MikeKlanin

Good, yet flawed adventure. While most of storytelling, characters, music and graphics are very nice, combat is not great and pacing is uneven, especially in the second half of the game. Still, a very light hearted and pleasing game that gave me moments of simple happiness, which is rarely found in games I usually play

One might see the main problem of this in leaving the series Assassins’ legacy behind and going even closer to just an open-world action-RPG, but in reality the game is just poorly made. The game is definitely bloated with too many badly written quests and uncooked mechanics. And while some aspects of presentation are good, Odyssey leaves an aftertaste of a cheaply made passionless product.

Ever since Morrowind Bethesda has a certain way of making games – they create worlds for players to live in. With every new game these worlds get bigger and fill-up with new things to do, and Starfield is definitely the greatest of them all. Yet, this endless galaxy feels cold, empty and mundane. Bethesda’s approach to questing, “go anywhere, do anything”, while providing the sense of freedom and openness, ultimately leads to player's dissatisfaction, when after hours of playing they decide to stop, because they are simply tired of doing “stuff”. There will never be a truly engaging story moment, a consequence of your decision that will haunt you ten hours later or a noticeable change in the world, because Todd Howard’s game design doesn’t have a place for that. This will always lead to ruined game experience, that leaves a bitter aftertaste of being done with something, rather a feeling of completing something. Just as it was with Fallout 4, Skyrim, Fallout 3 after DLC and Oblivion. But how does Starfield compare to those former games? Shooting is on par with Fallout 4, there is space ship combat, which I found good enough, dialogue system is closer to Fallout 3, yet writing seems to be quite bland, there are some decent quests that might be on the level of good quests from Oblivion, but the vast majority of quests are extremely unimaginative, stories have some good themes - dealings of religion, science and universe are pretty interesting in the age of Webb telescope and planned missions to Moon and Mars – but game's design doesn’t allow for anything truly interesting to be told. And obviously lore is not as deep and detailed as the universes Bethesda has worked for decades on. Overall, Starfield is just another Bethesda game. As any creator, who was praised as an innovator in their youth and continued to perfect their technique, Bethesda has found themselves now, 20 years later, outside the limelight, their style, no matter how well-developed it is, is now outdated, and while some might enjoy this new creation, majority will chuckle at the studio stuck in the past. Presentation - 10/15 Uniqueness - 4/10 Gameplay - 12/25 Story - 15/25 Subjective interest - 15/25 Total - 56/100 P.S. The engine is stuck in the past as well – the only aspect of it that can keep up with modern counterparts is ridiculously high demands and god-awful performance at launch.

Ever since Morrowind Bethesda has a certain way of making games – they create worlds for players to live in. With every new game these worlds get bigger and fill-up with new things to do, and Starfield is definitely the greatest of them all. Yet, this endless galaxy feels cold, empty and mundane. Bethesda’s approach to questing, “go anywhere, do anything”, while providing the sense of freedom and openness, ultimately leads to player's dissatisfaction, when after hours of playing they decide to stop, because they are simply tired of doing “stuff”. There will never be a truly engaging story moment, a consequence of your decision that will haunt you ten hours later or a noticeable change in the world, because Todd Howard’s game design doesn’t have a place for that. This will always lead to ruined game experience, that leaves a bitter aftertaste of being done with something, rather a feeling of completing something. Just as it was with Fallout 4, Skyrim, Fallout 3 after DLC and Oblivion. But how does Starfield compare to those former games? Shooting is on par with Fallout 4, there is space ship combat, which I found good enough, dialogue system is closer to Fallout 3, yet writing seems to be quite bland, there are some decent quests that might be on the level of good quests from Oblivion, but the vast majority of quests are extremely unimaginative, stories have some good themes - dealings of religion, science and universe are pretty interesting in the age of Webb telescope and planned missions to Moon and Mars – but game's design doesn’t allow for anything truly interesting to be told. And obviously lore is not as deep and detailed as the universes Bethesda has worked for decades on. Overall, Starfield is just another Bethesda game. As any creator, who was praised as an innovator in their youth and continued to perfect their technique, Bethesda has found themselves now, 20 years later, outside the limelight, their style, no matter how well-developed it is, is now outdated, and while some might enjoy this new creation, majority will chuckle at the studio stuck in the past. Presentation - 10/15 Uniqueness - 4/10 Gameplay - 12/25 Story - 15/25 Subjective interest - 15/25 Total - 56/100 P.S. The engine is stuck in the past as well – the only aspect of it that can keep up with modern counterparts is ridiculously high demands and god-awful performance at launch.

Dragon’s Dogma is a blend of ideas from different western RPGs combined with some traditional JRPG tropes. The focus of the game is a good combat system with 3 major classes that play differently enough, huge monsters that you can scale and a variety of switchable attacks. Sadly, all other aspects of the game appear dull in comparison and mostly reminded me of the original Neverwinter Nights campaign, and the world felt more like a set of locations for gameplay to happen in – it’s a far cry from what Bethesda’s and Witcher’s players are accustomed to. There are some well-directed moments in cutscenes, but most quests and dialogues are far from impressive. The pawn system isn’t much ahead of Skyrim’s companions, yet customizing your own pawn to fit combat needs of your character and recruiting other player’s pawns felt somewhat new.Overall, Dragon’s Dogma is a journey worth taking – with solid gameplay and a plot that manages to justify it. I was annoyed by constant backtracking due to a very limited fast-travel system and repeating battles, but I still enjoyed the game. Presentation - 10/15 Uniqueness - 8/10 Gameplay - 18/25 Story - 14/25 Subjective interest - 18/25 Total - 68/100 P.S. Must be played with a controller.

Obsidian is an interesting case **** studio receiving a lasting god-like status for just one game, New Vegas, meanwhile most of other games they’ve released are ok at best. Pillars of Eternity II is far cry from glory days. It’s a CRPG that would look good at turn of the century, but manages to be too more-of-the-same and too different at the same time now. It feels dated compared to Divinity and not deep enough compared to Pathfinder, exploration feels generic and the quests are just uninspired. Writing somehow got worse since original Pillars and it shows especially with returning characters, like Eder, humour is more childish and the whole atmosphere is now less grim. Combat is fine, graphics are decent, but sad fact is – competition is killing it right now, while Obsidian continues to put out mediocre new “classics”.Overall, Deadfire is an OK CRPG, it won’t wow you, actually, it will probably annoy you at times, but there is some decent time to be had for anyone craving familiar CRPG gameplay or respects Obsidian’s efforts. Presentation - 9/15 Uniqueness - 2/10 Gameplay - 14/25 Story - 13/25 Subjective interest - 15/25 Total - 53/100