Tank

This is perfectly put and accurate. Re-reading my rambling from 2am last night it occurred to me that it was pretty amazing what I COULD do in some ways. I thought back to games I was playing as a kid and wishing I could explore more and wasn’t looking at static background. That I could go anywhere and do anything. If this game came back in time and I was able to play it at 15 I would think it was the best thing ever.

But to play this now— after Mass Effect, after Last of Us, after GTA 5, or even after F04, and it seems like such a miss. It feels unfinished and basic.

It’s like making and expecting people to watch a super basic 3 camera laugh track sitcom in a post Breaking Bad world. It’s like buying a Honda Civic from 1994 when you can get afford a Lexus.

For the record, you CAN fly your ship— but only for combat and docking with other ships/stations in orbit. To travel to other systems, take off, or land it has to be done through menu commands that trigger cut scenes.

I’m not sure why I am still playing it. I guess I am hoping I’ll have epiphany with it like I did Fallout. I did just find the lair and gear of The Mantis, which is their version of Batman with a bit of Dread Pirate Roberts. So I may now try the path of leaving the main story and becoming a space vigilante and see if that’s fun… but not holding my breath.

Okay, here's an example... I just played for a bit since my last post. Here's what went down...

1. I've landed on a frontier planet town, it has an old west in space vibe. I've seen this vibe done to death, and they aren't bringing anything new to it. The town is expansive. Tons of shops and people. NONE of it is interesting enough to suck me in. By comparison, the new vendor area added to Cyberpunk in Phantom Liberty was one of the coolest environments I've ever seen in a sci-fi game. It was familiar, but also really unique. This is not.

2. This is a desert-ish planet so when you are outside, there is a forced reshade filter that just reduces the contrast of everything and tints it slightly brown. It's supposed to be a feel, but it looks like a monitor mistake.

3. Every other person you pass basically has dementia. Get within a few feet and they jump you into whatever is on their mind. THINGS JUST HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME AROUND HERE SINCE OUR WATER PLANT STOPPED WORKING. And of course, this now shows up as a mission for you. Most of the missions in my game journal are from snippets of conversation I walk by. Fix the air pump. Investigate the distress call. I'm not confident they lead to interesting stories, and are likely simple task quests to grind XP.

4. The mission I AM on is to help this boring ass guy I've got as a temp companion get some maps from his family that will lead to an alien artifact that the main mission faction is collecting. Get this, alien artifacts that give you a vision... which I have literally seen in so many stories, especially Mass Effect, which I just replayed.

5. Oops, can't get to the bank vault where the maps are because there's some bank robbers. Talk to the Marshal, he decides to let you handle it. Sneak in like a clever person, and try to stealth it (cause I paid into a stealth skill option) and do silent kills... but (and this happened in Fallout 4 constantly) my companion is immediately seen and starts shooting. So we kill everyone, fine. Hostages are in the vault. Before I let them out, I decide to pick the locks on a desktop safe. The bank manager, in the vault, is close enough to me that he is triggered to have the "you stole a thing prepare to get flagged as an enemy" reaction. My first thought is-- how does he see me steal if he's in the vault? The game says "oh don't worry, we'll just spawn him next to you so he DOES see." But then THAT triggers the mission response of "thank heavens you saved us and set us free" dialogue. So he's literally saying both things to me at the same time.

6. It seems to disable enemy status, so I go down to the vault to find the maps-- but nope. Have to go outside and talk to the Marshal and complete that mission first. Get the XP, and he offers to have me join his faction. Now I can talk to my idiot companion, go back into the bank and back down to the vault to get the maps. They aren't there. Find a note for him, that in theory I have to add to my inventory, then open and navigate through FOUR menus to read. But I think, it's for him, so I'll give it to him. As soon as I try to talk to him though, he immediately responded as if I have already read the note (because the game doesn't flag the difference between me having it AND reading it as two different events.)

