So what I got out of the reviews is that it sticks to the Bethesda formula and has at least a "pretty good" story and writing. Works for me, I don't really need to know more than that.
So what I got out of the reviews is that it sticks to the Bethesda formula and has at least a "pretty good" story and writing. Works for me, I don't really need to know more than that.
I've never understood something, maybe you can explain it to me. I feel like I'm the only person that can't stand bethesda's inventory management. Give me all this really rad armor and...
I've never understood something, maybe you can explain it to me.
I feel like I'm the only person that can't stand bethesda's inventory management. Give me all this really rad armor and weaponry...Oh wait! Now you can't walk because you weigh 500 lbs. Exactly what is fun about having to stop mid-dungeon and do your taxes to decide whether you can afford to pick up that loot? Or to decide whether you'll throw away the "Omega sword of burning fire", or the "Alpha poison sword of death?"
If I'm okay with being able to build power armor with a toothpick, or explode a goblin with a shout, I can suspend my disbelief about having a hammerspace.
Yeah with Bethesda games I generally player.modav carryweight 100000 a few hours in. Inventory management mechanics tend to mean you have to make small decisions often about what you feel is more...
Yeah with Bethesda games I generally player.modav carryweight 100000 a few hours in.
Inventory management mechanics tend to mean you have to make small decisions often about what you feel is more important to take. For many people this is satisfying and makes your inventory mean something rather than just being an invisible warehouse. It also works as a return-to-town/return-to-base pressure to break up gameplay a bit more organically.
Personally I'm incredibly impatient so it usually just becomes a chore or overly stressful to me depending on the game.
I like the mechanic where you can instantly sell something anywhere but at a reduced value (or full value if the game has the same price whereever you sell something). For me that's a very good...
I like the mechanic where you can instantly sell something anywhere but at a reduced value (or full value if the game has the same price whereever you sell something). For me that's a very good middle road.
One good example I saw was Torchlight where you had a pet you could send back to town to sell stuff for you. It wasn't unlimited, but gave a nice relief to inventory management.
One good example I saw was Torchlight where you had a pet you could send back to town to sell stuff for you. It wasn't unlimited, but gave a nice relief to inventory management.
There are a million ways around this, like the example you laid out, but is there any reason to do it like Bethesda? Does anyone enjoy encumbrance or does it affect gameplay meaningfully to have...
There are a million ways around this, like the example you laid out, but is there any reason to do it like Bethesda? Does anyone enjoy encumbrance or does it affect gameplay meaningfully to have to pick-and-choose?
At least in former Bethesda games, not in my opinion. You can carry way too much anyway, it's not like you're choosing from three cool items to leave one behind.
It just feels like a bizarre legacy "feature". Looting everything is just something for you to do, like XP grinding. It feels like taking a great big dump after you get rid of your worthless stuff but I don't think the work is worth the payoff now thinking about it. It's just my monkey brain being its worst primitive self.
I'm fairly certain that's exactly what it is. IMO, encumbrance was a way to differentiate play styles in older RPGs, stronger characters don't need spells to carry more stuff, the wizard is able...
It just feels like a bizarre legacy "feature".
I'm fairly certain that's exactly what it is. IMO, encumbrance was a way to differentiate play styles in older RPGs, stronger characters don't need spells to carry more stuff, the wizard is able to just enchant boots or cast a feather spell or etc. There's no other reason that I could think about. At first maybe for balance, but their games aren't usually that well-balanced in the first place, and they're usually single player open world RPGs so it wouldn't matter in anyway. Encumbrance has always just been a fluff stat to make wizards and warriors feel different when out of combat.
In Bethesda games it's designed like an on/off switch against some arbitrary number instead of a gradual effect. In real life, I don't lose the ability to run because I picked up a notebook while...
In Bethesda games it's designed like an on/off switch against some arbitrary number instead of a gradual effect. In real life, I don't lose the ability to run because I picked up a notebook while hauling a week's worth of groceries.
After finishing Armored Core VI just before this game, I prefer how weight was implemented there where it's more like constant modifiers to your mech's agility and stamina (expressed as energy). Changing parts affected your AC's weight which then affect things like dodge and overall maneuverability, so it's a constant thing to balance against your overall build instead of being able to sprint at 139/140 inventory and picking up one piece of metal destroys your maneuverability.
I'm not generally a masochist in games but I like the stress that comes with "fuck what do I take?" I optimize for high value/weight, and also get great satisfaction when I finally clear my...
I'm not generally a masochist in games but I like the stress that comes with "fuck what do I take?"
I optimize for high value/weight, and also get great satisfaction when I finally clear my inventory.
It sucks when there's so much good stuff, but for me just adding the carryweight would be a sub-optimal experience.
Especially because in Starfield most anything you need in massive bulk can be farmed by setting up outposts rather than being a scavenger, you don't have to personally find the 500 bars of iron...
Especially because in Starfield most anything you need in massive bulk can be farmed by setting up outposts rather than being a scavenger, you don't have to personally find the 500 bars of iron you need. It makes it easier to focus on high-value loot.
I feel like I'm in the minority of liking inventory / resource management as a gameplay mechanic - if you aren't supposed to have an infinite amount of space, then you have to make tactical...
I feel like I'm in the minority of liking inventory / resource management as a gameplay mechanic - if you aren't supposed to have an infinite amount of space, then you have to make tactical decisions about the resources you bring with you. Carrying capacity also becomes something that can affect your choices about your equipment ("would I rather wear the Ring of Carrying or the Ring of Light") or your decisions about stats or build ("warriors don't have a lot of AOE options, but maybe I can use my extra carrying capacity to make up for it by bringing more grenades"). In some games where you have parties without a pooled inventory, deciding who carries what can also be an interesting choice to make, and in games that have a loop where you regularly return to some kind of hub, deciding what to bring back ("well, the Whatsit is worth more, but I need the Gizmo to craft the SuperGizmo..."). If you are punished by losing items when you die, WHEN to turn back becomes a decision about risk tolerance and that can also add some tension.
This is provided that the management is integrated into the rest of the game well. Bethesda does not integrate it into the game particularly well, although they're not unique in having a crappy inventory that feels kind of slapped on. The inventory is neither limited enough to make the choices you make feel particularly impactful nor expansive enough to get out of the way - it's this annoying third thing.
For Skyrim I tend to prefer limiting the inventory more rather than expanding it, but I think that's just because I enjoy the game more as an immersive sim than an action RPG. I think my ideal casual-rpg inventory system is an easily accessible "warehouse" of items and a more limited set of "active" items that locks in when something critical like combat occurs.
