Get ready to explore the vastness of space by fast traveling to quest objectives in the latest and greatest entry in the Oblivion with guns franchise. Come across all sorts of riveting points of interest upon hundreds of barren empty rocks, like the same prefab space pirate outposts over and over you'll mow through with your #NASApunk P90 while occasionally pausing the game to cram your face full of astronaut food to cure your bullet wounds. Embark on a series of fetchquests an epic adventure through the stars to learn the secrets of the Forerunners and the Ur-Quan upon learning that you are Dovahkiin (Starborn) after touching a Prothean beacon, making you go on to learn the Star Shout Words of Power in order to stop Alduin from destroying the multiverse. Discover wild and inventive alien species like dinosaurs, giant bugs and genestealers TerrorMorphs™, that all have trouble pathfinding around tiny pebbles and are unable to keep up with you whilst you backpedal away and empty their healthbar with a futuristic #NASApunk firearm like a Colt .45 or a VSS Vintorez. Engage in Next-Gen spaceship combat that excels at making you wish you'd instead clicked Knossos.exe and played a game released in 1999.

Bethesda truly have gone BACK TO THEIR ROOTS and made A TRUE RPG again. My jaw dropped when I first opened the level up menu, there's so many exciting +10% damage perks to choose from that you also need to fulfill arbitrary challenges for in order to unlock higher ranks like in Call of Duty multiplayer and other classics of the genre. The build/playstyle variety and roleplaying opportunities are simply put wild, although objectively speaking not as good as Fallout 4, but it's almost on par with a FarCry game. Not to mention, the narrative is genuinely the same caliber as heady sci-fi works like Interstellar, Arrival and Bioshock Infinite, brava Emil Pagliarulo!

8 out of 10, it has a little something for everyone.

Yep, this is a classic awful Bethesda game. Janky, poor performance, terrible gameplay, nonstop garbage collecting. Stupid story. Ugly, horrible graphics. Music is nondescript. One of the worst intros I've ever seen in a game, wow I'm shooting rocks and jumping around pointlessly while NPCs talk! Every character is horrible and lifeless. If you like eating garbage like a sewer ape that doesn't deserve to live, you'll love this. If you are a human being with a divine soul, you will hate this game. I only played it because it came with my GPU.

I didn't feel like editing all my notes so this one's coming in hot

the menus, ui/ux, and maps are nothing short of awful and the emphasis on fast travel, witcher vision, and waypoint markers make starfield one of the least convincing game worlds in recent memory. an endless sequence of vacuum sealed content boxes strung together by constant menus, loading screens, and teleporting, and bolstered on all sides by hundreds of procgen wastelands full of crafting junk

it's frustrating that there's something here I think I could like, but it's completely obstructed by design decisions that only make sense if your first and last priority is scale. aside from some dungeons and sidequests it feels like your only options are to be led by the nose like a dog or left to wander nothing areas for the rest of your life. a critical bug had me chasing my tail for over an hour on one of the essential planets and I was bored out of my brain so I can't imagine how sterile the non-essential ones must be

can't weigh in much on the RPG side of things cos I barely saw it in 10+ hours. it's like a cryptid where people keep swearing it exists but I'm still not convinced. can say that the dialogue options I've seen aren't too far off from the YES / YES (SARCASTIC) / NO (YES) we know and love from FO4 tho. writing doesn't go full head trauma this time around as quickly but everyone's a Quip Bastard or a block of wood so it's kinda six of one half a dozen of the other. the most memorable moment was when heller went chris dorner on the new atlantis police department unprovoked, but somehow I don't think that was what bethesda intended

perks/skills are as lifeless as expected. 10% more damage with shotguns or 10% damage with pistols or 10% damage with energy weapons or 10% damage with rifles or carry 10 more pounds or have 10% more health or..... zzzz

less I say about space and ship combat the better. everyone knows it wouldn't be better handled through a menu, but what this review presupposes is... maybe it would?

all in all it's a mess. bethesda's signature open world fractured and dashed across the stars; a marriage of some of the worst aspects of both pre and post morrowind eras with a slew of new unforced errors added to the mix. modders will fix what's fixable, I'll keep drinking that garbage, and the world will keep on turning

can't wait for skyrim 2

Do you like outdated engines?
Do you like an insane amount of bugs?
Do you like a complete disregard for basic game design?
Do you wish that game devs make their game have such utter lack of QOL or simple features that you have to rely on the modding community for fixes?
Do you want a derivative story?
Do you want to be forced to walk different speeds than NPC's as you follow them to objectives?
Do you want to lurch forward every time you move from a stopped position?
Do you want to have a horrible map system made even worse by a horrible waypointing system?

Well good news everyone! Starfield is here!

As someone who usually enjoys walking sims, Fort Solis is a slog to get through. This is mainly due to the fact that this game's walk cycle is the speed of an old man fumbling his way to get some Ensure out of the fridge. Even if the walk cycle wasn't this slow, this game is a compilation of elements done far better by the games that inspired them. The horror of Dead Space's madness, the piecing together of Gone Home's story, The companionship through Firewatch's dialogue, and... pretty much any Quantic Dream game's quick time events. All interesting elements watered down in the hands of people who didn't quite yet have the skill to unlock their potential. Still playable and somewhat intriguing, but hard to recommend to most people. At least the acting's good I suppose

Sucker Punch succeeds in making a better Assassin's Creed than Ubisoft...
As an Assassin's Creed fan, I've always wanted an AC game set in Japan. Well, we finally got it, and it's leagues better than any actual AC game we've gotten in years.

Sucker Punch takes the open world checklist formula and absolutely streamlines it in a way that makes it feel like you're never actually doing a checklist. Every collectible has value and is actually fun to get. Fast travel is the easiest it's been in any other open world game, so jumping around to get a missed collectible is quick. The world design is what encourages exploration, not just the need to find the next question mark on the map.

I've played over a dozen games with photo modes in them and have never really cared much for them. I'll usually open it once to look at it and snap one obligatory photo, and then never touch it again.
In Ghost of Tsushima, I spent almost as much time taking photos as I did actually playing the game. That's due to a combination of the most insanely robust photo mode I've ever seen in a game, and a very photogenic gorgeous world.

Playing through Act 1, the story felt like it took the back seat to the world. I was enjoying running around, exploring, and fighting off the invaders.
That quickly took a turn in Act 2 and I became fully invested in not only Jin's story, but the stories of all of his companions.
After a slight lull in the beginning of Act 3, it finishes strong.

Really the only negative I have on the game is that it doesn't really do anything new. It truly does feel like they set out to make a better Assassin's Creed than Ubisoft - and that's exactly what they did. The world is gorgeous, it's fun to explore, getting collectibles isn't boring, the combat is fun, and the story is great, but it all feels incredibly safe.
It's a solid 4-star game that I wish took a couple more risks.