7. So now we have to go see his dad who has the maps-- only idiot companion doesn't want to. I have to go through four very VERY on the nose dialogue choices to play therapist and get him to talk to his dad, and again remember the PC is not voiced, so all the "character" I have is broken into four dialog options. An overly supportive/positive reply, a snarky asshole reply, a non sequitur, or saying you don't care about what is happening. (This is a pretty common range for the game thus far).

8. We walk to the far side of town to find his dad, they argue, and I am given the choice of talking to dad myself even though he clearly hates me, telling idiot companion to distract him while I try to find and steal the maps, or go back to my ship where idiot companion's daughter is hanging out and ask her to schmooze her grandpa for the maps because they like each other. For the record, idiot companion has decided to keep them separate, which I can appreciate as having a toxic parent and a child... but also, what kind if space adventurer drags his kid along to his home planet but then makes her stay on the ship? I figured talking to dad myself would involve doing persuasion checks, which I haven't put enough points into and keep failing, and the game made me bring the kid, so that was likely the way to go. (Sidebar, persuasion convos are ridiculous. The game basically tells you "you have to guess what to say to people who knows how they'll respond... which is their of saying it is random, because if you follow logic, it doesn't lead you to a win. You just have a choices of things to say that cost points, and your skill "discounts" those points... but you are still playing a guessing game."

9. We walk all the way back across town to the spaceport to get the kid. Walk all the way back to the house so she and grandpa can reunite, and we get the maps.

10. Maps lead to a cave we (again) have to walk to in the wilderness teeming with rando animal attacks that wastes all my ammo. This is thankfully one of the shorter walks I have had in this game. I check progress on occasion with a long range scope I have-- but when I use it, it seems to want to lock in on something specific. I have to zoom in and out several times. I fix it by pointing upon into the sky... and see half a dozen rocks that have rendered up there instead of on the ground. Anyway, no ammo, so when we get to the location and it is full of all the surviving gang members of the dudes I shot down at the bank, I realize I need to go stealth and melee until I can pick up my bullets. I clumsily jetpack up to a bluff (because clumsily is the only way you can move in this game) to get the lay of the land and sneak in. This time I tell idiot companion to hold position so he doesn't trigger combat.

11. I start stealthing my way down. I get close to an enemy and trigger them being on alert. The way the AI works is that each enemy has a field of perception. Once you enter it, they will go on to alert and look around. If they see you, combat is triggered and any enemy in the area can now also see you regardless of where they are. I have a mid-level stealth skill, which nerfs down that area of perception. I also have a concealment skill so if I am crouched behind something, if the enemy is on alert, they have a slightly lower chance of seeing me. Rumor has it, even maxed out, you can still be seen and attacked by people even outside line of sight. That said, I manage to get pretty close. I alert a guard, but he doesn't see me. You get a little active progress bar that shows them cooling down back to being unaware. So I sit in hiding, watching it go down... and then idiot companion respawns next to me and starts shooting.

12. I take down the first guy and he has ammo I can use, so we clear out most of the enemies. I sneak up to objective building, and even though we just had a giant firefight with explosions and screams, the guys just inside have not been triggered because they have things to say about the bank mission I am supposed to hear... but I get a little too close, they go into combat mode... and they are fighting and saying combat dialog and the same time as the story dialog.

I paid $80 for this shit so I want to get some play out of it-- the moment I have motivation to break bad I will do it.

People who love Starfield will give the blanket defense of WELP IT'S A BATHESDA GAME! Like their goal is to give you a massive open world with a ton of different factions, a loose story to get you going to learn mechanics, but otherwise, you have to figure out not only how to really game it, but also find your own way of playing it.

In theory that is great. I will admit that Fallout 4 was my first Bethesda game, and my first play I missed a lot because I didn't explore, I didn't get deep into the rug mechanics, and I stuck to the main storyline. After I got a better idea of things, my second play through was fun. But most of all, Fallout 4 had such an amazing style and vibe to it. But also, there is very much a psychology to game design when it comes to an open world. I can't find the video now, but I watched this clip on youTube that talked about it, but the idea is, if you are roaming an open world you don't actually go more than a minute without seeing something new. Fallout 4's map is huge,. and even in the most remote places, there's things to find, strange tableaus that tell a story, something to loot, or a location you haven't discovered. 

