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I admit it, reviewers are probably going to nuke Starfield into the stone age

AGRacing

Member
There's a reason Skyrim has been remastered and rereleased 100 times. There's a very special and unique game under there. It was able to draw you into it.

If it can do that... People will accept the bugs.

If it can't.... they're screwed and frankly so are we... because it's really the only game this year that has the potential to be something that special.
 
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Nydius

Member
I don’t think they’re going to purposely attack it but I do think it will have a harder hill to climb because it’s not Fallout or The Elder Scrolls. Those have a history and reviewers come in with biases and preconceptions.

But being an all new IP in a modern era where sprawling open worlds are almost a dime a dozen? Yeah, it might be rough if it isn’t polished.
 

GenericUser

Member
I don't care what the reviewers will say. I'm gonna buy it anyway, day one of course. If it's bad, I'm gonna be the first to talk shit about the game, but I have faith in Todd Howard. Even his worst games were still "good" in my opinion.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Bugs will deduct a few points (rightly so), but bugs alone won't push Starfield to oblivion.

However, if they haven't improved the game since last year's showing (like Redfall wasn't improved), and it comes out in a similar state, then yes. In that case, reviewers will be within their rights to assign a bad score to the game.
 

Nydius

Member
Yes because reviewers are known to be critical of performance. Cyberpunk reviewed really well
at launch and was a mess.
See also: Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

If they actually did their job and reviewed the performance (rather than the potential) of the game, it wouldn’t be scored so highly.

I don't care what the reviewers will say. I'm gonna buy it anyway
If that ancient rumor about a collectors edition with a damn Casio G-Shock looking smart watch ends up being true, I might damn well buy it just for that
 
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Rac3r

Member


Seriously though, no studio should get a pass when it comes to performance. The response to Redfall was appropriate, and Jedi Survivor should have been dragged a bit more. As for Starfield, I'll reserve judgement until the official release.
 
Their main RPGs always score well. I guess we'll find out in a few months.

Metacritic:
Oblivion: 94%
Fallout 3: 93%
Skyrim: 96%
Fallout 4: 88%

FWIW the open-world WRPG genre was a lot less competitive back when Oblivion (which had the added benefit of being a launch-window or 1st-gen 360 game) and Fallout 3, even Skyrim were released. Not just that but open-world games in general weren't as competitive or advanced across the board so it helped Bethesda's games stand out better.

Expectations for open-world games and AAA games in general (certainly open-world ones) have gone up dramatically since Skyrim's release and I don't know if Starfield can meet those demands and expectations in today's market comfortably, but we'll see.

There's a reason Skyrim has been remastered and rereleased 100 times. There's a very special and unique game under there. It was able to draw you into it.

If it can do that... People will accept the bugs.

If it can't.... they're screwed and frankly so are we... because it's really the only game this year that has the potential to be something that special.

Gonna have to Press F To Doubt on that one.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Member
Bethesda games got lots of bugs and glitches so when they have the launch I bets that reviewers are going to nuke it to the stone age.

I love their games though hope it does well.
If we learned anything about game reviews it’s that all the bugs and technical performance count for 0.1-0.2 off the game score, not more.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Or you could just enjoy the, what dose it matter what other reviewers say? If you are familiar with Bethesda games then you already the game might have buggy launch.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I don’t know about that. I think, if it’s good/ambitious enough, most will look past performance issues (as long as it doesn’t entirely crash/break the game).
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Their main RPGs always score well. I guess we'll find out in a few months.

Metacritic:
Oblivion: 94%
Fallout 3: 93%
Skyrim: 96%
Fallout 4: 88%
Big drop in the newest one. Reviewers expect more polish nowsadays.

I only cares if the gameplay is fun not about these reviews just want sales to be good.

oh_i_get_it_chris_farley.gif
 

Laptop1991

Member
I agree sadly, younger gamers or reviewers who don't know about the older sp games won't understand the bugs are normal and modders fix them that's if the creation kit is made fully available, i hope so, i am a little concerned if anything has changed with MS in charge
 

kikkis

Member
I just don't see what the draw of starfield is. Picking off shit of the ground to build some spaceship out of prefabs? Moment to moment gameplay doesn't look great and it's not like Bethesda has good track record with it's stories or even delivery.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
There's a lot of amazing games coming out this year, but for some reason I really want this one to be special and succeed. I adore Skyrim and want this to scratch that itch for hundreds of hours of play.

I'm fine with bugs---funny ones. Having to restart the game from bugs is a deal breaker for me though.
I'm fine with "ok/good" gunplay if it makes use of Bethesda's strengths of showcasing limbs and slow mo.
I'm fine with "ok" visuals if I can get 60FPS on a 3080 without having to tank the game into a blurry mess.

If it flops score wise I hope it's because of bugs/performance because those can be fixed. However, if the game has awful quests, awful gameplay, poor pacing, shit story, etc then none of the polish will matter.
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
Big drop in the newest one. Reviewers expect more polish nowsadays...
Fallout 4 was a noticeable step down from Fallout 3, and lost its focus on role playing. Starfield is a new IP, so doesn't have that kind established identity to buttheads with. What we've seen of Starfield thus far has also already eclipsed Fallout 4 in terms of role playing - especially the dialogue system. I'm not seeing anything from Starfield so far that makes me think somehow Bethesda has a dud on their hands. Will it be as good as Xbox so desperately needs to be (i.e., Halo: Combat Evolved on the OG Xbox levels of perfection) ? Not a chance. But I expect it'll still be a rock-solid game well worth enjoying.
 

