Starfield - Review — Maxi-Geek

In March of 2006, the Xbox 360 launched in Australia and with it a small handful of games, one of them was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. After playing it for a little while, I determined that the game sucked and it was not good, so I put it on the shelf and moved onto to other titles like Amped3 and Perfect Dark Zero. A few months later, I thought I would give that role playing game another go and cut to me losing hours of time as I completed just one more quest.

That is what got me into the work of Bethesda Game Studios, they kept me connected with their DLC (though not the horse armour) and then later Fallout 3. Starfield is of course their first new IP since 2006’s IHRA Drag Racing: Sportsman Edition and with that comes an expectation, what the expectation is though, well that was on the player to decide. Did my time soaring amongst the stars scratch the itch I had hoped it would?

The answer is sort-of, and there is a good reason for that. But first lets talk about the story, the main story at least. You are a miner and after you collect an object that was embedded in some very tough rock, it knocks you out and when you come to, the person paying for the expedition has arrived to claim it. Upon discovering that you touched the item, he sends you on in his place, to catch up with the folks at Constellation. Before you are given a chance to reject their offer, you are told you are in and then sent on missions to help recover more of the mysterious artefacts. Along the way you will meet the other members of the mysteries exploration club and eventually a signal that resonates with the artefacts will draw the eye of the group. After discovering the source of the signal, you are gifted with a power and while good for a while, things never stay that way for long as a new group appear and try to warn you off.

All of that sounds great, exploring the far corners of the known universe, visiting planets and finding incredible powers, the problem is with the Starborn, this group that shows up. As they have the tech to just warp in and out at will, they will constantly hunt you down for the artefacts, should you keep them on your person. As part of their campaign of terror they attack the Constellation headquarters and some members are killed and soon after you learn of their origins and beyond. The reason why none of that stuck for me, is that I didn’t form attachments to most of the members, in fact outside of being forced to return as part of a quest, I never went to the Lodge, there was no real point. Apart from it being a good way of meeting folks to then have them work on my ship or join me whenever I ventured out into the galaxy, the main quest is kind of a dud and includes the fact that it gives you powers.

Of course, one of the major aspects of the game is the ability to venture to hundreds of planets, across a multitude of galaxies. The exploration is one of the things that really got me excited about the game, given that I utterly adored the other worlds created by the team. Your first major location is New Atlantis, but soon after you will hit Akila City and then dozens of smaller towns across the galaxy. Each location has its own theme and vibe to it, with Akila City reminding me much of Winterhold from Skyrim, with its twisting layout and brick buildings. The smaller cities are fewer in number than you might imagine, but even they can offer up some unique points of interest, but that is sadly where the exploration fun ends. Almost all of the planets I visited were one of two types, one that had life on it but barely or a barren wasteland that will never support life. The former of the two is the more interesting, if you are of a mind to scan each and every aspect of the galaxy, you are also more likely to find one of the many enemy factions hiding there. The latter is sadly the bulk of the planets and moons and unless there is a mission directing you to the place, visiting is pointless.

Pointless may seem like a harsh term, but unless you are mining for a very specific mineral or just trying to scan all you can, there is no reason to go to them. Before you land, you can scan from space and get the lowdown on the basics of each place, their planetary type, their atmosphere, be they too hot or cold and so on. If each of the worlds were different enough, then exploring them may not be such an issue, but across the board they are almost all the same, with only the general hue of the place offering up a difference. Once you remove these pointless planetoids from the list, the amount of places to visit is much smaller and the game feels empty because of that and yes the major cities like Neon do have a lot going on, it still feels disappointing.

Something that wasn’t disappointing were the various side missions, from those major quest lines, akin to the Mages guild in Skyrim, the general quests or the random activities that you can discover whilst exploring. The major thread lines have you joining up with a corporation and moving up the ranks or becoming one of the Crimson Fleet, or if you opt to, taking them down. These are not single missions, but rather those that contain a plethora of adventures from simple and quick to long and complex. I often found myself getting lost in a series of quests, if only because they were more interesting than the main quest. For those seeking smaller, more bite sized quests, there are heaps of them to discover and while some can be provided upon asking, more often than not you get them by overhearing conversations.

Speaking of that, let me address a major issue I had with the game, the guards in all the cities that won’t shut the hell up. It has been an issue in all the other Bethesda Game Studios titles, but it was something I was hoping that they had stopped doing here, sadly not. What I mean by this is that each time you walk in the general area of a guard, they feel the need to call out to you, telling you to keep out of trouble, avoid using your weapon and even just say random things. These call outs might seem harmless, but given that walking from the landing zone at New Atlantis and running to the transit system, will see you pass at least 5 guards and they all have something to say, its pointless repetition at its finest. It isn’t just the guards, sometimes it’s the more important NPCs that have to say something, the technicians in the ship yard and even the signs out the front of shops that try to draw you in. Honestly, if someone could create a quiet guard mod for the game, that would make me very happy.

