Gaming Starfield | Metacritic (Series X): 83, OpenCritic: 86

BristolRuss

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DLSS3 has already been modded into the game. Stuck behind the modders patreon though :mad: (though I sure someone will share it eventually)
 

GhastlyHun

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Wow, indeed. I've been used to the notion that modern CPUs are all the same, with only a slight increase in performance every new gen. I had 2600k for almost 10 years and it served me great. But looking at that graph, the high end intel cpu is triple the performance of mine :eek: I guess this is a game that uses the CPU to its fullest.
CPU usage in Starfield in one word is weird. Raptor Lake (13th gen) is stronger than basically in any real world or synthetic benchmark out there, but scaling with core count is complete shit, i.e., CPUs are not really utilized well beyond very few cores. Has to be a combination of single core percormance and RAM access speed to see such an advantage even over AMD's Zen 4 X3D offerings, which are usually equally fast or faster in games.
 

Redlambs

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CPU usage in Starfield in one word is weird. Raptor Lake (13th gen) is stronger than basically in any real world or synthetic benchmark out there, but scaling with core count is complete shit, i.e., CPUs are not really utilized well beyond very few cores. Has to be a combination of single core percormance and RAM access speed to see such an advantage even over AMD's Zen 4 X3D offerings, which are usually equally fast or faster in games.
Also, unlike the Unity engine say, you can't turn graphics settings up and force the GPU to do more. I wouldn't mind if the physics were as impressive as they claimed originally (30fps lol!), but they so far most definitely are not.

The more I play, the less like those videos it is and the more unfinished it becomes.

Though I will say, I am liking it still. It definitely is just Skyrim in space (with not so much space) so I think it will be very decent especially when the mods hit. But it's most definitely not the game old Todd has been pushing it as, it's just not as broken and unfinished as Cyberpunk was/is so it's getting away with it.
 

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Looks like a better release than Fallout 76 at least. Looks decent/good if you love Fallout games and then some space ship combat on top of that. Certainly nothing like what Star Citizen is going for.
 

Redlambs

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Looks like a better release than Fallout 76 at least. Looks decent/good if you love Fallout games and then some space ship combat on top of that. Certainly nothing like what Star Citizen is going for.
Pretty much, it's as basic as Skyrim/Fallout which is the most disappointing thing after all their hype about wanting this to be so amazing and deep. It's absolutely nothing like any space sim, certainly not SC.

Which is a shame. Turns out, there's not much space out in space :(
 

Klopper76

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I’ve enjoyed it so far. Hardly a bug in sight and combat is great. Some of the city’s are huge.

I did hear one reviewer say that the bugs start to pop up more towards the 30-40 hour mark so maybe they simply made sure the first 20 hours were polished for reviews and will patch the rest later?

I’ll probably sink hours into it like I did FO and Skyrim. Some of it screams Bethesda.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Pretty much, it's as basic as Skyrim/Fallout which is the most disappointing thing after all their hype about wanting this to be so amazing and deep. It's absolutely nothing like any space sim, certainly not SC.

Which is a shame. Turns out, there's not much space out in space :(
So far, does it seem like a must buy? Like one of those games every gamer should be playing?
 

GhastlyHun

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I'm certainly not playing it until it's available for a bargain price. But then again I only liked Skyrim instead of making it a second life, and I found Fallout 4 mostly a boring garbage collecting simulator and an infuriatingly bad Fallout game, so my tolerance for Bethesda-isms in games is limited.
 

Redlambs

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So far, does it seem like a must buy? Like one of those games every gamer should be playing?
Not really sure. It's going to take a lot longer to judge that. I think it's probably going to come down to how you took to the experience more than anything imo. As @Klopper76 said above, it's extremely Bethesda. If you like Skyrim/Fallout you'll like this, but it's not really any different and none of the big claims they made seem to be true at all so far.

Especially the sandwich fort. The physics are basic, there's no advanced stuff here, which makes the 30fps claims a total lie. But deep down we all knew that :lol:
 

BristolRuss

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CPU usage in Starfield in one word is weird. Raptor Lake (13th gen) is stronger than basically in any real world or synthetic benchmark out there, but scaling with core count is complete shit, i.e., CPUs are not really utilized well beyond very few cores. Has to be a combination of single core percormance and RAM access speed to see such an advantage even over AMD's Zen 4 X3D offerings, which are usually equally fast or faster in games.
The CPU utilization is actually better than any other game I've tested recently. Only two threads aren't getting worked as highly as the others.

 

GhastlyHun

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The CPU utilization is actually better than any other game I've tested recently. Only two threads aren't getting worked as highly as the others.

There's load on the cores and threads, yeah, but it just doesn't convert to (meaningfully) increased performance when you look at CPUs with different core count.
 

Igor Drefljak

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So.... how the feck do you travel to different galaxies?

I had a few side missions to do, one at Sol, one at Altair.... yet no fecking idea how to get to them, just says fast travel is unavailable
 

Volumiza

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I like talking to the NPCs, brows that furrow while talking looks pretty good and it’s probably the first game I’ve played where their smiles seems genuine. Crappy small thing to like but I like it anyway. And the dialogue is better than anything they’ve released before too. I’m enjoying my Empath trait.