Hydroxy

Member
I don't think so. Bethesda has enough money to pay to big review sites like IGN etc to give good reviews even if the game is extremely poor performance at launch as they gave jedi survivor 9 as well.
 

damidu

Member
i agree, game is coming in kind of perfect storm, where everyone is sick of broken releases
and its not ps3 gen anymore where ~20 fps bethesda jank can cut it.
expecting it to get more heat if it launches like a standard bethesda bug-fest
 
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Soodanim

Member
What are you admitting? That you think reviewers are going to review a game you've not played poorly?

I feel like I'm missing something here.
 

b0uncyfr0

Member
As they should - if it's a shit game.

No one gets to skate free. If you release a game in a shitty state; you will be roasted. It should *always* be like that.
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
I just don't see what the draw of starfield is. Picking off shit of the ground to build some spaceship out of prefabs? Moment to moment gameplay doesn't look great and it's not like Bethesda has good track record with it's stories or even delivery.
Skyrim on space. If this does not work, think Star Citizen but with depth. If this is still not enough, imagine Mass effect as a real RPG.
 

ABnormal

Member
Uhmm. Depends really. If underneath the bugs is a solid game then it'll still have good reviews like Jedi Survivor.
We can be pretty much sure that the game's structure will be good (they have experience on that, and they can't worsen something that works well). Bugs and other things have to be confirmed. A year delay surely helped.
 

ProtoByte

Member
Bugs aside, the game looks terribly bland
That's what gets me about the surprise around Redfall. The game always looked bad. It never looked like it had good graphics, sharp gameplay or good design fundamentals.

For a new IP, Starfield just looks like a space skinned rehash of the same game they've been producing for years.
 

SABRE220

Member
Honestly reviewers dont give two shits about bugs, performance etc, they might give it a glancing mention but it wont influcence their review really. As long as the game is decent not even great it will review well....we just had redfall release with broken skating animations and the worst ai in history and it got 7/10s from alot of reviewers.....game journalism is hilarious.

Honestly I hope the game is great, Microsoft needs a banger its been extremely dissapointing the last few years but honestly it looks pretty bland so far hoping its not a nomans sky.
 
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Damigos

Member
Everything that is happening with Redfall and with huge studios in general is an unfortunate reality of our times. The real innovation is happening in the indie scene and i ve enjoyed indies so much more than triple AAA games.
Unfortunately i have to add the incompetence of MS to handle titles with huge budgets and production or take advantage of their IPs. Halo Infinite and Redfall are only the most recent examples. The fact that you cant even buy Forza Motorsport or that the exclusive games included in GP all have some kind of mtx or season passes doesnt help.
MS needs to better handle the quality of games from their studios. If they "can get away with it" more will follow and it will be bad for us. Competition is good, quality is even better. Delayed games can eventually become good, bad games will forever be bad.
So yes, reviewers will probably be strict when reviewing Starfall, and they should be. And they should also be strict when reviewing every other game.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Bugs only count if it's a Sony game, really. See how Elden Ring got a massive, fat pass with all the issues it had. Also The Witcher 3 was one of the buggiest games ever. But for Days Gone and other games it should be made in the heavens with no bugs compared to other studios/publishers.
 

SeraphJan

Member
Review Score doesn't objectively defines the quality of a game, If I want buying guide I'll would see some footage or detailed text. If I want to define its actually quality, the only way is to experience it myself.

People like to argue the objective quality of their beloved game over another game based on numeric score system, or how many Award a game gets. The thing is these are all just perspectives, if the critic perspective truly are the deciding factor over a games objective quality due to them being professional, then what about the game designers themselves or its quality assurance team, aren't they suppose to be more professional then just some writer that never made a video game him/herself, then why does the latter have rights to deny the former? Critic are only professional in their own rule, but their rule itself were never tested and challenged, unlike other fields, in this context there is no evidence to support that their way is superior even to the combine opinion of the players.
 
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Soodanim

Member
Bugs only count if it's a Sony game, really. See how Elden Ring got a massive, fat pass with all the issues it had. Also The Witcher 3 was one of the buggiest games ever. But for Days Gone and other games it should be made in the heavens with no bugs compared to other studios/publishers.
❌

Fuck the childish console warring pity parties. The quality of a game is directly proportional to the amount of shit people will put up with. Elden Ring was GOTY quality so people pushed through. Witcher 3 was a huge hit, so people stuck around despite flaws. Cyberpunk was hugely anticipated and fucked it up entirely. Bethesda is the king of having games good enough to put up with flaws--it's their entire business model.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
❌

Fuck the childish console warring pity parties. The quality of a game is directly proportional to the amount of shit people will put up with. Elden Ring was GOTY quality so people pushed through. Witcher 3 was a huge hit, so people stuck around despite flaws. Cyberpunk was hugely anticipated and fucked it up entirely. Bethesda is the king of having games good enough to put up with flaws--it's their entire business model.

You just don't wanna accept it but it's true. Sony games get heavily criticized for being less than perfect while most other games get a pass. Also Sony games are the gold standard when it comes to solid final products with minimal bugs. I loved The Witcher 3 and it was my best game of all time, but such bugs shouldn't get a pass for any game or all games should be treated equally.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
I don’t think they’re going to purposely attack it but I do think it will have a harder hill to climb because it’s not Fallout or The Elder Scrolls. Those have a history and reviewers come in with biases and preconceptions.

But being an all new IP in a modern era where sprawling open worlds are almost a dime a dozen? Yeah, it might be rough if it isn’t polished.
This is the reason why I don't get why is it considered a "big release", it's a game nobody knows nothing about, it's a new IP, but we can hope it's good and does well so it can become in something big in the next entry
 
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