This is basically my take as well for most RPGs in general. Being able to have literally every item on you at every time can potentially stifle otherwise creative solutions to problems you run...
For Skyrim I tend to prefer limiting the inventory more rather than expanding it, but I think that's just because I enjoy the game more as an immersive sim than an action RPG. I think my ideal casual-rpg inventory system is an easily accessible "warehouse" of items and a more limited set of "active" items that locks in when something critical like combat occurs.
This is basically my take as well for most RPGs in general. Being able to have literally every item on you at every time can potentially stifle otherwise creative solutions to problems you run across in the game. For instance, I like how the older Monster Hunter games required you to think and plan out your hunt and actually prepare, rather than having any necessary resource provided when its required. Of course it's necessary for the game to put limits on the player in a fun way, and if the encumbrance system sucks, it sucks.
What's that quote from one of the original dev's for Civilization? "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of their games. It's up to the developers to prevent that."
One dev I follow described them as "dickstabbers." If they would get 11 points for stabbing themselves in the genitalia, but only 10 points for going on a date with the person of their dreams,...
One dev I follow described them as "dickstabbers." If they would get 11 points for stabbing themselves in the genitalia, but only 10 points for going on a date with the person of their dreams, they'd go for the 11 points despite the misery. It's a challenge in any dev environment to make the optimal thing fun.
100% agree with you and inventory management is something I've always enjoyed in games. Once you start allowing unlimited inventory space, you end-up with something like where I stopped playing...
100% agree with you and inventory management is something I've always enjoyed in games. Once you start allowing unlimited inventory space, you end-up with something like where I stopped playing Divinity Original Sin 2: I have so much shit amongst all my characters, it's not apparent what's valuable, what I can dump, etc and it just becomes a chore to sort through all this bullshit to the point that I would just rather not play at all. Having unlimited space is inventory management all its own.
Yes, exactly - it's a shame to me that the "solution" is often for players to cheat in infinite capacity, because it can arguably make the problem worse. More items to deal with, more time spent...
Yes, exactly - it's a shame to me that the "solution" is often for players to cheat in infinite capacity, because it can arguably make the problem worse. More items to deal with, more time spent sorting through things, more time spent resenting the annoying item system even more.
I wonder if some of these poor systems come from the tension of wanting the game to be - well, a game - and also wanting it to be an immersive experience where emergent behaviour is possible. This is a bit particular to Larian and Bethesda, but... at some point someone made the decision to let me pick up rusty forks as part of my gameplay experience. It'd arguably be easier for them not to do that. I can think of pros and cons to it, but I wonder how much thought went into it really.
Encumbrance is annoying, though I can cope with it. Honestly, I think one of the best solutions is to look at an older game: Diablo. Everything in that game took a certain amount of grid space on...
Encumbrance is annoying, though I can cope with it. Honestly, I think one of the best solutions is to look at an older game: Diablo.
Everything in that game took a certain amount of grid space on your inventory grid. A large weapon using more than a scroll or a small dagger. I always liked this system, because it felt like part of the game was smartly Tetrising your inventory for maximum space. And also, it had this interesting dichotomy with resource management where you needed to bring x amount of potions with you, but they each took up one square. The further you delved, the more resources you used, the more inventory space would open up to you for more items.
That was inventory management that always felt fun to me and cut down on me taking unnecessary items or dumping less valuable things in order to fit a magical item into my space to sell later.
Absolutely detest inventory management myself. I get why others can enjoy it but it ruins games for me so I always cheat it in. If I'm going to be managing inventory anyway from other perspectives...
Absolutely detest inventory management myself. I get why others can enjoy it but it ruins games for me so I always cheat it in. If I'm going to be managing inventory anyway from other perspectives (quality, etc), I don't want to worry about how much is on my person. Don't give me endless loot and then expect me not to carry any of it. I'm not going to make 20 trips when one trip will suffice. Especially in a game with mechanics around building outposts and needing all sorts of materials and pieces to build things.
I'm not going to play shipping-container-tetris for four hours
My main concerns are all combat/skills related. New vegas, to this day, has one of the best systems i've seen. I DESPISE the heavy RPG aspects some games force in (like fallout 4), and also hate...
My main concerns are all combat/skills related.
New vegas, to this day, has one of the best systems i've seen. I DESPISE the heavy RPG aspects some games force in (like fallout 4), and also hate the really boring skills we often see (+5% to blah in 80 different flavors).
From what i've seen it's maybe not as much as I like, but it does look good enough. Still waiting until at least a week after this one launches to get it (plus however long it takes me to finish BG3/AC6)
The review from ACG goes into the combat quite a bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvbK1fsc-yk And basically he really likes it. I was not a fan of the FO4 combat and had issues with it, but...
And basically he really likes it. I was not a fan of the FO4 combat and had issues with it, but this does seem to be better, at least from what I've seen.
Essentially yes, but the reason i'm giving it a passing grade is that, from what i've seen, each skill can be leveled up 4 or 5 times. The midway and max point tend to actually add something...
Essentially yes, but the reason i'm giving it a passing grade is that, from what i've seen, each skill can be leveled up 4 or 5 times. The midway and max point tend to actually add something that's a real feature and not just some stat boost.
For example if you max out jetpacks, you have a chance of setting enemies on fire when you use the jetpack next to them. Supposedly there's skills like this for all of them, but again i'm waiting until the games been out for a bit to be sure they're actually interesting enough to bother.
Percentages aren't bad, it's just when there are 2% or less increments to the point where you hit max level, you haven't even noticed any change. Kind of like when losing weight, people who see...
Percentages aren't bad, it's just when there are 2% or less increments to the point where you hit max level, you haven't even noticed any change. Kind of like when losing weight, people who see you everyday are un-amazed, whereas someone who hasn't seen you in months is like "holy shit, you lost weight".
It's a shame so many games take that boring route.
It's so conflicting that many reviews gush about the freedom and replayability while others complain about how shallow it is. Which is it? The IGN reviewer gave this game a 7/10 despite giving...
It's so conflicting that many reviews gush about the freedom and replayability while others complain about how shallow it is. Which is it? The IGN reviewer gave this game a 7/10 despite giving Fallout 4 a 9.5/10, and Fallout 4 had basically no roleplaying or dialogue trees in it.
It can be both to different people. People have different tastes and likes. Some people will find what Starfield offers amazing and expansive, others will find it shallow. It all comes down to...
It can be both to different people. People have different tastes and likes. Some people will find what Starfield offers amazing and expansive, others will find it shallow. It all comes down to what you enjoy as a player.
