I know we’re already in February, but what are you looking forward to playing this year?
I am currently limited to my PS4 and an older laptop as far as big-screen gaming is concerned, and I am going to be playing some sequels:
- The Witcher II - The 3rd part is more famous but I hear 2 has the better story. I am also one of those who really enjoyed part 1!
- Pillars of Eternity 2 - the first one was so good I can’t wait
- Red Dead Redemption II - which I got for my birthday. It is absolutely HUGE. RDR1 is in my all-time favorite games list.
As for handheld gaming, I have recently gotten a Nintendo DS Lite and a PSP so I will be playing some:
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Deadeus - a 2D horror game that someone recommended on this thread
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Final Fantasy Tactics funnily enough, I never played this! I did enjoy the GBA version a lot though.
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Jeanne D’Arc apparently it is one of the PSP’s best titles.
As someone with a lot of IRL obligations, I will be very happy if I make it through this list.
What is on your list?
Is Starfield really as dull in some sections as some people make it out to be?
I’m hoping a DLC or update helps
Yes, it is, I’m sorry to say. At least for now.
I have a few dozen hours in Starfield, and while I wouldn’t call it extremely dull, it’s not not dull on a regular basis. The game has an uncanny talent for reducing space travel, planetary exploration, and crafting down to a series of nearly-identical nested menus. Crafting and world interaction feel like a step down from Fallout 4 in some ways, particularly how most of the junk is just useful for decoration.
It excels at giving you less when you’re expecting more, which makes it easy to overlook what it does well. There’s still a lot of fun to be had in it; it feels tighter and more polished than Bethesda games generally do, and it’s not a bad alternate take on NMS, which also isn’t exactly a 100% compelling experience even after the work it received. (I had fun in Starfield way faster than I did in NMS, for what that’s worth.)
I don’t regret my time in it at all, but it’s kind of perfect patientgamers material. Not playing right away keeps you from burning out on it before it figures out what it wants to be.
Do you think updates could fix it though or do you think it’s deeply embedded in the game and would either take a substantial amount of work or reworking chunks of the game to do?
I guess what I’m asking is how long do you feel it will be until we see noticeable improvements?
Your guess is as good as mine, honestly. Waiting for an expansion to come out and then checking in makes sense, IMO.
A lot could be improved, either by modding by Bethesda. Fallout 76, whatever else one could say about it, is in a vastly better place than it was at launch, so there’s recent precedent.
Yeah it’s pretty crap right now unfortunately. I’ll be waiting at least 3 more years before I give it another try
Unfortunate. I feel like this is a repeat of my experience with Cyberpunk. I only ended up playing it with the release of the Phantom Liberty DLC
It depends. I’ve put over 200 hours into Starfield and didn’t experience any dull or boring parts. But I noticed them.
It’s an old-school game with decades old mechanics, which happened to push all the right buttons with me. But others find it’s boring.
What mechanics do you mean?
Loading screens for nearly every door. In New Atlantis you can jump from the highest building and glide with your jetpack back to your ship. But taking the elevator and the train gets you two unnecessary loading screens. That’s just not 2023 game programming.
Not at all IMO. I love Starfield and few of the reasons people give for it being bad are objective or even true. It is a great game but people misunderstand it and get mad about it not being what they want. And so much of the hate is just pure stupidity and ignorance. People not understanding basic concepts and how things work.
What basic concepts are you referring to? Why do you think it’s misunderstood?