I had really high hopes for this game. I love Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and was really excited for this one. Unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations. I expect more heart and creativity out of Bethesda.
Pros:
- Exploring the sol system
- Spaceship builder
- Will likely get better with mods
- Smuggling
- Massive, with tons of content (in many ways this is also a con)
- Well balanced currency and skills
- Takes a while to get rich, but not unachievable or excessively grindy
- Takes a while to level up and get the perks you want, but very achievable
- Gunplay is very solid
- Especially with the more advanced weapons
- Satisfying kills and physics
- Lots of freedom to explore and go at your own pace
- Crafting system
Cons:
- Story was lackluster
- A few interesting ideas, but a little too slow. I did mildly enjoy the last 30% of it or so.
- Lacked urgency.
- A lot of go here and then here and then here, without much happening anywhere.
- Missing an X Factor.
- To me, it all just felt focus-grouped or something. Tried to please everyone, took no risks. Felt a bit generic and empty.
- Graphics
- For being that demanding I felt like the graphics were pretty underwhelming. Lods were terrible, water was thick and plasticy. Environments were under detailed.
- Exploring got old too quickly
- After a while, everything just felt copy and pasted. No single planet had much of any depth or substance.
- Flora, Fauna, caves, features, bases, everything just started getting repetitive. Copy and paste. Needed greater variety.
- Companions
- Only 4 real choices, and in my view none of them are overly interesting. There are a lot of randos that can join you, and the robot, but they are even less interesting
- Useless in combat
- Can’t give them commands, they get in your way, they don’t do meaningful damage
- Feel the need to involve themselves in every conversation. It usually comes off as unnecessary commentary. Every time I just thought “Okay... So anyways…”
- Frequently want to talk to you no matter what you’re doing. Pretty annoying to be constantly pestered during intense story missions. “If you are free soon, can we talk”. Excuse me, I’m kind of in a life or death struggle here.
- Romances felt really awkward and unnatural
- Stiff and lifeless NPCs
- Cities felt kind of dead and robotic
- A whole bunch of little things that add up
- Every time you edit your ship, everything placed on the ship is moved to cargo. Makes decorating your ship pointless unless you never plan to upgrade it again.
- Why is there so much civilization on every single planet, on every single landing spot, with ships constantly landing? I would expect the galaxy to be a lot more empty. It's not like the copy and paste bases were that exciting anyway. I think an outpost every 4 to 5 landing spots would have been a lot more immersive and bases and things would be more interesting
- Frequently presented with no good dialog choices
- I found there to be a lack of good clothing/space suit options
- Achievements were disabled because I had to use console commands to advance a broken quest
- I could go on and on…
Nitpickey:
- Scientific inaccuracies
- No explanation for atmospheric pressure.
- Gravity when walking/running
- Sun looked the same on every planet, no matter the type of star or astronomical distance
- Distant planets are also too bright
- Would have liked more stats for nerds
- AU from star, circumference, detailed atmosphere composition, world descriptions, etc.
- Very buggy. Some were quest-breaking, but most were pretty minor.
- Never felt any motivation to work on outposts
Rating:
- Story **** 4/10
- Gameplay ******* 7/10
- Atmosphere ******* 7/10
- Overall ****** 6/10
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- Story (characters, narrative, depth, pace, role playing)
- Gameplay (mechanics, fun factor, level design)
- Atmosphere (graphics, environment, mood)