Did you enjoy Fallout 4? Skyrim? You'll likely enjoy this as well then. If not, probably not.
And even if the same people, taste can change and the medium itself can change. I recently finished Disco Elysium. I'm afraid that every RPG I'll play from now on will feel extremely bland next to...
And even if the same people, taste can change and the medium itself can change.
I recently finished Disco Elysium. I'm afraid that every RPG I'll play from now on will feel extremely bland next to this magnus opum.
(probably not: I thought the same about Breath of the Wild but I still thoroughly enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima)
TBF Disco Elysium is unlike anything else I've ever played. No other game has made me tear up more than once like DE did. No other game has approached the level of "put this game in a museum...
TBF Disco Elysium is unlike anything else I've ever played. No other game has made me tear up more than once like DE did. No other game has approached the level of "put this game in a museum because it is art" like DE did. If DE is the bar, nothing else will reach it, is what I'm sayin'.
This just shows that outlets like IGN are mostly worthless as their metrics have no consistency and i'm sure are heavily influenced by publisher marketing budgets. That's even before you get into...
This just shows that outlets like IGN are mostly worthless as their metrics have no consistency and i'm sure are heavily influenced by publisher marketing budgets.
That's even before you get into it being different people with totally different tastes and skills. Game reviews from major publications have always been amateur hour. If you look at say, cars, you don't get "well i hated it, didn't have enough room for me and my 5 kids" reviews on sports cars, and yet that kind of logic is all over video game reviews.
I'm not too sure either tbh. I'm actually kinda happy that someone who likes Fallout 4 doesn't like this game as much, only because I LOVED Fallout 3, NV and Skyrim, but didn't even bother...
I'm not too sure either tbh. I'm actually kinda happy that someone who likes Fallout 4 doesn't like this game as much, only because I LOVED Fallout 3, NV and Skyrim, but didn't even bother finishing Fallout 4.
Exactly. While I did like 4 and survival mode made me decide I liked it over 3, it is the weakest of the RPGs between all those games (which none are super deep rpgs, NV coming closest) and as a...
Exactly. While I did like 4 and survival mode made me decide I liked it over 3, it is the weakest of the RPGs between all those games (which none are super deep rpgs, NV coming closest) and as a Fallout game I think it wasn't so good.
So far the stuff I've heard, even complaints, that involve gameplay I have liked. Like not everything is accessable when you start and you have to earn it (I am pretty sure that was one of the reasons the IGN review, maybe it was another one, said negative about it. They didn't like that skills were gated from you out of the box).
I haven't put much stock in traditional game reviewers for a while. They never seem to be representative to my personal tastes and usually seem to just be kinda all over the place
I haven't put much stock in traditional game reviewers for a while. They never seem to be representative to my personal tastes and usually seem to just be kinda all over the place
I find these games to be fun up to a very specific point, that point being when you can "see the matrix". At first you are in "awe" (a bit too strong a word) exploring a new world and interaction...
I find these games to be fun up to a very specific point, that point being when you can "see the matrix". At first you are in "awe" (a bit too strong a word) exploring a new world and interaction system.... But eventually the AI patterns become horribly obvious, and the gameloop becomes massively repetitive.
At this point I just switch to my old go to, any other multiplayer game because humans are more innovative than AI.
But hey that one lady is a POC with a skin condition. Don't get me wrong I love inclusivity but I couldn't shake the feeling they spent most of their time to include as many minorities as possible...
There is always a line beyond which you can't accept things people say at face value or where you must accept that they're just straight-up racist or what have you. When you get mad that there is...
There is always a line beyond which you can't accept things people say at face value or where you must accept that they're just straight-up racist or what have you. When you get mad that there is a mix of races in the year 2310, you know they are more than just not fans of inclusivity. Hell, everyone in the game should probably just have more or less the same brown skin color due to centuries of globalization.
Yeah, that is another issue. With age you hit that "seeing the matrix" moment faster because you have already learned all the schemes from previous games.... And sometimes the stuff from 20 years...
Yeah, that is another issue. With age you hit that "seeing the matrix" moment faster because you have already learned all the schemes from previous games.... And sometimes the stuff from 20 years ago is still just actually better. Mount & Blade and Bushido Blade still have unmatched melee combat IMO, despite games like For Honor and Chivalry becoming somewhat popular more recently.
I think RPGs are some of the hardest games to be innovative with simply because "everything" has been done already. Like without full on Matrix/13th Floor level immersion, there's not much else that can be added from a game system perspective. Procedural generation of worlds just doesn't work all that well because as others have said you just end up with a bunch of soulless locales with the occasional customized outpost for some very minor flair.
I haven't been following it, but a friend mentioned they spent like 9 years on it? And that other devs were kinda like...."how the fuck do you expect us to compete with 9 years when we have to...
I haven't been following it, but a friend mentioned they spent like 9 years on it? And that other devs were kinda like...."how the fuck do you expect us to compete with 9 years when we have to release AAA games every 3-4?".
That's probably another issue. Truly good games will take longer and longer to make as you have to do so much more to do better than was done previously.
Or, yeah, just make COD Modern BattleFair 3059.14 Medieval Edition 3 year after year.
That was what killed the Fallout 3 for me. And why I never finished it. Fallout: New Vegas was shockingly better than Fallout 3, in my opinion. My experiences with Fallout 3, Oblivion, and...
That was what killed the Fallout 3 for me. And why I never finished it.
Fallout: New Vegas was shockingly better than Fallout 3, in my opinion. My experiences with Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Morrowind are why I never bothered with Fallout 4 and why I am finding myself rather uninterested in Starfield. It seems like more of the same from Bethesda… just in space.
While I have been SUPER HYPED for this game (I've been eagerly anticipating it before it was officially announced via the rumor mill) I have tried to maintain a balanced expectation. I was hoping...
While I have been SUPER HYPED for this game (I've been eagerly anticipating it before it was officially announced via the rumor mill) I have tried to maintain a balanced expectation. I was hoping for something in the 85-95 range and, while the early results don't necessarily point to a GOTY contendor, it looks like it will probably fall in that range.
Bethesda games are just my jam. The outpost building and starship creation by themselves enough reason for me to want to play, and from what I've read so far they look pretty good. The gunplay is also getting a lot of praise which is great, I always thought Fallout 4's gunplay was underrated and it's good that they tuned this to be one of the better shooters of this generation.
Very curious about New Game +. All the reviews I've seen seem fairly positive on this and how it impacts the story.
