Starfield

With a title like that, it would be hard to think you could get an unbiased review, but hear me out. At the time of writing this, I've completed the game once, put in 100+ hours, and argued the virtues AND flaws of the game at considerable length... only to have my faith in human beings tested too many times to count. But, all of that is to a far lesser impact than what this game represents.

If video-games are an art (I believe they can be) then Starfield is the love-child of Dadaism and minimalist expression. There are moments, very brief moments, where Starfield seems to be brimming with possibility... but it does not take you long to lift veil and reveal the façade. This game, whether anyone likes it, is entirely disjointed. From factions existing, but at the same time having no impact on this great-big universe, to simple black and white morality represented by characters you are supposed to want to journey with, no decision in the direction of Starfield seems well-plotted. And with every good thing the game gives you, you can feel and see the disjointed nature of Starfield.

The ship building suite is unique. Though, there are frustrating limitations when in the course of building a ship, you wonder how the lore of the game can justify. Can only have one reactor. Ok, but why? Can only be x wide, y tall, and z long. In the future, do we not have landing crafts for larger ships? How does the U.C. Vigilance get around this rule. And you'll find yourself with enough 'credits' to be able to arm a small fleet, but there's really no upside to having more than two ships (for me, one for cargo and one for fighting.) Add in the non-existent ability to customize the inside of the ship, and you can already see what is needed to be known about the game... it is vapid. Some gloss over this type of criticism as "whining, sony-fanboy-ism, etc." but Starfield was billed as 'Skyrim in Space' and when I think of Skyrim, I think of a world that was lovingly crafted... not just a hodge-podge of half-baked ideas and procedural generation.

It was not too long ago that ME: Andromeda was being called the same, for having too many planets and not enough content. I would argue Andromeda has just about the same amount of valuable content, with a much smaller play-area. So, I find the paradox that is Starfield to be amusing, at least (critically important that represents maybe 2$ of amusement, definitely not 70$ or more).

Across the board, Starfield feels incomplete. More incomplete than the notoriously incomplete MGS V. It stands in the shadow of many other space games before it, and many that do so much of what it does even better. There is nothing in Starfield that I can point to and say "you have to try this." Play No Man's, play X4, play Outer Worlds. When you play Starfield, you are literally only playing it to say that you played the newest "Bethesda game", which apparently means almost nothing now.