Starfield's planets have 1-5 key locations. Your ship can only usually land in one place. You have to WALK to the other locales and there is nothing but procedurally generated landscape between them. It's also insanely easy to become over-encumbered for a game that relies on looting and nabbing resources. The locations tend to recycle the same modular parts so it just comes off as the juice not being worth the squeeze.

The hub worlds are packed and well art directed-- but they don't give you maps. AN OPEN WORLD GAME WITH NO MAPS. They say they want you to explore to know the world, but again, everything is miles apart. 

The dialog is very basic, and your player character isn't voiced. There are no performances what so ever, just animated faces (of which Bethesda has only a handful) saying flat line readings to you. 

There's also a lot of what people call "Bethesda jank." Glitchy faces, weird bugs, graphics that doesn't always load. The other night I lifted off from a spaceport and a member of the ground crew got connected to my ship and was still walking around under my ship mid-air doing his ground crew thing. Graphics clipping is everywhere, and the action is extremely stiff and not-dynamic. There's no cover system, you can't dodge, you can barely jump. The UI is one of the worst I've ever seen. I could go on.

Basically, Bethesda wants to make RPG computer games from the 90s, but feel inclined to do the bare minimum possible to stay relevant as a AAA studio. And again, their fans will tell you this is exactly their goal and you should know it if you play their games. I guess I just call BS on that and have a hard time thinking this mediocrity was done on purpose as opposed to just being a failure of some sort and them regressing to what they know works to make a ship date.

Mostly I'm just mad because it feels like a backwards step from Fallout 4, which I loved.

The Steam sale is pretty decent, I picked up the recent Hitman Trilogy (with all DLCs) for under $30. Also nabbed an old school Lucasarts style point and click graphic adventure I've had my eyes on for awhile, Jedi Survivor, and Last of Us Part 1 (since I only have it on my Ps4).

In the meanwhile, Starfield continues to be average as fuuuuuuuuuuu

Really HATED the toxic bro side of Star Wars fandom that instantly called for Kennedy's head and never stopped. It's the same ones complaint about how she "forced" female leads and woks and all that other crap.

That said...

To have had to fire and replace this many directors, to reshoot more than half of multiple features, to announce shows and not put them into production for years, to prioritize things like BOBF instead of giving more money to Obi-Wan... all of these things fall on her.

You can stealth/snipe your way through most of it, and hacking the turrets helps too.

Unless you mean the boss fight at the end of it, in which case yeah— that took me forever tries too.

It's funny-- a few years ago everyone was saying Filoni should run creative and let Kennedy stick to what she knows- running production. Now that it has finally happen, I'm very MEH about it. Turns out Filoni in live action ends up leaving me feeling like EU fan films are now canon.

2 hours ago, Gamevet said:

I was attempting to do a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, but I got into a battle that I wasn't equipped to handle and just quit playing. I might be interested in Phantom Liberty soon.

This happens WAY less than it used to with the new 2.0 build.

Gotta say, a few hours in, Starfield is astonishingly boring, poorly-written, has last gen graphics, and some of the absolute WORST UI design I have ever seen in a game. And oh yeah, NO MAPS, cause they want you to "explore the world" and yet, locations can be 3-4 minutes apart with nothing to discover between them and your ship can only land in a single place.

It’s a fully integrated story mission, you still play your V. It’s just like any other threaded story mission in the game, 

They made the option to skip to it for people who finished the game already and didn’t want to replay the whole thing.

It’s not a separate game, it’s part of the main game in the form of a mega side quest.

Looking back, Cyberpunk seems to confuse you, lol. Just start a new game and you’ll get the hang of it: if you hate it though, Phantom Liberty isn’t going to change your mind.