I just hope my 2060 and i7-8700 can provide a solid frame rate, though obviously I'm not expecting 60 I am hoping I don't get dips below 30.
I'm interested in NG+ as well, I haven't seen that in a BethSoft game, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I think even with a lower score than expected, I'm still excited to see what the...
I'm interested in NG+ as well, I haven't seen that in a BethSoft game, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I think even with a lower score than expected, I'm still excited to see what the game will bring me.
The weird washed-out look is my only major complaint after a few hours of playing last night. Sometimes I don't notice it, but othertimes I am actually astounded they released the game looking the...
The weird washed-out look is my only major complaint after a few hours of playing last night. Sometimes I don't notice it, but othertimes I am actually astounded they released the game looking the way it does. I also can't beleive it wasn't more of a talking point in reviews. New Atlantis feels like it could/should be a big "wow" moment in the game but I couldn't stop thinking how bad everything looked. It's a shame because the game can look really good at times.
There's definitely a lot wrong with the game, but I did have a lot fun last night playing for a few hours. It is very much a Bethesda game, which is all I really wanted or expected. I think you have to be forgiving for a lot of stuff to appreciate the core game, which is kinda par for the course for their releases.
What was the trend for Skyrim or FO4? Did it open strong or get crucified day one? I'm curious because this is my first Bethesda first-day game, and never had my finger on the pulse at launch, so...
What was the trend for Skyrim or FO4? Did it open strong or get crucified day one?
I'm curious because this is my first Bethesda first-day game, and never had my finger on the pulse at launch, so I don't know if they were all 5/5s.
Skyrim had a very strong launch from my memory. The PS3 version was riddled with bugs to the point of near unplayability, but the hype was so high that the general consensus didn't really care....
Skyrim had a very strong launch from my memory. The PS3 version was riddled with bugs to the point of near unplayability, but the hype was so high that the general consensus didn't really care. Bugs can be patched, this is GOTY for sure!
The first part tracks with what I remember, and I was unfamiliar with the second part until I got into BGS games again a few years back. I also thinknit's fair to accept some bugs at launch, but...
The first part tracks with what I remember, and I was unfamiliar with the second part until I got into BGS games again a few years back.
I also thinknit's fair to accept some bugs at launch, but there are plenty of attitudes about BGS games and their relationship to mods that are wild to me.
It's not that they're giving Bethesda an excuse to deliver an unfinished or broken product, it's that they know there will be fixes down the line for things that most other studios would never...
It's not that they're giving Bethesda an excuse to deliver an unfinished or broken product, it's that they know there will be fixes down the line for things that most other studios would never fix. And Starfield apparently isn't really all that buggy. Nobody's reported non-stop bugs. Even to this day, people play Skyrim unmodded on a ton of platforms, and the bugs don't really get in the way too much.
Compare it to similar non-Bethesda games, like Cyberpunk 2077. Bethesda games, while buggy and maybe a bit outdated in terms of technology, are not unpolished. Their level of bugginess is totally acceptable given all the complexities involved. Sure, they've had some big issues but those get fixed. It's the small things that most games do not fix at all but Bethesda games have a huge modding scene where those things can and will get addressed. As a result, the bugginess problem of Bethesda games is somewhat ephemeral compared to nearly every other studio's.
It's also worth noting that their games get less and less buggy each time. It's been a long time since Oblivion, where this memetic notion of Bethesda making super buggy games was born. Fallout 3 was so much less buggy than Oblivion. Skyrim was better still. Fallout 4 had a lot less on launch, and now Starfield is apparently its least buggy game on launch yet.
The two reviews I've watched (from reviewers I generally trust: ACG and The Escapist) have both said that this is literally the most polished Bethesda game at launch ever. AGC counted 8 bugs in...
The two reviews I've watched (from reviewers I generally trust: ACG and The Escapist) have both said that this is literally the most polished Bethesda game at launch ever. AGC counted 8 bugs in 144 hours. That's insane.
I think part of it is that Bethesda games are so ludicrously moddable that PC players tend to in many ways view the actual game as just the starter pack on which mods are applied. Hence the...
I think part of it is that Bethesda games are so ludicrously moddable that PC players tend to in many ways view the actual game as just the starter pack on which mods are applied. Hence the quality of the initial game matters less so much as we are given a suitable lego set in which to build what they want.
This is kinda it for me. In general I consider Bethesda games mediocre on a good day. It's their extreme moddable nature that attracts me to it. Skyrim is as open ended as Garry's mod at this...
This is kinda it for me. In general I consider Bethesda games mediocre on a good day. It's their extreme moddable nature that attracts me to it. Skyrim is as open ended as Garry's mod at this point if you're willing to put in the work to learn the engine. I'm sure I'll buy starfield on sale in a year once the mod tools have started to solidify.
Fallout 4 was not as bad as before, iirc. I was around for the Skyrim launch (12 years ago jeez i feel old) and i remember grinding out a full run with the PS3 version, where it would completely...
Fallout 4 was not as bad as before, iirc. I was around for the Skyrim launch (12 years ago jeez i feel old) and i remember grinding out a full run with the PS3 version, where it would completely freeze and crash when you jumped into a pool of water, and eventually just lose all your save data because of the way the game saved.
I played Skyrim for about four days straight on launch on PC, and it was a pretty smooth experience. It was an instant hit from Day 1, no crucification at all. Same with Fallout 3. Fallout 4 got a...
I played Skyrim for about four days straight on launch on PC, and it was a pretty smooth experience. It was an instant hit from Day 1, no crucification at all. Same with Fallout 3.
Fallout 4 got a lot of flak but not for performance reasons.
Fallout 4 had a very rocky reception, but I think it's still viewed as a relatively weak entry from the Bethesda stable to this day. Skyrim was more popular, though the bugs were noticeable,...
Fallout 4 had a very rocky reception, but I think it's still viewed as a relatively weak entry from the Bethesda stable to this day. Skyrim was more popular, though the bugs were noticeable, arguably more so than Fallout 4, despite Fallout 4 getting more flak - I think many of bugs prevented competion of the main quest which for any other game would be a show stopped, but I think people were invested enough in the world and setting (and used to Bethesda's track record) that they mostly got away with that one.
I've been playing BG3 with a controller because I'm unhappy with the way they did the mouse and keyboard controls (no middle click panning, middle click is camera turning, must keyboard or edge...
I've been playing BG3 with a controller because I'm unhappy with the way they did the mouse and keyboard controls (no middle click panning, middle click is camera turning, must keyboard or edge pan. F all that.)
