Where oblivion meets fallout 4 and elite dangerous.
In other words: it's the 24th century, humanity has begun the long process of settling the galaxy... and I'm still wandering around looking for ammo, super glue and duct tape. Excuse me; vacuum tape and sealant.
I kid, I kid: I actually do love wandering around collecting crafting materials. Like, seriously; crafting, and modifying my own equipment is literally my jam.
But you're not here for that: let's hit the high points!
Graphics: The game looks good... once you turn of dynamic resolution. The pixels disappear right away when you do that. Yes, even if you set it to the highest resolution. Sure, it suffers from the same thing that all other games suffer from: notably repeating textures, but they are very pretty textures. Also, the environmental filters tend to make most places look piss coloured, but eh, doesn't bother me.
Gunplay: Matches fallout 4 in general. Same level of AI involvement and intelligence. Relatively smooth and flowing; enemies ain't geniuses but take cover, fall back when charged. I liked the gunplay in fallout 4, so absolutely no complaints here... yet. But hey: that's what mods are for.
Now, where this game is more like oblivion than fallout is the cluttered world in which most of the crap you can grab isn't worth it. The set pieces (to date.) are gorgeous, lived in (in both the comfortable and homey way, and the dystopic/post apocalyptic way.) and is generally well done. There's all kinds of lore in individual places which cue you into what happened there, as well as the usual bethesda exemplary environmental story telling... I'm still waiting to run into a terrormorph... actually, dreading it. I doubt my coachman will be enough to stop it. And the skills you spec into actually have an effect in the world at large, giving specials interaction options; speech checks, hacking, combat, crafting. The usual for bethesda but FAR more ingrained and better implemented than in previous offerings. It's actually slower and feels more like an RPG. You aren't in town to JUST unload your inventory: you're seeing what's changed, hunting new missions, looking for new people to talk to. So far anyway, haven't gotten hundreds of hours under my belt yet. I have managed to move some contraband already, but the red flags to the mission only appeared when I pushed through ALL the available conversation options with the dude. I still did it, cause... money. But still.
Space combat is fairly simple: like you would see in a barebones space flight simulator. One gun breaks shields, one works on hulls, and missile for heavy damage. There is a seemingly all encompassing shipyard system, but it seems very based towards end game, and a tooltip made it clear that no ship has more than three weapons. Simple ain't bad though, it's fluid, sometimes hectic, and easy enough to grasp that it's not a bar to the rest of the gameplay. There is also a default pirate faction which you can freely attack at will and no one will blink at it. To whit: I passed a persuasion check with the local pirate leader to get him to stop attacking me and my ship: then noticed there was an explosive barrel behind him and blew his ass up anyway. Got a "nice" space suit out of it.
I am liking it. It's a slower play than like fallout 4, 76, skyrim or ESO. And I don't mean like long to play, I mean like; you aren't feeling rushed. You're doing stuff yeah, you have missions, yeah, but most of them don't have time caps, the ones I've seen are fairly generous, and you don't have the pressure of being the dovakin, the nerevarine, or the sole survivor. Given the nature of gameplay, there are a fair number of load screens: but you can effectively cut them in half through proper use of the game menus.
But it IS a bethesda game, and they are absolute bastards when it comes to monetization. But... I am kinda looking forward to at least SEEING the dlc offerings. If nothing else, in a few years we'll get a remastered edition for free for just owning the game.
I like it, I do. It's scratching all the itches I currently have; all the base building, looting and raiding, space ship fighting desires.
In other words: it's the 24th century, humanity has begun the long process of settling the galaxy... and I'm still wandering around looking for ammo, super glue and duct tape. Excuse me; vacuum tape and sealant.
I kid, I kid: I actually do love wandering around collecting crafting materials. Like, seriously; crafting, and modifying my own equipment is literally my jam.
But you're not here for that: let's hit the high points!
Graphics: The game looks good... once you turn of dynamic resolution. The pixels disappear right away when you do that. Yes, even if you set it to the highest resolution. Sure, it suffers from the same thing that all other games suffer from: notably repeating textures, but they are very pretty textures. Also, the environmental filters tend to make most places look piss coloured, but eh, doesn't bother me.
Gunplay: Matches fallout 4 in general. Same level of AI involvement and intelligence. Relatively smooth and flowing; enemies ain't geniuses but take cover, fall back when charged. I liked the gunplay in fallout 4, so absolutely no complaints here... yet. But hey: that's what mods are for.
Now, where this game is more like oblivion than fallout is the cluttered world in which most of the crap you can grab isn't worth it. The set pieces (to date.) are gorgeous, lived in (in both the comfortable and homey way, and the dystopic/post apocalyptic way.) and is generally well done. There's all kinds of lore in individual places which cue you into what happened there, as well as the usual bethesda exemplary environmental story telling... I'm still waiting to run into a terrormorph... actually, dreading it. I doubt my coachman will be enough to stop it. And the skills you spec into actually have an effect in the world at large, giving specials interaction options; speech checks, hacking, combat, crafting. The usual for bethesda but FAR more ingrained and better implemented than in previous offerings. It's actually slower and feels more like an RPG. You aren't in town to JUST unload your inventory: you're seeing what's changed, hunting new missions, looking for new people to talk to. So far anyway, haven't gotten hundreds of hours under my belt yet. I have managed to move some contraband already, but the red flags to the mission only appeared when I pushed through ALL the available conversation options with the dude. I still did it, cause... money. But still.
Space combat is fairly simple: like you would see in a barebones space flight simulator. One gun breaks shields, one works on hulls, and missile for heavy damage. There is a seemingly all encompassing shipyard system, but it seems very based towards end game, and a tooltip made it clear that no ship has more than three weapons. Simple ain't bad though, it's fluid, sometimes hectic, and easy enough to grasp that it's not a bar to the rest of the gameplay. There is also a default pirate faction which you can freely attack at will and no one will blink at it. To whit: I passed a persuasion check with the local pirate leader to get him to stop attacking me and my ship: then noticed there was an explosive barrel behind him and blew his ass up anyway. Got a "nice" space suit out of it.
I am liking it. It's a slower play than like fallout 4, 76, skyrim or ESO. And I don't mean like long to play, I mean like; you aren't feeling rushed. You're doing stuff yeah, you have missions, yeah, but most of them don't have time caps, the ones I've seen are fairly generous, and you don't have the pressure of being the dovakin, the nerevarine, or the sole survivor. Given the nature of gameplay, there are a fair number of load screens: but you can effectively cut them in half through proper use of the game menus.
But it IS a bethesda game, and they are absolute bastards when it comes to monetization. But... I am kinda looking forward to at least SEEING the dlc offerings. If nothing else, in a few years we'll get a remastered edition for free for just owning the game.
I like it, I do. It's scratching all the itches I currently have; all the base building, looting and raiding, space ship fighting desires.
