Jaime Hayes

I'm about 20 hours in, and....boy, I'm conflicted. I've been a die-hard Bethesda fan since Morrowind. Over the last 20 years or so, I've watched Bethesda/Zenimax make some great games. I've watched them make some good games. And I've watched them make some really bad ones. Starfield is pretty. It's gorgeous, actually. It looks good, sounds good, and the presentation is clean. But I have some issues. Namely, that after playing Bethesda games for 20+ years, Starfield is finally the time when it has become apparent that the formula hasn't changed. The engine is just as dated as ever, the mechanics are the same, the core of the game is just...more Bethesda. It's an amalgamation of 20 years of Elder Scrolls and Fallout, combined into a space game that feels strangely similar to The Outer Worlds, Elite, NMS, and Star Citizen in several ways. So in reality, it doesn't even feel totally like a Bethesda game. It feels like a Bethesda game trying to be other games, and not really succeeding at any of it. I'm at the point now where I'm tired of Bethesda not taking any chances. They have followed the formula of, "Play it safe in development, and market the **** out of the game to make up for it," for a long time. And they've gotten away with it purely by the popularity of Elder Scrolls (mainly Skyrim, let's be honest). Bottom line, if you love Bethesda games, then that's what you're going to get with Starfield. Personally, the game hasn't held my interest for longer than an hour at a time. Because every time I boot it up, I feel like I'm playing the same game I was playing 15-20 years ago. It's not a terrible game. It's also not a masterpiece (as several reviews, likely AI or paid reviews, have said). It's a safe game. It's a predictable game. And that is its biggest downfall. However, I'm sure once the modding community has its hands on this for a few years, my opinion will be much different. And that is the sad truth of 20 years of Bethesda games: The players are always the ones who end up saving the games in the end.

Disclaimer: Bought this on PS5 with about 100 hours played. If you're buying GT7 for a single player experience, be prepared to be bored, and probably annoyed. No qualifying, no practice time, no pitting or tire changes, no race strategy, bad AI programming, and poor foresight have led to a very dull single player experience that forces you to start in last place every single race. Most races through the "story" are 5 laps or less, meaning you spend the entire race overtaking. Some races have you trying to make up over 40 seconds of time on the lead car in 3 laps. How do you accomplish this? By upgrading your car until it's laughably more powerful than the rest of the grid (which is really kind of a game-breaking experience). However, this tactic only works until you get to the races that are power restricted. Cars are evenly powered, so there should be qualifying, right? Nope. You're still in last place, every single race. Even in endurance races, by the time you've made it to 2nd place, the 1st place car has an impossible lead on the entire field to make up. It's pretty bold at this point to call GT7 anything close to a "real driving simulator". The game is pretty, the car physics are pretty good, and multiplayer can be fun at times (when people aren't wrecking you because they're mad they can't keep pace), but that's about all the game has going for it. Sadly, it's the most underwhelming GT game I've possibly ever played. From the music to the "campaign", the game excels at losing your interest. Worth it at maybe $20. It's such a shame too; I've enjoyed almost every GT since the original. But this is by far the most unsatisfying racing experience I've ever had in a game. The history lessons on some of the cars are pretty neat though.