monthly subscription and only one online store. Microsoft and Sony have almost guaranteed return based on that alone. If valve prices this as a loss leader what’s to stop a large corporation to buy 20k steam machines and use them as computers instead of consoles. Then valve is just eating that cost with no return on the other side.
You are correct in that all technically fit the definition of computers. However consumers don’t care about technical definitions or think rationally about purchases. They don’t all do a rational analysis of the products on the market that would accomplish their goals and spend accordingly. They walk into GameStop and buy one of the boxes that makes call of duty show up on their living room tv. Just like the Deck fits the definition of a handheld computer with a built in screen and controllers for playing games but isn’t stealing any customers from the switch.
Deck isn’t selling millions and it’s doing just fine. The Steam Machine will be a small computer box priced as such and there won’t be a single person that decides to buy it over a ps5, and that’s fine. Valve doesn’t have to compete with consoles cause they don’t make consoles.
Valve themselves have said that the Machine will not be priced like a console but like an entry level PC whatever that means. The only people that will notice this to buy it are people who already know what a PC is.
I’d say the Deck isn’t stealing customers from the Switch because they are filling different market niches. The Switch is a portable console with portable Nintendo games made for it. The Deck is a portable PC that gives you access to your entire Steam library on the go.
The GabeCube, however, could absolutely pull some customers of the PS5 and Xbox depending on the pricing - especially with Microsoft’s demands that every part of the Xbox division see a 30% profit margin. The Big Three isn’t going to become the Big Four, but I think it will make some ripples. Steam running in Big Screen mode is effectively a console interface, and it plays Call of Duty just like the consoles. And with Sony finally moving away from console exclusive games, it means that Steam has almost full parity with the libraries of both of the consoles going forward while also offering access to all kinds of indie games that the consoles don’t. The GabeCube can play Call of Duty and Ghost of Tsushima, but it can also play Ultrakill and Bloodborne Nightmare Kart, and neither Xbox nor Playstation can say that.
Edit: And this doesn’t even mention old games. The Steam library has access to all kinds of old games that never get ported to new consoles when a new generation releases, meaning that its library grows in step with the consoles but you can still play your old favorites without having to keep buying them again or keep your old consoles around.
I know my case is specific but having a Jellyfin running on a Steam computer looks to me as good case for having a computer in the living room. Adding a TV applications to Steam such as Netflix is also a case. Then there are people who have their workstation close to the TV so they can use it instead of their laptop and just switch displays with one of these HDMI branching dongles.
Yup, I might try the Jellyfin thing as well. I currently use an app on the TV, but it’s flaky and the TV keeps losing network randomly. Newer TVs at adding ads, so I’ll need an alternative.
Hard disagree. I think that’s exactly who they’re going after. That’s why they added all the console features like CEC, wake on BT, background updates, and a controller-first interface.
I think that’s pretty clearly who they’ve been targeting for >10 years with SteamOS.
I’m not sure cost can be set aside from a price discussion when they’ve explicitly stated it won’t be a Costco rotisserie chicken.
With the number of consoles sold this generation, I’m not sure where the limit is for what people will spend to play the games they want. With console pricing has trailing budget gaming PC’s, I could see a number of people getting a Steam Machine in lieu of the next Playstation or Xbox.
What would be interesting to see in the future is the split between units sold to lifelong console players making a change, and pre existing Steam users with stuffed libraries buying one for the couch. If the latter make up the majority of sales, but they priced it like a chicken, that’ll be a problem pretty quick.
Hopefully it shakes out well and indie game developers reap some well deserved rewards.
For the Chaz’s coronation day they closed the food banks, and pre-arrested a bunch of peaceful protesters (released without charge afterward the event).
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