Recent reviews by CactusClimber

A phenomenal single-player, open-world FPS with a focus on floaty movement. This game does pretty much everything right -- good visuals, a varied world to explore with a variety of arenas, weapon variety, and good music.

Some sections of the game are a little jank, but that's a small price to pay for one of the most tightly-focused FPS games I've played in a while. It doesn't overstay it's welcome, either! There's a good variety of fights and puzzles without becoming obnoxious (cough cough, Ubisoft). Real standouts in the game are the final sequence and post-game challenges.

It's clear the developers put their soul into this game. Well worth the time to 100%; I look forward to what these developers put out next.

Starfield is an aggressively mediocre game. My playtime may be decently high, but I'd still not recommend this game in its current state. The start of the game does show some promise, and there are glimmers of a more interesting game under the surface. Even so, the game isn't worth it right now.

Before I get to some negatives, here's some things I liked about the game:

• Shipbuilding -- The freedom Starfield allows to customize and create your ship is welcome. The system isn't perfect, and there are some strange limitations and design choices in place. Even so, the system is nice.
• Aesthetics -- I love the overall aesthetics of the game. There's a clear art direction and the novelty of the "NASA-punk" is nice to look at.

That's about it. Here's some, but not all, of my gripes with the game:

• Writing/Quests -- The writing in the game is too often bland, uninspired, and unwilling to take any chances. Many quests lack stakes, feature characters who act in a phenomenally dumb manner, or with confusing motivations. Some quests have interesting ideas, but feel neutered and written by someone who hasn't gone outside (Crimson fleet). Others make no sense (Freestar Rangers). Quests don't need to be edgy to be interesting, but this game's quests commit the cardinal sin of boring me to tears. Many quests also waste interesting potential -- anyone who has done the "Red Mile" quest knows this far too well...
• Dialogue Choices -- Dialogue choices in this game boil down to "Goody two-shoes", "obnoxious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥", and "haha funny". There is no middle ground or variation, and it gets old fast. The persuasion system in this game also boils down to pure chance (as far as I can tell), removing any interesting choices about which dialogue would be "best" aside from the risk of the option.
• Weapons/Loot -- The loot system in this game feels fundamentally broken. There is no clear indicator to how powerful various equipment is, and there is far too much "worthless" loot once you have a decent loadout. Rarity also seems to not have much of an effect, since all rarity does is add random buffs which are (mostly) worthless. Many weapons and drops (especially melee weapons) are a waste of space. Food in the game is also entirely useless unless you spec hard into a mostly worthless skill tree. Unique weapons, which could have at least salvaged this system, are merely named versions of existing weapons with no additional buffs or incentive to use the items, making them feel worthless, especially if you already have more powerful items... Few things feel worse in this game than to finish a quest, get a unique weapon, and see that it is already obsolete compared to an identical-looking weapon you already own.
• Repeated Content -- Far too many locations in the game (randomly generated, mostly), pull from a too-small pool of options for layouts. Although there are a decent number of handcrafted locations, these are too far and few between. The base locations that are used "randomly" repeat far too much, and ruin some of the magic in the game. It sucks to land on a planet, see a POI of a lab, only to see it is the exact same layout as 3 other labs you've encountered in the same system.
• Worthless Skills -- Most of the skill tree is worthless and/or broken. The fact I need to look at external guides to figure out what skills do and whether they even work is unacceptable. You can't respec without mods, further exacerbating this issue.
• Vestigial Systems -- There are far too many systems in the game without a clear purpose that were clearly scrapped during development. I understand game development isn't pretty, and not every idea works out. Why, then, are these systems still in the game? There are far too many of these systems -- He-3, status effects (which don't even make sense when you're wearing a spacesuit), most of the outpost system, etc. The fact these half-baked systems are still in the game, for some reason, is baffling.
• UI Design -- The UI is interesting, and I like some of the animations and flair. Not every UI needs to be fast to be good. However, most actions in the game take far too many clicks and are buried under too many menus.

Ultimately, Starfield feels like a game full of wasted potential. There are neat ideas at play here, and settings/scenarios which are in theory cool, but the execution is amateurish at best. Neon, the "dark underbelly" of the game, feels like a censored self-parody of itself. Starfield doesn't exist in a vacuum, either -- when the game is compared to contemporaries, its glaring weaknesses in gameplay and writing are readily apparent.

Even with all this, I initially had some fun with the game. But my enjoyment slowly faded as I played through the copy-pasted content, bland quests, and shoddy writing. Eventually, after a major quest which tried to shake up the formula, when the Starborn kills a companion, I realized I didn't care anymore. The "big quest" had terrible writing, felt like it had no stakes, and I felt nothing after the quest concluded. From my point of view, the "wheels fell off", and I realized I had no desire to play the game anymore... I haven't played the game, or even had a desire to play the game, since.

Maybe I'll come back if mods fix the game, since Bethesda seems wholly incapable of fixing their games themselves. However, I'm not holding my breath.

Risk of Rain 2 is phenomenal, and somehow manages to translate the great combat and mechanics from the first game into a 3D format. The music is great, the characters are fun, and, most importantly, the multiplayer actually works.

10/10 would die again.