While I am thinking happy thoughts, let me address the space flight, as its something I have adored in games since Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on the Nintendo 64. Once you are planet-free and able to take control, flying is incredibly satisfying, with the basic options being thrust and pitch on one stick and turning on the other. If anyone has played Star Wars Squadrons, there is a richer ship systems management function here, where you can redistribute power from weapons to shields or any other combination. This is important should you want to be a pirate or take the fight to other ships in need of aid and learning when to have your Grav drive powered up or not, will give you the power to achieve your goals. Sadly that is about the only good part about the flying in space as the main reason, flying around is significantly less than you might expect.

The reason why No Man’s Sky is thriving as much as it is, comes down to be able to blast off from any planet, enter space and then fly to a nearby planet or moon, without having to put up with a loading screen. Here that is not the case, you can’t take off and fly yourself off world, the game does that via a cutscene and once you are in space above the planet, you are stuck within a small area. You can’t fly around to the other side of the planet and land again, instead you have to go into a menu, navigate a cursor around and then select a place to land, which then leads to another cutscene. If you want to travel from Earth to Mars, you can do that without a menu, just point towards Mars and make sure it is selected with the HUD and then another cutscene. The limited amount of control you have when flying between planets within a galaxy is very disappointing and while I can easily understand for not being able to fly freely between galaxies, I had hoped for something more than what I got.

We are already this far down and I have yet to talk about the games base building mechanics, weapon and research options and ship building, all of which could take up a lot of space on their own. The games weapon variety is good and while you can add mods to them, letting you make them your own, I never felt the need to do so, as each human enemy you take down often drops a gun, so you can get them quite often. As for research, I had a look into it, but it was not the type of game I wanted to play, so while it is in the game, I couldn’t tell you about it. Ship building is simple, once you get used to how it plays out and while you can make some big designs there is a limit to each of the directions. Something I found out though, with my super long ship, landing on one planet had me stuck under the nose of the ship, and only fast travelling back to the ship could get me free. The base building is something I started to get into, I set up a quick base on Earth, but realised it was not the best place, so I went searching for a better planet and found one, only to learn that my planetary exploration skill was not high enough.

That seems like a good point to talk about the games skill system, in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 3 and 4, skills were done via points, gain enough xp and you level up. Here in Starfield, the skill system is actually more like Oblivion, you still earn points by levelling up, but in order to level up the skills, you must complete actions. Obtaining the first skill is just a matter of selecting it, then in order to level up you have to complete the required challenge, ie shooting down 15 ships. The skills towards the bottom of the group require you to unlock more skills above and with five different categories, unlocking them all will take time. For some reason I often forgot when I levelled up, maybe its because it happened in fights and I was too busy on them or I just wasn’t paying enough attention, but I often found myself with points to spend.

All that is well and good, but lets talk presentation the good, the bad and the ugly. Across the board Starfield is a beautiful game, it has incredible imagery in space and on land, with even some barren planets looking great. There is a lot of variety in the cities, with Akila City and Neon standing out visually and the size of them is nothing to scoff at. The games audio work is incredible, while the default music mix was a little high, once I toned that down, I was able to enjoy both the music and the worlds I was exploring. The games voice work is top notch and while I spotted a number of familiar voices in the mix, there was never any voice that felt like it repeated in a different character. Where the bad comes in is with the barren worlds, while some look great, especially when the sun is rising, those are the rare examples. More often than not you will see different shades of the same location and it ruins the adventure vibe the game has. The ugly, sadly, comes down to the faces of the people as yet again they are either good or horrible and there is no in-between. Main characters fair better than most, but sometimes they look more like plastic models than anything else and some NPCs have faces that look like melted plastic.

Starfield from a gameplay perspective, feels like its taking one moon sized leap forward, the problem is that it’s tethered to the ground by many of the systems Bethesda have used for years. Not being able to fly your ship freely around the insanely large galaxy is a big letdown and while the company was bragging about hundreds and hundreds of worlds to explore, with the vast majority of them being barren wastelands, you start to wonder why bother. The way that you discover quests from overhearing conversations is great, but it sucks that every single guard has to tell you something each time you randomly glance in the direction of the hemisphere they are in. This is why I said at the start that the game sort of soars, I loved my time with the game and will keep playing it, but unlike the studios other games and other titles released this year, I wasn’t chomping to get back to the game when I was doing other things.

If you are like me and a fan of the studios other work, then you will enjoy what Starfield has to offer, but if you are new to this type of game, its scale and complexity might be a bit daunting. There are plenty of interesting quests and missions to undertake, the main one however is not counted in that mix for me. With a lot of things to see and do, enemies coming at you from all angles and more systems than a retro game shop, Starfield is stuffed with things to do, I just wish it was more liberating at times.