PC Game Review - Starfield - COMIC CRUSADERS

Alright, before I sum up the game and get into my review let me preface it by saying this – Starfield is a very enjoyable game. That said, Starfield appears to be one of those games that is a jack of all trades and a master of none. Bethesda still has ample opportunity to improve upon the gave over time but, as of today, the game feels like an enjoyable but unpolished diamond in the rough.

Starfield is the latest ambitious offering from Bethesda, the same studio that has graced us with such titles as Fallout 4 and Skyrim in recent years. In fact, the game director of this game – Todd Howard – has also been involved in one way or another with many of Bethesda’s titles since 1995. At it’s core, Starfield is similar in style to Fallout 4 with the added game mechanic of ship building thrown in for good measure. However, where Fallout 4 is confined to post-apocalyptic Boston (the scope is expanded in subsequent dlc’s), the scope of this game is enormous with a reported 1000 planets across a number of star system available for exploration and exploitation. Each planet that you can land on is fully explorable with unique flora, fauna, planetary traits, atmosphere and structures. Additionally, the game has a number of factions, a main storyline, a plethora of storylines and a large number of unique cities to explore. So far, all of this sounds wonderful but the execution of the various game elements ranges from very good to below average – especially compared to other games in the space exploration genre. So, let’s break it down.

First Person Shooter – Very Good

As a first person shooter this game is very very good. The weapon models are fantastically detailed, combat is fast paced, exciting and accommodate a number of different play styles. The npc opponents react realistically when struck in combat, a little detail that is executed incredibly well. For example, shooting a person or creature in the leg can cause the leg to buckle, shooting them in the head can cause them to stumble of fall, shooting on one side can spin them around, shooting them in their backpack can cause the equipment to malfunction and explode or send the opponent shooting off into the air. It’s very satisfying and rendered very well. The weapons models themselves are fantastic and little details like heat waves causing visual distortion as you load a new magazine into a magpulse rifle are fantastic.

Ship Building – Good

Customizing your ship, while very expensive in game, is incredibly satisfying and is one of my favorite pastimes. It is incredible to visit a new planet and find a new weapon module or better ship reactor unique to that planet which tempts you to redesign the ship. Additionally, the choices you make here have a direct affect on your ship’s handling, combat effectiveness and crew choices. Their are a couple of flaws here though. First, if you dive into the ship builder it can be frustrating to find that your ship has an invalid build because the error messages don’t often tell you what the exact problem is or make it easy to rectify it. There is a lot of trial and error that goes into the process at this point. Additionally, your ship gets a full reset every time you change the ship using ship builder. Something I’ve grown to loathe and accept. My ship armory has a number of displays that I have to constantly restock if I change my ship and quite a few very expensive and rare armors and weapons have disappeared altogether during this process.

Outpost Building – Below Average

Building an outpost in this game is very frustrating, especially compared to games like Freespace, X2 or EVE. There are a lot of modules and options for base building but it is not at all clear why I’d want to build a base let alone multiple bases. While I can gather resources and create various bastions on multiple planets – in order to get any benefit from those bases I have to periodically visit each of them in order to harvest the resources or products they’ve created and bring them to market. Additionally, each starship has a real premium on storage space. With that in mind, it is incredibly tedious to try and create a mining outpost, as an example, that will actually generate wealth without boring you half to death. It’s much easier to just go out and kill some pirates and take their stuff. The deficiencies in outpost building are even more perplexing when you realize you can own more than one ship. It seems to suggest that the original plan was to implement a system where you could assign your employees to your ships and outposts and create a corporation. I sincerely hope that this may come later on in the games lifecycle but right now there isn’t much to offer here beyond t he novelty of crafting a base in order to see it come to life.

Exploration – Good and Bad

Going to planets, interacting with what you find there, exploring and finding new features – is fantastic. I don’t think it’s quite as good as No Man’s Sky but the visuals are vastly better than that game and I have yet to visit even 10 percent of the planets on offer. The same goes for the various cities and outposts that you can visit and, in this regard, No Man’s Sky can’t hold a candle to Starfield. The problem – the game makes it damn hard to get around. There is no map or minimap in cities or on planets and so it is incredibly difficult to get around. Trying to remember where that one shop is in the Well on New Atlantis and then remembering where the book shop is on Akila while simultaneously wanting to remember where the food shop in Neon is located is daunting. Take that problem and multiply it by a thousand when it comes to interstellar travel. There is no search feature or nav computer and so, when I’m trying to remember what system that one outpost is in, you can find yourself searching any number of systems and planets trying to locate them again. The more planets, outposts, cities, etc you find the bigger the problem. It really detracts from the gameplay and it is a problem that Bethesda needs to solve sooner rather than later.

Conclusion

This game is enjoyable to play and I recommend it. However, it feels unfinished and I get the feeling that there are many more features to come in the games life cycle. The modding community is already hard at work improving the game and if you comfortable with modding I’d highly suggest you check that out if you decide to purchase the game. Like Cyberpunk, I think this game’s best days are ahead of it and – for a Bethesda release – is pretty damn stable on release – a pleasant surprise.

Graphics – 4.5 of 5 Stars
Setting – 5 of 5 Stars
Gameplay – 3.5 of 5 Stars
Replayability – 4 of 5 Stars

Overall – 4.25 of 5 Stars

Publisher – Bethesda

Author Profile

Nemesis

Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.

He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.