I've basically been in a loop of playing the same few games, and replaying my PS4 favorites with mods now that I am on PC, since covid lockdown. Not sure why, but there just wasn't a lot for me out there. I'm a picky gamer. I like narrative driven sci-fi or horror action RPG 3rd person games. Don't care much for fantasy. This has left me playing these games over and over the last four years:

Fallout 4, Mass Effect (all 4), Control, State of Decay 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Last of Us 1&2, and the occasional one off. But I'm downloading Starfield right now...

You can’t really play post-base game, as the OG endings are all pretty finite. The DLC doesn’t become available until after act one of the base game, and like everything else, will get dropped and locked out if you got past the point of no return. It’s meant to be played during act 2.

So it is integrated naturally. If you’ve finished the base game and want to play it, they give you two options:

1. Start a new game, after you get to act two you’ll get a message that will lead you to the DLC. Once you play the first act of ITS story, it will then let you progress at your own pace and you can go back to playing base game missions at the same time.

2. Start a new game, but jump directly to the Phantom Liberty story. This will skip the required missions of act one of the base game and gives you the XP/perks those missions would have earned you.

Keep in mind too that a month before the DLC came out the game had a huge upgrade. If you were playing before September you’ll have to respec all your skill points.

My honest opinion is unless you’re super into the game and lore, it’s best to just start a new game. While it is it’s own story, the DLC really plays on top of the existing story and a lot of nuance may be lost if you’re unfamiliar with the story at large.

I always think of the Elijah Wood scene in Back to the Future 2, “You mean you have to use your hands? That’s like a kid’s game!”

Forgot to say— my one other disappointment… the romances in this game leave a lot to be desired.

Panam and Judy are both great, but they are gender specific and really only have one path. River is lame, and there are only TWO joy toys you can hire. I was expecting Phantom Liberty to give more options, there are at least 3 new characters I’d have tried to bang for sure! But alas, they are not romance-able.

I’m def not a keyboard/mouse person. I watch my son do it and it hurts my brain. I use a game controller for everything.

I follow a bunch!

People are excited for AI to get better and I’m over here loving the multi-fingered, melty faced nightmare fuel all the V1s out out.

I couldn't even tell you my specs hahaha. Where in stupid ass windows do I go to view them? I let my son spec it out a few years ago when I got it.

Back to the game itself... finished the base game now. I took a different route than before, still had a lot of fun. I found a lot of different things this time, not sure if they were added for 2.0 or Phantom Liberty, or if I just missed them before. I know the Edgerunners released added stuff too.

Overall, it's now a game worthy of being a AAA title. Of course, you all know how I feel about no 3rd person, but beyond that, I really only have a few minor complaints about the game overall. Mainly--

- The journal/map is still awful. After every completed task it auto-defaults you back to the main storyline with markers and prompts, which for an open world game is so annoying. There's literally hundreds of things to do, and to not be able to queue and manage tasks efficiently is annoying. Not game-breaking, but definitely annoying.

- There's still random moments of tank. Sometimes Johnny Silverhand looks amazing, other times, he's out of a PS1 game.

- They added a glitch effect to the overall visuals to all action scenes, which I find really distracting, It used to be saved for when you were getting hacked, but now it's there the second you enter combat.

- Every car save for the top tier ones are nerfed to be twitchy AF-- I'd forgive this if there were more driving related skills to counter-act it, but there are not.

Overall these are pretty minor complaints though, and I'm sure that one 2.0 starts getting more modded there will be fixes.

Yeah I can only play for about 2-3 hours before my PC sounds like a 747 taking off and gameplay stutters.

Hahah— well I can only do it if there’s I. Depth guides! Thankfully the ME mod community and tools are very user friendly!

My OCD won't let me skip ME1, but I hear you. it can be a slog. At this point I play a "movie" version of it and know what to do to game the carry-over choices I want. I will also say, that with mods, ME 1 was a bit more fun. You can't change the core gameplay of course, but I loaded up tons of weapon adjustments and did a lot of back-porting of weapons and armors and skins to make it least LOOK and low key feel more like ME2/3. I think I had close to 50 mods running. I also used headmorphs and special made outfits so my Shepard looked identical in all three games.

