an endless parade of loading and transition screens. the worst performance you have ever seen so that ten thousand milk cartons can be realistically simulated in real time in zero gravity. strangers walking up to you and telling their life story so you can do a mission that you will not remember in five minutes. holding W (sometimes shift!) so you can explore the wonders of Abandoned Mining Outpost #584. the possibility of alien life turned into a chore. when you think of discovery, wonder, and adventure, i hope you think of lifeless worlds and fast travel menus, because that's all this is. what a joke

At this point, Bethesda is a relic. They were given New Vegas as a direct template and learned nothing. Now with Starfield, I have no hope of them ever improving their craft.

While the combat, traversal, menuing, aesthetic are all leagues below industry standard at this point -- even below their own previous games -- the real death knell is the writing. It's incredible how rote and lifeless nearly everything in this game is rendered by speaking to almost any NPC. I wanted to care, but I just can't anymore when Bethesda refuses to improve while their contemporaries are blowing them away.

Don't play Starfield. If you still want to, pick up the new Cyberpunk DLC or do another New Vegas run. If you still want to after that, I'd strongly recommend branching out. The original Fallouts were gold. If you're looking for exploration and player agency Fallout 2 is some of the best out there.

Here's some bullets for my feelings:

High point:
- Ship builder was alright
- The concepts for some quests, tho well worn, were still enjoyable
- Enemies did have some hit reaction
- Interiors were very detailed, and some cities looked nice
- Mag minigun was cool
- Very occasionally the NASA aesthetic hits (like on the moon)

Disappointments:
- Enemies were less fleshed out than any previous Bethesda game
- Skill tree was almost entirely raw stats or unlocked recipes
- Space combat was shallow, needlessly lagging behind 25 year old games
- Writing had very few sparks of interest or emotion
- Companions were barely distinguishable
- Very little support for lasers or particle weapons. Why is the cutter the only beam?
- Vasco is the only robot companion / pet, no customization
- No radio... wtf
- Randomly generated "POI" have 0 interest in a game with weak combat
- Nothing effects anything. Betray the UC to give pirates a huge leg up? No one cares, and nothing changes.
- Bounty system is fucked. Witnesses, paying it off elsewhere, randomly getting some for nothing. All weak.
- Crafting and base building feel pointless. The only mods I saw that sparked some interest were for the grenade launcher, since they altered how the weapon worked in a meaningful way.
- Most of the aesthetic was an emotionless modernist style that just felt soulless.
- Waaaaay too much wasted time in menus and fast traveling.
- The ending was totally whatever. Not a culmination of my travels, not a moment with any philosophical pull, just another weak gesture at the multiverse theory like we've had so many of already.

i love love LOVE dis game so much omigossshhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

da mix of exploring and mining and shooting in dis game is soooo gooood!!!!!!! i wish my laptop was a bit better to run dis game but wow i so love it so much aaaaaaa!!!!!!!! also i know dis game was designed with co-op in mind but i spent most of my time playing solo and it still works super well!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's been a while since i've been super hooked on a game like dis one, i love da dwarves, molly and bosco, da clanking of da pickaxe against da minerals and i LOVE annoying mission control <3

What makes Deus Ex so impressive isn't just the amount of choices you're given, it's the way that they're presented to you and how they entertain your curiosity. When the game responds to your decisions from such an early point, it sets the tone of the rest of the experience: if it'll call you out for something as inconspicuous as messing around with the bathrooms, what else is it going to track? What other actions can you get it to react to?

It's this relationship of your curiosity being encouraged and then rewarded that defines Deus Ex. Although there are extrinsic bonuses for exploration (upgrade points, weapon mods, etc.), most of my motivation was intrinsic. There was never a time where I stumbled upon an unlocked vent and didn't want to see where it lead. Deus Ex's story deserves its own review, but the gameplay is about you and the designers. It's about inspecting every painting in a building and trusting that one of them will have a secret vault behind it. It's about lockpicking your way into a building at the front door before stopping yourself and asking "Wait, I bet there's another way" and reloading your save to see how else you can break in.

Sometimes it's very unbalanced, occasionally frustrating, jarringly unintuitive (especially considering the extended tutorial sequence), many aspects that would normally hold it back. But it doesn't need to be perfect, because these issues ultimately become drowned out as you're constantly making new decisions, answering new questions, and testing how mechanics interact with each other. Your imagination keeps being sparked and once you reach a certain point these shortcomings will suddenly stop mattering--nothing can break that unstoppable desire to see what the game has to offer next as everything finally clicks together.

This is, again, not even beginning on the story, atmosphere, or especially the music (because holy shit the OST is phenomenal). The gameplay alone is fantastic but the experience as a whole is just as special and is absolutely worth your time if you can get past some initial frustrations. The payoff is worth it.