Unless it's performance issues expected on PC then fair enough, but controller play is very much fine.
With Microsoft now owning Bethesda we may never know the financial costs associated of not releasing to PS5. We may get an idea if the availability changes in the future. I am also looking forward...
With Microsoft now owning Bethesda we may never know the financial costs associated of not releasing to PS5. We may get an idea if the availability changes in the future. I am also looking forward to BG3.
So I got into a tiny discussion with my friends and maybe someone can help me settle it, since there are so many STEM folks around here and I'm more of an arts and humanities kinda guy. On these...
So I got into a tiny discussion with my friends and maybe someone can help me settle it, since there are so many STEM folks around here and I'm more of an arts and humanities kinda guy.
On these review aggregation websites, what does "Top Critic Average" actually means, mathematically? Is there a special formula to arrive at the number, or do they just add all the scores and then divide by the amount of reviews?
Your question was pretty interesting so I looked it up! According to opencritic: Source: https://opencritic.com/faq
Your question was pretty interesting so I looked it up! According to opencritic:
The Top Critic Average is calculated by taking the simple average score of all numeric reviews written by top critics after normalizing the score on a 0-100 scale.
Genuinely thanks for the question, i didn't really think about it until now and it's pretty useful knowledge, even though I don't put too much stock in the numbers in general
Genuinely thanks for the question, i didn't really think about it until now and it's pretty useful knowledge, even though I don't put too much stock in the numbers in general
I'm ashamed I didn't find the same link you did. For some reason, I thought this was going to be way more difficult and complicated to solve :P Thanks ;)
I'm ashamed I didn't find the same link you did. For some reason, I thought this was going to be way more difficult and complicated to solve :P
Since you mention review aggregation sites in plural I wanna add that metacritic uses a weighted average slanted towards critics they feel are more reliable. This was one of the main selling...
Since you mention review aggregation sites in plural I wanna add that metacritic uses a weighted average slanted towards critics they feel are more reliable.
I feel like putting a blurb as the only justification for a cynical take like this is pretty disingenuous. Some people (like me) like that type of gameplay.
I feel like putting a blurb as the only justification for a cynical take like this is pretty disingenuous. Some people (like me) like that type of gameplay.
It doesn't matter if it's only a blurb. Five stars means practically perfect. And yet the main story sucks so much one avoids it? That's not practically perfect, period. Look at the Destructoid...
It doesn't matter if it's only a blurb. Five stars means practically perfect.
And yet the main story sucks so much one avoids it? That's not practically perfect, period.
Look at the Destructoid review. Also 10/10, but doesn't actually diss any major part of the game, so that makes perfect sense.
That's not what the author intends though? If you read the very first sentence of the actual review:
That's not what the author intends though? If you read the very first sentence of the actual review:
If Starfield has a catchphrase it's 'what was I doing again?' There's such a density and wealth of discoveries that it's almost impossible not to get distracted by an entire universe of things around you.
Then "avoiding" would be a wrong word, and the blurb taken out of context. I just want words and numbers to have meaning. Leave 100% scores for games without "avoiding" their parts, "dancing dead...
Then "avoiding" would be a wrong word, and the blurb taken out of context.
I just want words and numbers to have meaning. Leave 100% scores for games without "avoiding" their parts, "dancing dead bodies", and "strange decisions".
TBF, the reason people have loved Bethesda games has never been about the main story. That's just been an excuse to get you into the world and interacting with it. If I don't get sidetracked by a...
TBF, the reason people have loved Bethesda games has never been about the main story. That's just been an excuse to get you into the world and interacting with it. If I don't get sidetracked by a ton of different things from the main story in this game, I'll consider it a failed Bethesda game. If the main story is the main attraction, I'll consider it a failed Bethesda game. I'll consider it a big bonus if I actually want to finish the main story (but if it is cause the rest of it isn't interesting me that's a failure).
Just for a reference point I looked at what those first two sites gave Jedi Survivor on PS5 and it’s 9/10 for both. Last I checked (~3 months after release) that game was basically unplayable in...
Just for a reference point I looked at what those first two sites gave Jedi Survivor on PS5 and it’s 9/10 for both. Last I checked (~3 months after release) that game was basically unplayable in performance mode.
So what I got out of the reviews is that it sticks to the Bethesda formula and has at least a "pretty good" story and writing. Works for me, I don't really need to know more than that.
I've never understood something, maybe you can explain it to me.
I feel like I'm the only person that can't stand bethesda's inventory management. Give me all this really rad armor and weaponry...Oh wait! Now you can't walk because you weigh 500 lbs. Exactly what is fun about having to stop mid-dungeon and do your taxes to decide whether you can afford to pick up that loot? Or to decide whether you'll throw away the "Omega sword of burning fire", or the "Alpha poison sword of death?"
If I'm okay with being able to build power armor with a toothpick, or explode a goblin with a shout, I can suspend my disbelief about having a hammerspace.
Yeah with Bethesda games I generally
player.modav carryweight 100000a few hours in.Inventory management mechanics tend to mean you have to make small decisions often about what you feel is more important to take. For many people this is satisfying and makes your inventory mean something rather than just being an invisible warehouse. It also works as a return-to-town/return-to-base pressure to break up gameplay a bit more organically.
Personally I'm incredibly impatient so it usually just becomes a chore or overly stressful to me depending on the game.
I like the mechanic where you can instantly sell something anywhere but at a reduced value (or full value if the game has the same price whereever you sell something). For me that's a very good middle road.
One good example I saw was Torchlight where you had a pet you could send back to town to sell stuff for you. It wasn't unlimited, but gave a nice relief to inventory management.
There are a million ways around this, like the example you laid out, but is there any reason to do it like Bethesda? Does anyone enjoy encumbrance or does it affect gameplay meaningfully to have to pick-and-choose?
At least in former Bethesda games, not in my opinion. You can carry way too much anyway, it's not like you're choosing from three cool items to leave one behind.
It just feels like a bizarre legacy "feature". Looting everything is just something for you to do, like XP grinding. It feels like taking a great big dump after you get rid of your worthless stuff but I don't think the work is worth the payoff now thinking about it. It's just my monkey brain being its worst primitive self.
I'm fairly certain that's exactly what it is. IMO, encumbrance was a way to differentiate play styles in older RPGs, stronger characters don't need spells to carry more stuff, the wizard is able to just enchant boots or cast a feather spell or etc. There's no other reason that I could think about. At first maybe for balance, but their games aren't usually that well-balanced in the first place, and they're usually single player open world RPGs so it wouldn't matter in anyway. Encumbrance has always just been a fluff stat to make wizards and warriors feel different when out of combat.
