Games Inbox: Is Starfield a good game?

The Wednesday letters page agrees with the backlash against Nvidia’s DLSS 5 tech, as one reader wonders why Öoo was never in the UK Indie World.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

No star review
So the inevitable has finally happened and Starfield is coming to PlayStation 5 (but not Switch 2, for some reason, I noticed). As someone that has played the game on PC I would say now that it is not something to get excited about. I have no idea what the new story DLC will be but the problems with the game are so deep it’s literally impossible for it to fix it.

I really resent that game. It tied up Bethesda for years and is going to lead to something like a 20 year gap between Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls 6. 20 years! And the only other proper game they’ve made since then is Fallout 4. People talk about Sony wasting a generation, but Bethesda has wasted two. Skyrim was an Xbox 360 game, for pity’s sake!

The worst thing is that thanks to Skyrim I have little faith in The Elder Scrolls 6 being worth the wait. Starfield has a shopping list of problems but one of the main ones is that it’s so old-fashioned. The dialogue system, the AI for companions, and the way towns work is almost exactly the same as Skyrim.

And then the one thing you’d want to be the same as Skyrim – the exploration and open world design – is completely missing. Instead of getting an amazing open world with a secret around every corner you get an infinite collection of identikit, randomly generated planets that are about as interesting to explore as Milton Keynes on a Sunday. So no, I would not recommend Starfield to any PlayStation owners.
Korbie

Consumer backlash
GC always says the best way to stay positive about the games industry is to just go away and play some new games. That’s true but the other thing that gives me hope is how the majority of gamers are anti-AI, much more than you would expect of a hobby where technology is so important.

This Nvidia DLSS 5 tech is horrendous and emphasises the fact that AI is attempting the death of art. As if it wasn’t bad enough that all AI artwork looks the same, and it is everywhere because it’s so easy to make, now games have to look like it as well. The levels of uncanny valley are off the scale, while there’s no consistency of any kind (Grace doesn’t look anything like herself in AI-o-vision) and the lighting is terrible – like the game is constantly shining a high-powered spotlight at the screen.

As usual with AI, it’s all a solution to a problem that doesn’t actually exist and as usual I imagine Nvidia and other companies will respond to the intense, and very clear, negative reaction by… doubling down on it all and blaming gamers for not liking it. I don’t know about PlayStation 6 but it is very obvious that the next gen Xbox is going to do nonsense like this and I’m already sick of it.
Zeiss

Ugly future
That Nvidia DLSS 5 stuff is so ugly, I can’t believe anyone involved thought it was a good idea. Do they not have eyes? Digital Foundry is getting so much grief for being positive about it and I can’t say they don’t deserve it.

What makes me laugh about all the comparison images is that the only game that looks halfway decent is Starfield, and that’s because it already had a bland art style with dead-eyed characters, so adding an AI filter of exactly that didn’t make it any worse.

The Resident Evil Requiem shots are laughable though and the idea of video game graphics no longer being what the developer intended but some on-the-fly guessing game made up by the AI is disgusting to me. The future sucks.
Focus

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Secret mode
I love seeing the difference between how other companies show off their new products and updates and what Nintendo does. We get a big blog post and lots of details from Sony about their PSSR tech. Then we get some kind of preview blow-out from Nvidia about their AI thing, which seems to have blown up in their face. And then for Nintendo and their boost mode… they keep it a secret and don’t tell anyone.

I only found out about it from the news reports but giving it a quick twirl it does actually seem quite good. You can definitely see the difference it makes and that’s pretty rare in these instances, in my experience.

Now all we need is an annoucement for that ‘proper’ Nintendo Direct we’re all waiting for. Which could take place anywhere from tomorrow to December. Because it’s Nintendo and who knows what they’re ever thinking.
St1nger

Improved formula
Am I missing something? All Resident Evil bosses are just run around, pop off a few shots, rinse and repeat. Not played Requiem yet but I can’t imagine it’s much different. Not that this is a bad thing but it is part of the formula.

I’m saying this as a massive fan too, but I love the games as an overall experience, in spite of the boss fights usually.
Bobwallett

GC: You are missing that… maybe that part of the formula should be changed?

Spore reproduction
I was thinking of old games that never got a sequel or modern day equivalent and I remembered Spore, which at the time it came out I was kind of obsessed with. For those that don’t know it was by the creator of SimCity and The Sims, so it was a big deal at the time, and was about controlling a species from microscopic organisms to space-faring aliens.

That sounded great in theory but in reality it was just half a dozen minigames that weren’t that great. However, the creature designer was amazing and I had hours and hours of fun creating my own creatures and messing around the editor. It was the only thing at the time better than the WWE creator-a-wrestler.

I think it was a flop, so there was no sequel at the time and to be honest I haven’t heard anyone talk about it in years. I do feel it’s the sort of thing that could do very well today with an update though, as, to me at least, it was basically the Minecraft of its day in terms of you ignoring what the game was actually about and making your own stuff.

One of the big ideas was that the things you designed in the earlier eras carried through to the later ones but that wasn’t really very obvious when you played so I would focus more on that and making it more one game with the same controls rather than a bunch of separate ones. Civilization takes place over thousands of years but it’s still the same game, so something like that.

It couldn’t be an official sequel though, because it was by EA and I don’t see any chance they’d approve anything like that.
Sandlow

Nothing like it
Thanks for the review of Öoo. I had never heard of this game until now and I don’t understand why it wasn’t in the UK Indie World. Surely the whole point of them is to highlight games just like this?

Given the low price I have bought it already and look forward to playing it tonight. I love seeing how unusual and imaginative indie games can be, compared to big budget games. Don’t get me wrong, I love myself a blockbuster, if it’s well done, but even something like Resident Evil Requiem is getting criticised for being original. That doesn’t seem to be a problem for Öoo.
Royston

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Prehistoric gaming
RE: Grackle and Mickah. Having just turned 50, and been around games since I can remember, I have some very old gaming first memories. I think the very earliest one would have been Escape for the ZX Spectrum – a simple maze game where you had to find a key to ‘escape’, avoiding dinosaurs as you ran around the map.

I also remember playing Gorf in the arcades around the same time, whilst on a family holiday to Swanage, and being amazed when my brother told me it was the word frog spelled backwards! (Well, I was only six at the time.)

I’ll try and find the time to turn this into a Reader’s Feature as I’m pretty sure I can remember the first game I played on many formats, including Spike on the Vectrex, Shadow Of The Beast on the Amiga, Pac-Land on the Commodore 64, and Cuthbert Goes Walkabout on the Dragon 32.

Good memories, good times.
Jonathan Foley
Currently playing: Horace (Switch) and Virtual Boy (Switch 2)

GC: We look forward to that Reader’s Feature.

Inbox also-rans
So this Clunkin’ Bell restaurant hasn’t even opened yet? We’re getting leaks and rumours about GTA knock-off restaurants but nothing about the actual game? That about says it all.
Mentz

I’m sorry but if DLSS 5 or anything like it is part of the PlayStation 6 then that’s it for me as far as gaming is concerned. These artless, cynical tech bros trying to destroy art, just because they can’t make it, is revolting to me.
Devo

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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