Jedi Survivor's performance issues are annoying but I wouldn't call it "unplayable" by any stretch. It depends on how you define it. My definition of that would be either "literally doesn't launch / hard crashes consistently" or "massively fluctuating frametime on appropriate hardware and settings that makes the intended gameplay too difficult to enjoy".
In my experience, it's mostly traversal stutter and TAA ghosting at low frames in the giant hub level which you don't really get during actual combat. I also partially inflicted that on myself by choosing to play on max settings with RT and no FSR. I use a R5 3600, RX 7900XT and 32GB Ram.
Obviously, your mileage and personal tolerances will vary. Definitely consider the refund window and use the big city vistas of the first area to judge if you'll enjoy it at that performance / quality level you choose. The art direction is really good so I think it will hold up on lower settings.
I think from their perspective Tuvok and Neelix weren't "dead", which was why they were more inclined to "correct" the situation at hand and save their crewmates while they still had the chance to do so.
Regardless, it's a fucked up decision, I don't envy it.
I've always wandered if the Captain or other Senior Officer had that idea in their back pocket just waiting for an excuse to use it.
It can be an indicator of post-launch performance. In this case, it performed well at launch but has now stablised like most games do. By my metrics, 30k a day is pretty good at a glance. You'd have to find more actual comparisons to make informed conclusions though, which you sort of find if you go through Forbes' source which is a quote tweet of an article from GamingBolt ( just link the article lmao):
Cyberpunk 2077 may have seen a major new update and a paid expansion, Phantom Liberty, but that was in September. It’s sitting at 23rd in the most-played games chart on Steam, with a 24-hour peak of 36,246. Starfield is currently in 43rd place behind games like Elden Ring, Valheim, Stardew Valley and Terraria.
There are more paragraphs with the same vibe, with the obvious disclaimer that it's on game pass too. But there's a number of other things that would go into an actual performance analysis. e.g, are the "competing" games currently on sale? What other factors affect the current landscape of games played? What do each of these games' numbers look like in the same time period following their launch?
That's the kind of data the publishers have access to and do actual analysis on. I think this reporting is just chasing a trend for engagement. 22 - 30k is not bad for a singleplayer game without mod support (yet) which people will pick up, play, and put down. I don't see anything to indicate it's "in trouble" (we'd probably have heard by now of internal planning changes at Bethesda if that were the case).
It's a good, but flawed game. I got really into it for a month and developed a love/hate relationship with it, but overall enjoyed that time.
That's as somebody who loves sci-fi and got really into building my ship. I was pretty much the target audience so I may have been more willing to immerse myself in it than others would care for.
Also, it was super refreshing to me playing a game where my companions are all in their 30s with a lot of history. It feels quite mature in that sense. Which I guess is why the main story really disappointed me when you get an antagonist who feels like a 12-year old who just discovered the Wikipedia page for Nihilism, but hey ho.
For me it's not so much the travel; the main story tries to sell this idea of exploring the unknown, but literally everything you find is a known quantity in some form or another.
Her response during the motion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFTNSGu_OoQ
I think usage of that particular phrase was probably overkill or an oversight, but I agree with her that criticising the actions of Israel's government is not Antisemitic.
It reminds me of when a trans representative was censured for condemning restrictions on gender-affirming care using the phrase "you will have blood on your hands" and opponents jumped on that to say she was out of line. It gives me a strong impression that their motivations go far beyond the language used, using excessive pedantry as an excuse.
I wouldn't say "more worthwhile". But comparing them (in my personal opinion): Outer Worlds trades variety and scale for a more narratively dense world.
Biggest thing is you get significantly more choice in questlines. Bethesda's approach in Starfield is very railroad-y, almost all the big questlines end up picking between two distinct options while leaving you thinking "you know we could just do a third one, or both depending on the circumstances". They also, outside of maybe one or two circumstances, have zero opportunity for creative player intervention. If it's not explicitly mentioned as a quest objective, it's not an option. e.g. No, you can't use the EM gun on this guy to bring him in and face justice, the objective is to kill him, so you will kill him and his guards too. No, you can't go and talk to your superiors for backup before confronting somebody over a major crime. Stuff like that.
Outer Worlds is like Fallout New Vegas in that the world responds to your actions as well as dialogue choices. Every NPC is killable, and they've written a number of scenarios (some of them absolutely gut wrenching) for killing certain people at certain points. Big quests tend to present two options which both have dire consequences, but by doing other quests, talking to other characters, you can uinlock additional options or improve how things will turn out. e.g. You can uncover an internal power struggle in a faction and help choose its leader, which changes how a peace talk can turn out with another faction.
Outer Worlds also gives you more tangible consequences for your actions, like changing the feel of an early town if you deprive it of power. The epilogue is significantly more detailed than the one Starfield gives you, covering a lot of minor quests and each major character you've interacted with.
None of that is to say though, that Starfield does not have a rich and interesting world with cool characters. I've loved my time with both games and I think SF has more fun combat gameplay, obviously both are similar gun-based RPG games where you mag dump bullet sponge enemies, but hey ho. SF also let me build and fly a ship, go where I want with it and take pretty pictures, which has been a lot of fun. Starfield may have less quest choice, but it offers more variety in what those stories cover, compared to OW's more narrow focus.
I will also say that SF made a pretty bold narrative decision in its main story that I was not expecting from a Bethesda game. Even though I have a love/hate relationship with how it developed after that, and think the moment itself could have been handled better, I still respect it. OW also really hams up the evil corpo humour in ways some people might find annoying and difficult to take seriously.
A measure of worth between the two games really comes down to what you're looking for in a space-themed RPG. Personally, I think they complement each other very well as distinct experiences.
The 24 minute video demo talks a little about this. A big benefit of having the Star Citizen alpha be playable is they've refined the gameplay a lot due to feedback. I think the changes they made these last few years to UX, flight model, combat design etc in S42 are really nice compared to what's currently playable.
For better or worse, they appear to have restarted development on Squadron 42 more than once over the decade. It has absolutely suffered from scope creep, whether that gets us a better game than it would have been in 2016/17 remains to be seen. Though that doesn't necessarily mean the gameplay design is "modern" - the game trades feel and usability for "immersion". It plays clunkily like ARMA, you can see in the video how throwing a grenade requires equipping it first (the "throw grenade" button is more like a macro to equip then throw), for example. They've done a lot of improvements to animation transitions to make the game feel better, but they can't seem to shake the core rigidness of gameplay.
Visually they've obviously done a fantastic job upgrading to modern technical standards combined with stunning art direction, Though again; scope creep, the old visuals would have been great for the time. Gameplay I reckon is still going to be fairly niche, they're marrying a Space Combat game with ARMA style on-foot gameplay, I imagine the broader gaming audience may like one but not the other.
With the feedback they've gotten over the years, it should be a far less clunky experience than it would have been 6 or so years ago. But of course, the standards have changed and the game has only become more of a meme over time, so it's got a lot to prove.
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