In Bethesda games it's designed like an on/off switch against some arbitrary number instead of a gradual effect. In real life, I don't lose the ability to run because I picked up a notebook while hauling a week's worth of groceries.
After finishing Armored Core VI just before this game, I prefer how weight was implemented there where it's more like constant modifiers to your mech's agility and stamina (expressed as energy). Changing parts affected your AC's weight which then affect things like dodge and overall maneuverability, so it's a constant thing to balance against your overall build instead of being able to sprint at 139/140 inventory and picking up one piece of metal destroys your maneuverability.
I'm not generally a masochist in games but I like the stress that comes with "fuck what do I take?"
I optimize for high value/weight, and also get great satisfaction when I finally clear my inventory.
It sucks when there's so much good stuff, but for me just adding the carryweight would be a sub-optimal experience.
Especially because in Starfield most anything you need in massive bulk can be farmed by setting up outposts rather than being a scavenger, you don't have to personally find the 500 bars of iron you need. It makes it easier to focus on high-value loot.
I feel like I'm in the minority of liking inventory / resource management as a gameplay mechanic - if you aren't supposed to have an infinite amount of space, then you have to make tactical decisions about the resources you bring with you. Carrying capacity also becomes something that can affect your choices about your equipment ("would I rather wear the Ring of Carrying or the Ring of Light") or your decisions about stats or build ("warriors don't have a lot of AOE options, but maybe I can use my extra carrying capacity to make up for it by bringing more grenades"). In some games where you have parties without a pooled inventory, deciding who carries what can also be an interesting choice to make, and in games that have a loop where you regularly return to some kind of hub, deciding what to bring back ("well, the Whatsit is worth more, but I need the Gizmo to craft the SuperGizmo..."). If you are punished by losing items when you die, WHEN to turn back becomes a decision about risk tolerance and that can also add some tension.
This is provided that the management is integrated into the rest of the game well. Bethesda does not integrate it into the game particularly well, although they're not unique in having a crappy inventory that feels kind of slapped on. The inventory is neither limited enough to make the choices you make feel particularly impactful nor expansive enough to get out of the way - it's this annoying third thing.
For Skyrim I tend to prefer limiting the inventory more rather than expanding it, but I think that's just because I enjoy the game more as an immersive sim than an action RPG. I think my ideal casual-rpg inventory system is an easily accessible "warehouse" of items and a more limited set of "active" items that locks in when something critical like combat occurs.
This is basically my take as well for most RPGs in general. Being able to have literally every item on you at every time can potentially stifle otherwise creative solutions to problems you run across in the game. For instance, I like how the older Monster Hunter games required you to think and plan out your hunt and actually prepare, rather than having any necessary resource provided when its required. Of course it's necessary for the game to put limits on the player in a fun way, and if the encumbrance system sucks, it sucks.
What's that quote from one of the original dev's for Civilization? "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of their games. It's up to the developers to prevent that."
One dev I follow described them as "dickstabbers." If they would get 11 points for stabbing themselves in the genitalia, but only 10 points for going on a date with the person of their dreams, they'd go for the 11 points despite the misery. It's a challenge in any dev environment to make the optimal thing fun.
100% agree with you and inventory management is something I've always enjoyed in games. Once you start allowing unlimited inventory space, you end-up with something like where I stopped playing Divinity Original Sin 2: I have so much shit amongst all my characters, it's not apparent what's valuable, what I can dump, etc and it just becomes a chore to sort through all this bullshit to the point that I would just rather not play at all. Having unlimited space is inventory management all its own.
Yes, exactly - it's a shame to me that the "solution" is often for players to cheat in infinite capacity, because it can arguably make the problem worse. More items to deal with, more time spent sorting through things, more time spent resenting the annoying item system even more.
I wonder if some of these poor systems come from the tension of wanting the game to be - well, a game - and also wanting it to be an immersive experience where emergent behaviour is possible. This is a bit particular to Larian and Bethesda, but... at some point someone made the decision to let me pick up rusty forks as part of my gameplay experience. It'd arguably be easier for them not to do that. I can think of pros and cons to it, but I wonder how much thought went into it really.
Encumbrance is annoying, though I can cope with it. Honestly, I think one of the best solutions is to look at an older game: Diablo.
Everything in that game took a certain amount of grid space on your inventory grid. A large weapon using more than a scroll or a small dagger. I always liked this system, because it felt like part of the game was smartly Tetrising your inventory for maximum space. And also, it had this interesting dichotomy with resource management where you needed to bring x amount of potions with you, but they each took up one square. The further you delved, the more resources you used, the more inventory space would open up to you for more items.
That was inventory management that always felt fun to me and cut down on me taking unnecessary items or dumping less valuable things in order to fit a magical item into my space to sell later.
Absolutely detest inventory management myself. I get why others can enjoy it but it ruins games for me so I always cheat it in. If I'm going to be managing inventory anyway from other perspectives (quality, etc), I don't want to worry about how much is on my person. Don't give me endless loot and then expect me not to carry any of it. I'm not going to make 20 trips when one trip will suffice. Especially in a game with mechanics around building outposts and needing all sorts of materials and pieces to build things.
I'm not going to play shipping-container-tetris for four hours
My main concerns are all combat/skills related.
New vegas, to this day, has one of the best systems i've seen. I DESPISE the heavy RPG aspects some games force in (like fallout 4), and also hate the really boring skills we often see (+5% to blah in 80 different flavors).
From what i've seen it's maybe not as much as I like, but it does look good enough. Still waiting until at least a week after this one launches to get it (plus however long it takes me to finish BG3/AC6)
The review from ACG goes into the combat quite a bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvbK1fsc-yk
And basically he really likes it. I was not a fan of the FO4 combat and had issues with it, but this does seem to be better, at least from what I've seen.
Essentially yes, but the reason i'm giving it a passing grade is that, from what i've seen, each skill can be leveled up 4 or 5 times. The midway and max point tend to actually add something that's a real feature and not just some stat boost.
For example if you max out jetpacks, you have a chance of setting enemies on fire when you use the jetpack next to them. Supposedly there's skills like this for all of them, but again i'm waiting until the games been out for a bit to be sure they're actually interesting enough to bother.
Percentages aren't bad, it's just when there are 2% or less increments to the point where you hit max level, you haven't even noticed any change. Kind of like when losing weight, people who see you everyday are un-amazed, whereas someone who hasn't seen you in months is like "holy shit, you lost weight".
