| Chazore said: Also to note that SF was one of the biggest releases this year, and yet it won nothing at TGA this year, whilst other games, even those smaller ended up winning awards and earning high praise. |
Sorry, this is one of the most dishonest takes I read in recent times. Hogwarts Legacy, Spiderman 2, Diablo IV - all big releases which won nothing at the TGA. The reason is not that they are bad, the reason is that 2023 had more outstanding games than usual.
| Chazore said: The ones I've seen who give praise and don't challenge Beth, have given off impressions that they: Don't care about actual good writing (Many people have proven beth's bad writing for years now). Don't care about the plethora of loading screens. Don't care that this is once again another Beth game releasing with an assload of bugs. Don't care about dated mechanics. Don't care about having or leaving a footprint within the game's world. |
The winner of GOTY in the TGA (and many other GOTY-awards) is Baldur's Gate and has also I think taken home the most awards at the TGA. Baldur's Gate has quite some loading screens, which actually can take some time. It has comparable bugs and glitches to Starfield. And I could vomit every time I read 'dated anything' as a critic about games. In an earlier thread I said Baldur's Gate III is a 90s game at heart and that's why I love it. It uses dated mechanics such as turn-based combat, isometric view, pointing the cursor to your goal and clicking (even with controller) instead of choosing for instance enemies to hit from a menu and controlling a whole party instead of just one character. In a way Baldur's Gate is the most dated game all year, the reason it gets so much praise is that these mechanics are so long out of use, that game journalists have forgotten they once have criticised these mechanics and most recent players probably haven't even played a game before using such mechanics. So most of your points can be levelled at the most praised game of 2023.
This leaves your with two points: good writing and leaving a footprint. Well, I think most games that are coming out of an AAA studio nowadays aren't leaving any footprint and don't intend to. Some of these games won some awards. And writing... this is highly subjective. But I would argue that Starfield's writing beats Mario Wonder and Pikmin 4, both games which got at least *some* awards. I also think good writing is not needed for a good game at all. Silly games or plotless games can be great.
Do you really think these are good points you brought up? I think these are silly points that aren't the result of thinking but about retroactively justifying the decision that you decided Starfield must be bad.
I played Starfield and it made me pick up No Man's Sky again, because I like the more phantastical universe of NMS more than a realistic take like Starfield's. Did Todd Howard overpromise? Sure as hell, but we knew that already, he is Todd Howard after all. I don't think it is a great game. But I cannot understand the hate it is getting. It has no egregious bullshit like microtransactions, battle passes or loot boxes. It is actually a decent game. I can easily name games that are far worse: Forspoken, Immortals of Aveum, Redfall, Gollum, Atomic Heart, Atlas Fallen, Cities Skylines II, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. All this year, many big releases, all easily far worse than Starfield. Starfield got a Metacritic score of 83 and 86 respectively. Not a 90+ score, but definitely a good one.
So why do you think Starfield is really such a bad game? It looks to me like it is just a normal big AAA game, nothing outstanding, but nothing so bad we need to discuss. Why is it singled out? I don't know really, seems like the opportune thing to do.
And please abstain from such massicely dishonest takes like the above quoted, that is more for derailing discussion than the intention of serious additions to the topic.
Last edited by Mnementh - on 29 December 2023
