#i'm honestly not feeling starfield tbh...

[anarcho-karlachism]

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[argisthebulwark]

So Starfield is bad?? That sucks I'm sory :( (tbh I didn't even know it was out yet lol)

honestly it doesn't seem bad, just like. empty i guess. like yeah, it's a bethesda game in space. that's all i got from it. i didn't feel particularly attached to any of the characters i met and the gameplay didn't do anything for me. i've preferred watching streamers or speedrunners play it but nothing about the game really draws me in. the fact that i haven't seen any tesblr bloggers being Extremely Normal about the characters was the big sign for me that the game just isn't hitting the same for some players. if people enjoy it, that's sick! i hope other people like it!! it just didn't do anything for me.

[sol-consort]

Hallo! i know little to nothing about Mass Effect and tbh all ur posts on here are getting me curious so when i can i think i might buy the games :) it also looks?? so pretty?? Im excited 2 see this blog grow hopefully and i hope you have fun with it and the game!

That is the highest of praise, thank you so much <3

Okay so, I'm assuming you're on pc too. If not, then tell me and I'll search around for ps or xbox deals and price history.

I recommend getting the legendary edition! It's three whole games and their dlc in one pack. It's original price is 60$ but during sale it goes down to 6$ which is a steal honestly, the game is phenomenal so far as an rpg and shooter.

And there is romance in it too! The characters are reoccurring and you can import your save from the first game to the second and third so the people and quests will be shaped to fit your story and choices in the previous game.

Here is the steam db sale link.

The last time it went on sale was during steam winter feast, and based on it's history it goes on sale on the 19th of January too! So maybe very soon, hopefully. If not, then there is also lunar New years on 27th of January.

Based on this chart, it's been going on sale very often, and the price keeps getting lower. So hopefully you'll get it even cheaper than I did. God knows I'd rather choke on acid than pay 60$ for a game. We don't count bg3 that was...a once a year purchase for my birthday.

I don't recommend paying full price at all, it falls off in comparison to today's 60$ games. Please wait for a sale.

I'm also new to this game! I've been playing it for the past week, and so, and oh my god, it stole all of my attention and heart. The fandom isn't...friendly, and it's mostly 35y+ people, so the fanfics are old-school millennial style.

But honestly, that's fine. We can make our own space. And I'm very open to requests for fanfics <3

The game does have some queer representation, which is nice. Even tho the first game is very old.

It's very easy, difficulty wise, and I am someone who sucks at shooter games. I've beaten far cry 4 with a bow. I can help you with anything you have questions about or need guidance for!

Again thank you so much Aaaa this made me very happy <3 it does feel lonely here by myself at times so I'm very grateful that you're willing to give this game a try. And it does have clear dnd themes in gith, drows and mindflayers if you're here from the bg3 blog. But they're just themes again and they take a lot of creatively in switching up these concepts. Mass effect is genuinely so beautiful! It feels like what starfield should've been at times. I keep staring at the planets and stars.

[yunwooz]

asjdfhlasfhsadjfh back when i sent you that previous message, i, too, was excited for lotf!! i wanted to watch dist2 play it before i decide to get it because it was a lot of money and i was unsure 😭 and now i'm glad i didn't SDFHLASDJFHA the game looks cool, dgmw!! but the combat... i'm not sure if it's exactly for me sajfdalsdjf dist himself mentioned that it feels unpolished :( i wonder how you ended up liking it!! for me LoP is the goty though 🧡 the world and the combat is so good. it's very linear and quite simple but i feel like that's its charm!!

i have heard of starfield!! in... a lot of bad contexts sajdfasjkdfh i haven't seen it or played it myself though so i can't form my own opinion!! but if you're enjoying it that's the main thing 🧡

i also bought assassins creed mirage!! it looked cool and very well polished so i got the launch edition with a steelbook hehe, it cost a lot of money but guess what..... i can't play it 🤣 i'm a little prone to motion sickness and it hasn't happened in a looong time but playing mirage triggered it SO heavily i was nauseated for 3 whole hours even after turning the game off 😭 it's such a shame because the game looks genuinely good... i'm hoping ubisoft will release an update that will add the option to turn some settings off because a lot of ppl have been crying about it but so far it's just wishful thinking :( so i've started replaying AC origins instead sadfaskjfhasdhf the best one in the franchise!!! hehe just a small rant 🧡🧡

hope you've been great bestie 🧡

from @tixti 🧡

ahhh i see!! for me i really love the combat and the difficulty, i know lots of the complaints are about the difficulty balance but as someone who has played tens of games that are Unfair and very punishing, i enjoy it lots <3 but im gonna wait to buy it still bc i dont think it's a full price buy for me 😳

tbh the people who dislike starfield are just really loud… SDFLKJKDL honest to god i've been playing on desktop and haven't had one problem at all, even with bugs, like there's a few buggy quests but game stuff i haven't experienced any issues. bethesda games kinda have that sort of charm to them tho!