I dove in pretty hard with Midjourney a year or so ago. It's been super helpful for me in terms of cooking up images for all my pitches. As a former graphic designer used to working with clip art and doing photo manipulations Ai plus my usual photoshop process was giving me great stuff.

But then I learned about how much of the learning models were straight up stealing from actual artists... and then AI threatened to gut my career and became a key factor in both our strike and the actors strike.

Needless to say, I'm very mixed on the topic now. I DO think it has its place, and if you want to make silly images, have it help with concepts and pitches, or even use it for your own uses, that's fine and it's getting better every day. But in terms of using it for-profit or to cut out the work of an actual person, totally against it. Problem is I don't know if I can have it both ways as even using it just for myself better educates the AI for somebody to do what I am against.

Ha! My lead in was also replaying ME. First time doing mods with Legendary edition. ME 3 was like a whole new game at times!

Okay, mid-play through with 2.0, and just finished Phantom Liberty. Holy shit snacks, if it weren't for the (broken record warning) lack of a 3rd person view, this would be in my top 10 games ever. Possibly five. 

It is SO much better with the 2.0 changes. Skill progressions make sense and favor you doing a dedicated class build. The random region leveling is mostly gone. The police are basically GTA style now. Weapons are better balanced. Looting ugly clothing and gear for DPS ratings is gone (thank god, I hate this in every game that does it). Crafting and Upgrading makes more sense. Loot and weapons in general level across the game now to match your character. Fewer glitches. Weather changes.... basically all the best mods I had to add to love the game on the last play through are now built in.

Gameplay wise, they fixed stealth (as we talked about above). If you use a melee weapon or silenced gun and get a kill, it will not trigger combat. There's even an adjustment so that even if you don't get a kill, combat won't be triggered right away. Basically, unless your target or a camera sees you (sans the lag they'd have if passive) it will only send the target into combat mode, not every enemy in the area. So if you can duck behind something, and hit them again for a kill, it won't trigger everyone else.  I'm getting a kick replaying familiar missions cause you can stealth all the way through now.

My play style has been to sink my points into Cool, Int, and Tech. This lets me hack a bit from the outskirts, then do a bit of sniping, then stealth past whomever I couldn't snipe, and if I get spotted, I jump into assault mode. (Sans the hacking, this kinda how I play most any action game).

Really my only complaint, is that the map is so big and there's so many varied missions that sometimes it doesn't feel coherent narratively-- but I am willing to admit this is the nature of an open world and I tend to have this issue with any game that's not on the rails to some degree. My only other, minor, complaint, is that I've always felt that Night City was too pretty. I get that the corporate sector SHOULD look fancy, and yes, the outskirts are covered with miles of trash... but the almost ever-present sunshine and amazing lighting and holograms makes it look a little too fancy. It feels more like Japan after an economic disaster and I like my cyberpunk to be a little more post-apocalyptic.

To that-- Dogtown SO nails the aesthetic. I wish the whole game looked like Dogtown. Especially the old arena. Which brings me to--

Holy shit, Phantom Liberty is amazing. It's easily as good as the main storyline in the game. Idris Elba's character Reed is so on-point as a ex-spy that was burned being brought back into action. His morals and allegiances are conflicted, but his skills are on point, but he's not infallible. Alex is a great minor character, Songbird is tragic, and some of the minor characters you meet are interesting and actually make me go for the blue dialogue options.

The villain is passable, not amazing, but very fitting to the story. But like I said, the design and backstory of Dogtown is superb, and the level and environment design is top notch and has all the vibes. Even the random side missions and gigs feel fully fleshed out.

Phantom Liberty is basically Escape From New York meets Blade Runner meets MI: Ghost Protocol.

There are four endings, and according to IGN (which is awful) I ended up with the "worst" one-- but to be honest, even though it wasn't a happy ending, it felt the most true to me in terms of a cyberpunk story in terms of genre. I didn't;t get my personal happy ending, Reed was left demoralized, but I screwed over the system. I enjoyed it and didn't feel the need to restore to a previous save to try again.

If any of you slept on this game cause of its shit launch, or haven't dove back in, definitely do it now.