So, Starfield was a disappointment (in my opinion). The story isn't interesting. The lore and world-building do not make sense. The game mechanics do not mesh together. (And it doesn't run well on the Steam Deck.)

But the promise of Starfield? The big space game? The big space RPG where you can play as Captain Reynolds type character? That's something I can get behind. I want to traverse space, visit different planets, get lost, meet interesting characters, solve their problems, and shoot some stuff. Two games come to my mind when I think of this:

No Man's Sky
Mass Effect

I've only played a few hours of No Man's Sky, but I think it does space traversal well. To put it bluntly, flying from planet to planet without interruption is better than fast travel. But the gameplay loop did not

Mass Effect nails the space adventure side of things. You visit multiple interesting places, you meet different people with curious problems, and you solve these problems (mainly by shooting). But it's a typical Bioware game: The places you visit are small and confined, and there are (comparatively) few of them. The space traversal is done by clicking a few buttons in a menu.

My question is: Are there any “big space games”? Are there any games that deliver on the promise of Starfield? What are your favourite sci-fi RPGs?

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[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 18 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Hm. In my opinion Outer Worlds was just as boring and mediocre as starfield.

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

Thank you! Felt like I was I playing a different game than everyone else.

Everyone mocked Starfield's Neon for being Discount Cyberpunk. But at least they played it as straight as they could. Like, I could believe people live there and had a life.

It felt like Outer Worlds kept trying to make jokes about how cruel capitalism is versus tell a real story. Like, "Oh boy time to go increase shareholder value!" Or "I love Space nuts. I have to say that or I die." Like wtf, where's the subtlety?

It's not Borderlands 3 bad, no where near it. But it's pretty bad.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 3 days ago

[–] john89@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I really enjoyed the polish of it and how it showed us what a better fallout could be.[

That said, it was woefully lacking on content and committed a cardinal sin of gaming: the ending felt like the game was just getting started.

Also, not a fan at all of whoever is telling them to ignore romance options.

[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You aren't wrong, but it's better than starfield.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org -5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Hard disagree. They're both equally boring as shit, but Starfield at least had decent ship flying/building mechanics. What did outer worlds have? Nothing.

[–] the_captain@lemmynsfw.com 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

world building that makes sense

[–] Kaldo@fedia.io 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It did? Outer Worlds was just an over-exaggerated parody of capitalism, Starfield at least had some somewhat-believable world building in terms of how the tech progressed, how/why did humans start to live among the stars, conflict between different religions or factions, the xenomorph threat...

Like I'm not saying any of these were done well, but it did have decent worldbuilding and some neat ideas, it was just the execution that sucked. OW might have some better parts than SF, like companion writing (although it was pretty cliched and cheesy there too) so I'm really surprised you use world building as your example lol

[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com 3 points 2 days ago

I'd agree that most of the world building in SF was better, but the unity just destroyed everything. It made it so everything you did, did not matter.

[–] the_captain@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 days ago

im just salty about starfields world building shouldve chosen different example

OWs world building was fine. nothing special, just fine. there were stupid things but they were either a joke or there to back up a point ("we moved this dangerous animal to this planet to make a deodorant and now its killing us" 👈 this shit is supposed to be funny and anti corporation. does it work? dunno, its stupid, might be funny to someone, its fine, little cringe )

starfields world building just grinds my gears. when there are stupid things, they are there because someone at bethesda thinks its coool as heck or didnt think it through. fucking space cowbois. fucking colony war. why add mechs into your world and ban them? why artificially limit the number of star systems the nations can control?

tldr - both are shit but starfields worse

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I’d say it was a solid 7/10. One of the DLCs (Peril on Gorgon I think) is better than the base game, I’ve heard.

On a good day, Starfield’s a 5/10 in my eyes.

[–] HIMISOCOOL@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Totally agree the dlc really made it one if those "it gets good after x hours" sorta things; All different vibes for the dlcs too. The raider one was lonely but it felt like it was supposed to be.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yeah I played it halfway and it didn't grip me like New Vegas and KOTOR2 did. The story just seemed pretty convoluted and meandering.

Gameplay was about as fun as NV though!

[–] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 6 points 2 days ago

It's not the be~st choice, it's spacer's choice!