Starfield has a lot of problems, but it's still the dream game for those of us who played X, Freelancer etc.

To see how far space exploration games have come, from the above mentioned to Mass Effect to No Man's Sky (even at launch) and Elite Dangerous to Starfield, it's incredible.

My real playtime is over 200 hours, and that's just doing the missions.

To think I considered stopping playing near the start - once you get past the slog of the first planet hub (New Atlantis), it really opens up and improves.

Now this game lacks explanation, has bugs, quests that don't seem to go anywhere, plots that don't follow logic, some NPCs look horrifying, the procedural generation means buildings and exploring will get repetitive, the main characters are cringe...

but...

...you can build your own ship and walk around the ship with your crew, land on planets, explore 'cities' on these planets, choose violence and clear out a base, talk to a lot of NPCs, random events, jobs, pirating, hauling, and you can look up while you're on land and watch things orbit.

Being a 90s kid and not following hype means I appreciate the incredible scope even more. The dream of having a game where you go to Alpha Centauri, meet another ship there, dock and talk space stuff... our childhood dreams of space games are real now.

Its faults, hype and scope will see it trashed. But it's one of the most amazing space games to exist.