It's a shame so many games take that boring route.
pretty much same for me, i'm looking forwards to wandering around in the world, we'll see how it goes!
It's so conflicting that many reviews gush about the freedom and replayability while others complain about how shallow it is. Which is it? The IGN reviewer gave this game a 7/10 despite giving Fallout 4 a 9.5/10, and Fallout 4 had basically no roleplaying or dialogue trees in it.
It can be both to different people. People have different tastes and likes. Some people will find what Starfield offers amazing and expansive, others will find it shallow. It all comes down to what you enjoy as a player.
Did you enjoy Fallout 4? Skyrim? You'll likely enjoy this as well then. If not, probably not.
And even if the same people, taste can change and the medium itself can change.
I recently finished Disco Elysium. I'm afraid that every RPG I'll play from now on will feel extremely bland next to this magnus opum.
(probably not: I thought the same about Breath of the Wild but I still thoroughly enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima)
TBF Disco Elysium is unlike anything else I've ever played. No other game has made me tear up more than once like DE did. No other game has approached the level of "put this game in a museum because it is art" like DE did. If DE is the bar, nothing else will reach it, is what I'm sayin'.
This just shows that outlets like IGN are mostly worthless as their metrics have no consistency and i'm sure are heavily influenced by publisher marketing budgets.
That's even before you get into it being different people with totally different tastes and skills. Game reviews from major publications have always been amateur hour. If you look at say, cars, you don't get "well i hated it, didn't have enough room for me and my 5 kids" reviews on sports cars, and yet that kind of logic is all over video game reviews.
I'm not too sure either tbh. I'm actually kinda happy that someone who likes Fallout 4 doesn't like this game as much, only because I LOVED Fallout 3, NV and Skyrim, but didn't even bother finishing Fallout 4.
Exactly. While I did like 4 and survival mode made me decide I liked it over 3, it is the weakest of the RPGs between all those games (which none are super deep rpgs, NV coming closest) and as a Fallout game I think it wasn't so good.
So far the stuff I've heard, even complaints, that involve gameplay I have liked. Like not everything is accessable when you start and you have to earn it (I am pretty sure that was one of the reasons the IGN review, maybe it was another one, said negative about it. They didn't like that skills were gated from you out of the box).
I haven't put much stock in traditional game reviewers for a while. They never seem to be representative to my personal tastes and usually seem to just be kinda all over the place
I find these games to be fun up to a very specific point, that point being when you can "see the matrix". At first you are in "awe" (a bit too strong a word) exploring a new world and interaction system.... But eventually the AI patterns become horribly obvious, and the gameloop becomes massively repetitive.
At this point I just switch to my old go to, any other multiplayer game because humans are more innovative than AI.
You clearly don't "love inclusivity".
maybe it was just poorly worded? but yeah... yikes haha
There is always a line beyond which you can't accept things people say at face value or where you must accept that they're just straight-up racist or what have you. When you get mad that there is a mix of races in the year 2310, you know they are more than just not fans of inclusivity. Hell, everyone in the game should probably just have more or less the same brown skin color due to centuries of globalization.
Yeah, that is another issue. With age you hit that "seeing the matrix" moment faster because you have already learned all the schemes from previous games.... And sometimes the stuff from 20 years ago is still just actually better. Mount & Blade and Bushido Blade still have unmatched melee combat IMO, despite games like For Honor and Chivalry becoming somewhat popular more recently.
I think RPGs are some of the hardest games to be innovative with simply because "everything" has been done already. Like without full on Matrix/13th Floor level immersion, there's not much else that can be added from a game system perspective. Procedural generation of worlds just doesn't work all that well because as others have said you just end up with a bunch of soulless locales with the occasional customized outpost for some very minor flair.
I haven't been following it, but a friend mentioned they spent like 9 years on it? And that other devs were kinda like...."how the fuck do you expect us to compete with 9 years when we have to release AAA games every 3-4?".
That's probably another issue. Truly good games will take longer and longer to make as you have to do so much more to do better than was done previously.
Or, yeah, just make COD Modern BattleFair 3059.14 Medieval Edition 3 year after year.
That was what killed the Fallout 3 for me. And why I never finished it.
Fallout: New Vegas was shockingly better than Fallout 3, in my opinion. My experiences with Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Morrowind are why I never bothered with Fallout 4 and why I am finding myself rather uninterested in Starfield. It seems like more of the same from Bethesda… just in space.
While I have been SUPER HYPED for this game (I've been eagerly anticipating it before it was officially announced via the rumor mill) I have tried to maintain a balanced expectation. I was hoping for something in the 85-95 range and, while the early results don't necessarily point to a GOTY contendor, it looks like it will probably fall in that range.
Bethesda games are just my jam. The outpost building and starship creation by themselves enough reason for me to want to play, and from what I've read so far they look pretty good. The gunplay is also getting a lot of praise which is great, I always thought Fallout 4's gunplay was underrated and it's good that they tuned this to be one of the better shooters of this generation.
Very curious about New Game +. All the reviews I've seen seem fairly positive on this and how it impacts the story.
I just hope my 2060 and i7-8700 can provide a solid frame rate, though obviously I'm not expecting 60 I am hoping I don't get dips below 30.
I'm interested in NG+ as well, I haven't seen that in a BethSoft game, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I think even with a lower score than expected, I'm still excited to see what the game will bring me.
Seems like it's more of the RPG-lite that Bethesda's been going for recently over a heavier RPG. Might pick it up on a sale down the line
Me too maybe, I'm sure it probably has the same Bethesda game jank they all have too.
The weird washed-out look is my only major complaint after a few hours of playing last night. Sometimes I don't notice it, but othertimes I am actually astounded they released the game looking the way it does. I also can't beleive it wasn't more of a talking point in reviews. New Atlantis feels like it could/should be a big "wow" moment in the game but I couldn't stop thinking how bad everything looked. It's a shame because the game can look really good at times.
There's definitely a lot wrong with the game, but I did have a lot fun last night playing for a few hours. It is very much a Bethesda game, which is all I really wanted or expected. I think you have to be forgiving for a lot of stuff to appreciate the core game, which is kinda par for the course for their releases.
What was the trend for Skyrim or FO4? Did it open strong or get crucified day one?
I'm curious because this is my first Bethesda first-day game, and never had my finger on the pulse at launch, so I don't know if they were all 5/5s.
Skyrim had a very strong launch from my memory. The PS3 version was riddled with bugs to the point of near unplayability, but the hype was so high that the general consensus didn't really care. Bugs can be patched, this is GOTY for sure!