NOOOOO you can't play it? that's so upsetting wtf 😭 honestly it's more shocking that they don't have an option for motion blur bc that's like seriously standard in games now like?? for ubisoft esp to not have an option… come on. that's so disappointing 😭😭😭 it's fun that you enjoy assassins creed tho it's one of my fave franchises the first one was one of the first games i ever played!!!

i've been good tho hehe playing lots of my gachas endlessly kkk

[vanilladaises-rp]

So with both the Playstation and Xbox showcases having wrapped, along with a few others, I thought that I should share some gaming news:

Star Wars Outlaws

I seriously did not expect this game at all. And it looks phenomenal! I'm thrilled that they're turning away from the usual Rebellion-Empire, Jedi storylines that we've seen recently and are going towards a gunslinger, smuggler point of view this time around. And from the gameplay shown, this is basically Red Dead Redemption 2 in Star Wars form. The only concern is that this is developed by Ubisoft, which has a reputation for downgrading their games after post-production and hasn't done a lot of innovation in their latest games.

Starfield

I know there is a lot riding on this game, especially for the current Xbox generation. But this game isn't going to make me buy a new Xbox any time soon, mainly because this game looks and feels generic at best. And it has the same game mechanics as No Man's Sky, a game that you could get for 50% when it goes on sale frequently. Or if you just want a Space RPG, then just get The Outer Worlds for $20.

I honestly don't know why people preordering this game in droves, particularly because Bethesda has released really buggy games while also having absurd microtransactions. But since Microsoft owns them now, I'm also having my doubts since one of Microsoft's studios just released perhaps one of the worst disastrous launches in gaming history a little over a month ago. Also, it's locked at 30 frames per second, so if I get a Series X, it's not going to take advantage of the hardware. So, I'll wait until the reviews come in, or at the very least, it goes on sale.

Xbox Series S Carbon Black

It's simply the Series S, just in black. However, it has 1TB of storage instead of 512GB. And it only costs $350. So $50 more for an extra 500GB? This is a really great budget deal in my opinion if you want to upgrade to the current generation of consoles without breaking the bank.

CRKD Nitro Deck

So this is a Switch accessory, but if you want to make your Switch look like a Steam Deck, this is it. However, you don't have to worry about stick drift, it has reprogrammable back buttons, and you can customize the joysticks.

Also, it comes in a limited edition Gamecube colorway, which is really nostalgic for Nintendo fans.

Im gonna be honest i don’t know either game so i hade to research lol 😂 but they both do look really cool I’ve only every played Star Wars Fallen Order but outlaws looks pretty fun, i would definitely like to check it out. Star Field looks sick!! Omg the graphics, but from the trailer it looks like a shooting game am i wrong? I don’t play games like that anymore i used to play stuff like gta san andres or cod in high school but i wasn’t v good tbh 😂. Auto aim is my bestie is all I’ll say haha. I don’t know much about game mechanics or frame rates so i can’t say much there sorry. You can educate me if you want lol. Also I’ve heard of a steam deck and seen it idk what it does? I looked up the nitro deck and i love the gamecube skin, i still have my gamecube and controls 🥹 once i know what it is ill think about purchasing it lol

[gollumpanties]

I agree with pretty much everything here, to be honest. I also have a harder time typing my thoughts on this than I do speaking them, but I'm going to make an attempt at least.

It's very very true that it's a Bethesda game, for better or worse, at its core and I think it also suffers quite a bit from the Came Out Right After Baldur's Gate 3 Curse because honestly, trying to compete with that game is brutal.

I understand a lot of the criticisms concerning loading screens and fast travel and I agree with them, but it's not a deal-breaker for me. It does hamper my preferred Bethesda playstyle of "start walking towards a quest objective and get distracted for the next 4 hours by things I find along the way", but whatever. I play The Sims 4. I can steel myself to loading screens and adapt. Is it ideal? No. But, like I said, not a deal-breaker for me.

My personal beef with the game so far (and, to be clear, I am continuing to play it despite this) is that to me it feels completely incoherent when it comes to any sort of narrative theme. There's nothing for my English Lit nerd brain to latch onto. Maybe it's because I haven't finished the main plot yet (though I've thoroughly spoiled myself about it), but I just can't articulate what concepts the game is asking me to think about at all.

Fallout in its very premise has the "destructive consequences of unchecked consumption and xenophobia" built in. I know Fallout 4 gets criticized (rightfully so in many ways - though I seem to be one of the few who actually prefers a voiced protagonist for my roleplaying) but it also tosses around one of my very favorite tropes, the concept of how far someone has to get from humanity before they're no longer considered a person, as well as the entire vibe of being one of the only people who remembers an entirely different world. (Nick Valentine romance WHEN, Todd???) Elder Scrolls leans into Fantasy Politics for its themes, which just happens to be another personal fave of mine lol, as well as Fucking Insane Mythology. Starfield has yet to give my brain anything like that to rotate at length.