Some / most of the NPCs are genuinely well realised.

Big step forward for Bethesda in that regard IMO.
 
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Norman Brownbutter

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This game is stupid as feck. I need to leave the solar system to find a fecking lock pick???
 

Arruda

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So.... how the feck do you travel to different galaxies?

I had a few side missions to do, one at Sol, one at Altair.... yet no fecking idea how to get to them, just says fast travel is unavailable
You have to travel in steps, if it's undiscovered galaxies. Just travel to the one neares you in that direction and so on.
 

Redlambs

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So.... how the feck do you travel to different galaxies?

I had a few side missions to do, one at Sol, one at Altair.... yet no fecking idea how to get to them, just says fast travel is unavailable
It's another half arsed implementation of something the designers played back in the late 80's/early 90's and didn't expand on...fuel. You can jump to systems in between. Games like Elite in the 80's and Wing commander: Privateer in 93 did this, but also did it better.

It's fecking stupid, since you don't even buy fuel or load up. It's just more pointless clicking.

That and what @Norman Brownbutter said about lockpicks and what I've been saying about unrealised potential pretty much sum this game up. It's like all the pieces are there, but they just don't have a clue what to do with them. Such a shame too, because it could all be so epic if they got any of those aspects right.

But still, I'm liking it for what it is.
 

Norman Brownbutter

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I dont know how any of you are enjoy this game. For me, most of it is broke as feck. Scanning for example. Press A to scan, feck all happens. Dont press A to scan some times it scans sometimes it doesn't. No idea if it's working or not. Where are the maps? The cities are massive, but theres very little in the way of pathfinding. I just hunted for over an hour for a doctor and even then I had to go all the way back to starting system to find one. The game is infuriating in how it gets the basics so wrong. I shouldn't need to be jumping around star systems to find basic supplies. And I sure as shit shouldn't be turning to YouTube to get explanations for the most basic of systems.

Theres a great game here, but it's hidden under so many little issues that make it annoying to play. Or the Xbox version is just utterly fecked?
 

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Caved, subbed to gamepass and bought early access. Really regret it as it's completely busted on oled right now. Everything is grey and washed out, it's horrible to look at. Hopefully something a patch can quickly fix, as the menu image has perfect blacks. Shades of red dead 2 but at least that has a workaround
 

Gehrman

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So far, does it seem like a must buy? Like one of those games every gamer should be playing?
Totally subjective. I'm a tad dissapointed so far, but I loved fallout 4 and this reminds me of it. I honestly spend a lot of time confused in learning space mechanics. Towns are very much like skyrim. Graphics should be better for 2023 game.
 

Lyng

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Pretty much, it's as basic as Skyrim/Fallout which is the most disappointing thing after all their hype about wanting this to be so amazing and deep. It's absolutely nothing like any space sim, certainly not SC.

Which is a shame. Turns out, there's not much space out in space :(
Well at least it's a actual game and not a million dollar scheme
 

Igor Drefljak

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You have to travel in steps, if it's undiscovered galaxies. Just travel to the one neares you in that direction and so on.
that’s one of the issues.
I did read this, but I couldn’t travel to Altair, but I was able to travel to one in between, can’t remember the name, but had a big evil red sun.

so then I tried to travel to Altair from there but still wasn’t available. I turned it off for the day. I’ll revisit today
 

amolbhatia50k

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Totally subjective. I'm a tad dissapointed so far, but I loved fallout 4 and this reminds me of it. I honestly spend a lot of time confused in learning space mechanics. Towns are very much like skyrim. Graphics should be better for 2023 game.
I’m thinking of borrowing my brothers Xbox to try it. But to be honest I absolutely hated Fallout 4 which is why I’m not really excited by their style of game. Still should be worth a try.
 

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I have to be honest: a dumbed down rpg with mostly shooting stuff in a sci-fi setting sounds great to me. Bonus points for not being campy like Fallout 4. Still reads like it‘s not a bad idea to wait a couple of months for some quality of life patches at least though.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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I've just started but already the gunplay is miles better than Cyberpunk. There's weight to it and charging around gun-butting everyone reminds me of OG halo.

Yeah I'm not going to like the space travel aspect at all, very shite. But so far so good in performance and the basic stuff.
Hope that’s true because I think the gunplay in Cyberpunk feels really satisfying.
 

Gehrman

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I've just started but already the gunplay is miles better than Cyberpunk. There's weight to it and charging around gun-butting everyone reminds me of OG halo.

Yeah I'm not going to like the space travel aspect at all, very shite. But so far so good in performance and the basic stuff.
Playing on pc or xbox x? I feel playing with a ps5 controller on pc the vibration is still quite muted.
 

Redlambs

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Playing on pc or xbox x? I feel playing with a ps5 controller on pc the vibration is still quite muted.
I'm playing on mouse, so no vibration at all. Also, I'm pretty sure you can boost the vibration via steam or some downloaded patch thing. But it's been a while since I've done that.

People seem to be confusing potentially enhancing after effects with the actually gameplay having weight and response.


