Recent reviews by Homo Erectus

Starfield feels like a 2014 game with a 2023 texture pack. Locations are small and bland, NPCs are little more than wooden mannequins and exploration is largely relegated to star charts and barren, randomly generated planets. You'll spend more time looking at loading screens and managing encumbrance than you will exploring the 'action' and 'role-playing' aspects of this action role-playing game. Even then, I found that the game struggled - combat mechanics are as wide and deep as a puddle, and the story, while genuinely inspired and well-written, struggles to lift the game out of the immersion-breaking mire of loading screens, dated character animations, and agonizingly tedious quest design.

I don't hate this game, nor do I think it's a waste of your time - at least not if you're a specific type of gamer. If you really love Bethesda's style of tell-don't-show quest writing and worldbuilding, there's a lot to gain from its engaging faction quests, intriguing main story and cast of deep and earnest characters. For me, the shallow RPG systems, dated engine, and adherence to game design traditions best left in the last generation outweigh the engaging dialogue and worldbuilding elements.

I've played all the faction quests, and explored all three (debatably four) major cities - all of which amount to little more than one long corridor with some shops on the sides. After a little over 24 hours, I truly feel like this game has nothing left to give me.

Overall, I give Starfield a 5/10. Perfectly average. I don't feel like I wasted my time, but I do feel that I'd rather have spent my $70 USD on something else.

One of the coolest worlds I've ever played in