MAIN PLOT SPOILERS (obvs)

The whole Hunter/Emissary conflict seems like a pretty obvious "grab whatever power you're strong enough to claim" vs "power should be guarded against whoever would use it irresponsibly" but I didn't feel like either of them said much to make their positions seem compelling.

Unity as a concept was very interesting when it was first introduced -- I liked the little sidequest to talk to people from various philosophies and learn little bits of mythology -- but it feels like (at least so far) the entire deeper question of "what is Unity?" has been completely dropped. It's a place, it's a mechanism to hop between realities, it's something all Starborn are drawn to(?). The entire mythology-seeking mission framed it as an intense existential question, and the reality so far feels so. Flat. The entire main plot tbh is set up to be this deep almost philosophical question about reality/realities and existence and yet I'm still struggling to make out what it's trying to say about it.

Considering that all the Starborn seem almost compelled to seek out the artifacts and try and reach Unity, and that the main plot's end is pushing the player to become Starborn themselves, there's just none of that magnetic pull that the Hunter and Emissary assure me they all feel. The game has given me no really compelling reason to find Unity so far other than "to finish the questline" and left the overall thematic meaning of Unity completely hollow.

It's a huge problem for me, roleplay-wise, because it's really hard to come up with reasons my character would be invested in any of this.

Another problem that I'm butting up against is perhaps more a problem for me personally than it might be for others... I just. Am struggling to get invested in the lore. It feels like we have Generic Space Humans, Generic Space Humans 2 (Yeehaw Flavor), and then Various Raiders, without any meaningful disinction between them other than the metaphorical paint color. Maybe when I get deeper into faction quests the differences will become clearer, but it sure would help "muh immersion" if I were treated at all differently from area to area. Even just notable differences between what things count as contraband between UC and Freestar scans would help. (To be fair, you could argue that there's about as much distinction between the Crimson Fleet and random spacers as there is between the Gunners and random raiders in Fallout 4. That's completely fair.)

I respect the decision to not include sapient alien species in this universe, but one of the really big things they do, lore and aesthetic-wise, in games like Mass Effect is that by their very alien-ness they make it less jarring that the humans are functionally a monolith. If they're not going to have alien cultures in a space exploration game then ideally the human cultures should be making up the difference. In the Elder Scrolls universe even amongst the humans they feel different. There feels like there's a clear distinction between Bretons and Nords, for example. Hell, between Bretons and Imperials even.

It's been 180 years since they announced that Earth would soon become uninhabitable and only 131 since the last fleet left the planet, but people treat Earth like no one's cared about it in a thousand years. Like. It wasn't that long ago??? The huge varieties of governments have been boiled down to two and society as a whole has been upended, and yet we've still painstakingly recreated exploitative corporate capitalism for some reason. If there's an actual reason, then that would be fine! It would be cool! Were corporations like Space Amazon the ones who bankrolled and controlled the ships leaving Earth and used their weight to ensure their continued chokehold on the economy? Maybe! But we don't really talk about it at all, in a genre that traditionally is built around Saying Things About Societal Structures.

In fairness to them, because I am also a loud defender of Mass Effect Andromeda on the grounds that we can't judge its depth by comparing it to the entire Trilogy's worth of development... this is the first game in this universe, ever. Maybe the lore will build on itself and become more complex. The Elder Scrolls and Fallout have both had years and years to develop their universes. ... It still leaves me struggling with where Starfield stands right now.

I could rant longer (don't ask me about the First Contact questline I'll explode, and also I believe another video essay already laid out the reasons why I hate that quest) but I think this at least broadly covers my issues with the game.

Also! I am still playing the game! I might not stream it regularly for much longer, but there is enough here to keep me coming back! I want to get a lot deeper into base-building in the future and I want to sink my teeth into all the faction quests and sidequests I can get my hands on. I loved the "explore the ruins of NASA" quest and the storyline and discoveries there had me actually both horrified and enthralled. 😂 I thought the (spoilers) attack on Constellation mission was intense and had me stressed in the best possible way. I made split-second decisions based on character impulses! It was great!

I appreciate the more detailed companion questlines and romances, though I would prefer a greater spread in uhhhhh moralities? But still.

Fighting and clearing out areas is still the ultimate Bethesda-style fun. As always, I play speechcraft/stealth archer all the time, so that means Fuck Yeah Sniper Rifles. Genuinely having a blast modding guns and sniping raiders from a thousand miles away. Also I love scanning things. Love to check shit off a list. Extremely satisfying. Would like to garden more tbh. Todd plz give me an extensive farming system please and thank you.