Hope that’s true because I think the gunplay in Cyberpunk feels really satisfying.
It is objectively better in all metrics other than personal preference on gun types and how you like to play games. There's more weight, feel and feedback to the combat than in Cyberpunk for sure. Cyberpunk, so far anyway, has cooler weapons and katanas so that's something I normally like, but I also like to feel like my weapons are hitting something and not shooting/slicing through paper targets. So SF wins out in 2 out of 3 metrics I've just listed for me.

That being said, I'm pretty sure SF does have swords and tech weapons (I mean Fallout does) so we'll see on that front.
 
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Massive Spanner

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Redlambs finding it “playable” gives me hope as that’s actually quite a lot of praise by his standards (for a non Nintendo game). I’ll give it a go if I ever finish Baldurs Gate 3.
 

Gehrman

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Redlambs finding it “playable” gives me hope as that’s actually quite a lot of praise by his standards (for a non Nintendo game). I’ll give it a go if I ever finish Baldurs Gate 3.
I think its a slow burn but i will definitely end up spending at least 60 hours on it.
 

Redlambs

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Redlambs finding it “playable” gives me hope as that’s actually quite a lot of praise by his standards (for a non Nintendo game). I’ll give it a go if I ever finish Baldurs Gate 3.
I am enjoying it.

But as I said, it literally is just Skyrim/Fallout in space. Don't expect any of the grand claims made about this by Todd "Alock" Howard and his crew to materialise. It's pretty much the same engine, things work in the same way and it's the same level of writing.

But it does have a nice setting, and much better combat than any of us hoped for (though still not brilliant, it's fun enough). I'll be sticking it out for sure, though it will most definitely be helped when the mods start flowing. Especially the ones that actually give the planets more to do, stuff like the random war mods from Skyrim would be absolutely brilliant in this :drool:
 

amolbhatia50k

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Excellent.




No, but the Missus has and is still not enthused and she is waaaay more easy going with games than I am. Besides there's no bullet weight to hits either, you never feel like you are shooting anything other than paper targets. Not to mention the god awful AI.

Don't get me wrong, I had some moments with the swords, but it gets boring pretty quickly imo. I'm hoping this DLC update at least fixes the encounters to a less all round generic state
Do try it when the DLC comes out but on the PS5. For me the dual sense experience with Cyberpunk was wonderful. The feedback from the different guns was fantastic - so much so that I never really noticed or cared about how the enemies reacted. Plus at least for me personally 60FPS matters so much with these games. Frantic combat is elevated so much when you’re switching from rifle to blades to slowing time down time, all at 60FPS.

Im borrowing my brothers Xbox so will get a chance to compare Starfield soon.
 

Redlambs

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Do try it when the DLC comes out but on the PS5. For me the dual sense experience with Cyberpunk was wonderful. The feedback from the different guns was fantastic - so much so that I never really noticed or cared about how the enemies reacted. Plus at least for me personally 60FPS matters so much with these games. Frantic combat is elevated so much when you’re switching from rifle to blades to slowing time down time, all at 60FPS.

Im borrowing my brothers Xbox so will get a chance to compare Starfield soon.
Oh I'm definitely trying it again with the DLC mate. As I've said repeatedly since launch, I want the game to be great but they did feck it up and you know that I value gameplay highly and found it all so disappointing. But I never refunded, and I have tried it after virtually every patch :lol:

But again, the gunplay and feel (in terms of gun handling, impact) is about how the game does it, not what after effects the controller does. There's little impact and feel. Sure rumble and the impressive dual sense stuff elevate that and make it a better experience in ways, but ultimately the way it works in game has no real weight, you are just shooting through paper targets that charge you regardless. Like I say, you can add the DS to any game and it would elevate it, but then CP would still be at the bottom.

I really want the DLC to be great though, and I'll be giving the whole thing the same benefit of the doubt as I am giving Starfield and gave Infinite. As I've liked flawed games where they lied about what they were before, I can do it again :lol:
 

GazTheLegend

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Totally subjective. I'm a tad dissapointed so far, but I loved fallout 4 and this reminds me of it. I honestly spend a lot of time confused in learning space mechanics. Towns are very much like skyrim. Graphics should be better for 2023 game.
Everyone talking about fallout 4... Was one of my most played games of all time and a space themed fallout 4 sounds fantastic to me.

... Still won't buy it I always wait a year or two for the bugs and jank to be patched out of these things, then I usually play and wonder what everyone was moaning about :)
 

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So apparently you can actually fly to other planets. It just takes a crazy long time, but is also rapid compared to real life space travel. It took someone 7 hours to fly to Pluto :lol: (don’t know where from - Earth?).

Opens the door for some kind of warp drive to do it quicker?
 
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mu4c_20le

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So apparently you can actually fly to other planets. It just takes a crazy long time, but is also rapid compared to real life space travel. It took someone 7 hours to fly to Pluto :lol: (don’t where from - Earth?).

Opens the door for some kind of warp drive to do it quicker?
I read about that streamer today. Basically means the space is real and seamless not just an illusion. Wouldn't be surprised if they release some sort of survival hardcore mode in a future update that limits fast travel, and makes food actually useful.