IIRC it took them about 3 months to fix that save bug on PS3 and for many (me included) the game was unplayable. Never did finish it.
The first part tracks with what I remember, and I was unfamiliar with the second part until I got into BGS games again a few years back.
I also thinknit's fair to accept some bugs at launch, but there are plenty of attitudes about BGS games and their relationship to mods that are wild to me.
It's not that they're giving Bethesda an excuse to deliver an unfinished or broken product, it's that they know there will be fixes down the line for things that most other studios would never fix. And Starfield apparently isn't really all that buggy. Nobody's reported non-stop bugs. Even to this day, people play Skyrim unmodded on a ton of platforms, and the bugs don't really get in the way too much.
Compare it to similar non-Bethesda games, like Cyberpunk 2077. Bethesda games, while buggy and maybe a bit outdated in terms of technology, are not unpolished. Their level of bugginess is totally acceptable given all the complexities involved. Sure, they've had some big issues but those get fixed. It's the small things that most games do not fix at all but Bethesda games have a huge modding scene where those things can and will get addressed. As a result, the bugginess problem of Bethesda games is somewhat ephemeral compared to nearly every other studio's.
It's also worth noting that their games get less and less buggy each time. It's been a long time since Oblivion, where this memetic notion of Bethesda making super buggy games was born. Fallout 3 was so much less buggy than Oblivion. Skyrim was better still. Fallout 4 had a lot less on launch, and now Starfield is apparently its least buggy game on launch yet.
The two reviews I've watched (from reviewers I generally trust: ACG and The Escapist) have both said that this is literally the most polished Bethesda game at launch ever. AGC counted 8 bugs in 144 hours. That's insane.
It's exactly the MO of every single Bethesda game in the last 20 years though. It's Bethesda delivering exactly what you should expect.
I think part of it is that Bethesda games are so ludicrously moddable that PC players tend to in many ways view the actual game as just the starter pack on which mods are applied. Hence the quality of the initial game matters less so much as we are given a suitable lego set in which to build what they want.
This is kinda it for me. In general I consider Bethesda games mediocre on a good day. It's their extreme moddable nature that attracts me to it. Skyrim is as open ended as Garry's mod at this point if you're willing to put in the work to learn the engine. I'm sure I'll buy starfield on sale in a year once the mod tools have started to solidify.
Fallout 4 was not as bad as before, iirc. I was around for the Skyrim launch (12 years ago jeez i feel old) and i remember grinding out a full run with the PS3 version, where it would completely freeze and crash when you jumped into a pool of water, and eventually just lose all your save data because of the way the game saved.
I played Skyrim for about four days straight on launch on PC, and it was a pretty smooth experience. It was an instant hit from Day 1, no crucification at all. Same with Fallout 3.
Fallout 4 got a lot of flak but not for performance reasons.
Fallout 4 had a very rocky reception, but I think it's still viewed as a relatively weak entry from the Bethesda stable to this day. Skyrim was more popular, though the bugs were noticeable, arguably more so than Fallout 4, despite Fallout 4 getting more flak - I think many of bugs prevented competion of the main quest which for any other game would be a show stopped, but I think people were invested enough in the world and setting (and used to Bethesda's track record) that they mostly got away with that one.
I've been playing BG3 with a controller because I'm unhappy with the way they did the mouse and keyboard controls (no middle click panning, middle click is camera turning, must keyboard or edge pan. F all that.)
Unless it's performance issues expected on PC then fair enough, but controller play is very much fine.
With Microsoft now owning Bethesda we may never know the financial costs associated of not releasing to PS5. We may get an idea if the availability changes in the future. I am also looking forward to BG3.
So I got into a tiny discussion with my friends and maybe someone can help me settle it, since there are so many STEM folks around here and I'm more of an arts and humanities kinda guy.
On these review aggregation websites, what does "Top Critic Average" actually means, mathematically? Is there a special formula to arrive at the number, or do they just add all the scores and then divide by the amount of reviews?
Explain like I'm five.
Thanks :D
Your question was pretty interesting so I looked it up! According to opencritic:
Source: https://opencritic.com/faq
So no complicated math at all. Thanks!
Genuinely thanks for the question, i didn't really think about it until now and it's pretty useful knowledge, even though I don't put too much stock in the numbers in general
I'm ashamed I didn't find the same link you did. For some reason, I thought this was going to be way more difficult and complicated to solve :P
Thanks ;)
to be fair i did see your post the other day about becoming a father (congrats btw!) so not seeing that is probably forgivable lol
Since you mention review aggregation sites in plural I wanna add that metacritic uses a weighted average slanted towards critics they feel are more reliable.
This was one of the main selling points when opencritic launched since it's a bit more transparent or "open".
Five stars.
sigh.
I feel like putting a blurb as the only justification for a cynical take like this is pretty disingenuous. Some people (like me) like that type of gameplay.
It doesn't matter if it's only a blurb. Five stars means practically perfect.
And yet the main story sucks so much one avoids it? That's not practically perfect, period.
Look at the Destructoid review. Also 10/10, but doesn't actually diss any major part of the game, so that makes perfect sense.
That's not what the author intends though? If you read the very first sentence of the actual review:
Then "avoiding" would be a wrong word, and the blurb taken out of context.
I just want words and numbers to have meaning. Leave 100% scores for games without "avoiding" their parts, "dancing dead bodies", and "strange decisions".
TBF, the reason people have loved Bethesda games has never been about the main story. That's just been an excuse to get you into the world and interacting with it. If I don't get sidetracked by a ton of different things from the main story in this game, I'll consider it a failed Bethesda game. If the main story is the main attraction, I'll consider it a failed Bethesda game. I'll consider it a big bonus if I actually want to finish the main story (but if it is cause the rest of it isn't interesting me that's a failure).
This game isn't even out yet. Are all these "reviewers" people with early access to the game?
Yes, professional critics often have access to games prior to release.
Yes? Early review copies have the norm for decades now.
Destructoid and GamesRadar+ are quite popular and they've given it 10/10. IGN Spain has also given it a 10/10.
Just for a reference point I looked at what those first two sites gave Jedi Survivor on PS5 and it’s 9/10 for both. Last I checked (~3 months after release) that game was basically unplayable in performance mode.
Gameblog is one of the biggest french gaming website, but they like everything unless it's really, really bad.
I take it you aren't American if you haven't heard of Sports Illustrated. One of the most famous magazines for the past 70 years.
Not exactly known for their coverage of video games though. I'm well aware of SI, but this is the first I've heard of them reviewing video games.