I do wish the clutter acted more like it does in Fallout 4 and I could recycle it into materials because the sheer disappointment I felt when I saw duct tape, had an ecstatic Pavlovian response and picked it up, and then only later discovered that it was utterly useless. Defnitely something I'm planning to tweak with mods lol.

Also! I'm really excited to see where the modding scene goes! I'm the kind of person who runs Bethesda games with 100+ mods at all times, so my experience might be somewhat hampered by the fact that we're still in early days when it comes to mods. The ultimate strength of these games has always been their insane modding scenes, so I'm real stoked about that.

Anyway, that was a lot. I want to be as fair as I can, so I know a lot of my issues personally come from a storytelling and worldbuilding perspective. I am a [Plumbella voice] whore for lore, so it rustles my jimmies in particular when I encounter frustrating or unsatisfying worldbuilding.

Uhhhhh hope this is even marginally useful lol. I'm def willing to expand on/explain any part of it too. 👍

hey besties on tumblr! what are your thoughts on starfield?

tell me your praises and criticisms of it, whether you’ve just seen gameplay or it or have actually played it yourself!

(this is for a video essay, so your response may be featured in it)

[starsidexiv]

my thoughts on the games from the xbox and bethesda 2022 games showcase that caught my attention

Long post ahead so be ready uwu

Redfall looks so cool tbh, probably gonna get a new Xbox so I can wreck havoc with some friends and be crackheads (Redfall, 2023)

SILKSONG GAMEPLAY BUT NO RELEASE DATE, COME ONNNNNN (Silksong, day one on Game Pass ayo)

It's weird, I like it (High On Life, October 2022)

I honestly thought Riot Games were bringing their stuff to Xbox, but it's all PC or mobile with pretty much everything unlocked for each game, not bad. (LoL, LoLWR, Teamfight Tactics, Runeterra, Valorant, Winter 2022)

MOTORSPORT BAYBEEEEEE (Forza Motorsport)

Ayy flight sim, new planes and...IS THAT THE PELICAN FROM HALO??? (Microsoft Flight Sim 40th Anniversary, November 2022)

Okay some more Overwatch 2 stuff and, wait, free to play? I don't remember that- (Overwatch 2, October 4)

HOT WHEELS IN FORZA HORIZON 5, WHERE'S MY SERIES S- (FH5 x Hot Wheels, July 19)

ARK 2 ON GAME PASS??? DAY ONE??? (ARK 2, 2023)

Flintlock looks really coooool, THAT COMPANION IS SO CUTE (Flintlock The Siege of Dawn, Early 2023)

NEW MINECRAFT GAME??? BRO I SUCH AT STRATEGY (Minecraft Legends, 2023

4 PLAYER FURRY CO-OP GAME, LOOKS VERY CUTE (Gunfire Reborn, October 2022)

The Last Case of Benedict Fox looks WICKED (The Last Case of Benedict Fox, Spring 2023)

I heard about this game a long time ago, I feel like this game will break me emotionally or if I'm playing with 7 other people, we make stupid decisions and laugh from them (As Dusk Falls, July 19)

Full game for Grounded is done??? I'll give this a shot with friends (Grounded, September 2022)

DIABLO 4 LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO

AYYY SEASON SEVEN OF PIRATE GAME (Sea of Thieves, July 21)

Ravenlok looks ADORABLE (Ravenlock, 2023)

Highly requested at Atlus...YALL BRINGING PERSONA TO XBOX???

NEW PARTNERSHIP??? HOW BIG IS THIS GONNA B-Holy fucking shit, Xbox and Kojima, no fucking way.

WHERE'S STARFIELD?????

YES FINALLY, EXTENDED GAMEPLAY LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god

THE MAN HIMSELF TODD HOWARD

BRO THIS ABOUT TO BE MY KIND OF GAME HOLY SHIT

DID I MENTION I LOVE SPACE???

Dude this game looks so fucking good

OH MY GOD THE CUSTOMIZATION NO WAYYYYYYYY IM GONNA BE ON THAT SCREEN FOR HOURS

IM DONE, I CAN WHAT???

BUILD MY OWN SPACESHIP ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? AND FLY IT???

im gonna sob, this is about to be my new favorite game holy shit dude im going to cry

THANK YOU TODD HOWARD OH MY GOD

How big is the game?

...

I'm speechless. This man said you can land anywhere on a planet in this system. And not just this one, but over one hundred systems and one thousand planets.

...I'm having No Man Sky flashbacks but that game was procedurally generated , this COULD be different, but I'll keep my expectations real.

Starfield, Coming 2023. Looks like I'm getting a new Xbox/PC. DAY ONE ON GAME PASS.

VERY GOOD SHOW, GREAT SHOW