Starfield: A universe of secrets

Bethesda has presented a massive world of possibilities with their new game Starfield but it is far from perfect Starfield was one of the most anticipated games of this year and rightly so It has been created by Bethesda a company well known for imagining dystopian worlds like those in Skyrim and Fallout Starfield is their new game that incorporates many worlds in the seemingly infinite universe of the gameAt its core it is an RPG game where character development is key to success However like Bethesdarsquos other games this one is full of complicated layers that donrsquot always work well together Letrsquos dive into this creation from the very beginningStarfield begins with your character as a rookie miner exploring the depths of a mine However an incident puts your player in a position where they need to fight to survive and they manage to not only fight off the pirate invaders but also earn some praise in the process This incident ends up with you getting a free Starship under your command and you also get to design your character along the way while attaching attributes and skills to them In fact this game has such deep integrations that I recommend reading about all aspects before setting up your character It should also be said that the first three to four hours of the game can be mindnumbingly slow and you have to go through all of it to get to the good stuffThe main storyline acts as a kind of soft tutorial that you may or may not have to follow but you can quickly progress in the game if you finish the main quests Not to mention level up with skills needed to navigate the hash Starfield world successfullyLike any good RPG the Starfield world is littered with lots of gear and knickknacks Some have a good chunk of change while others are worthless in terms of monetary value This makes having crew members and a vast cargo hold pretty crucial throughout the game Considering it is almost impossible to play the game when encumbered with heavy weights you can over time sell all of these things and earn enough to upgrade gear ships outposts or anything else you desireThe Starfield world is full of quests other than the main ones These quests add hundreds of hours of additional gameplay to the main game You can also join factions including space pirates There are several ways to complete quests as well and these include going around killing everyone or you can persuade people to change their ways or give up something they have You can also go full stealth and steal things Personally I prefer going stealth or persuading but every once in a while it is fun to go in all guns blazing There are of course consequences to each action For instance I ended up killing someone during a quest and the entire base was out for blood I had to reload a previous autosave to avoid that situation since I did not have nearly enough ammo to kill an entire town full of peopleThe autosave however is not the best thing to rely on It almost always saves just after you have done something stupid and then you are stuck in an eternal loop of spawning just to be killed again by angry citizens of the planet You canrsquot even kill all the people on a particular planet people who are key to the storyline donrsquot end up dead only injured To avoid these problems you have to either save your game before doing something stupid or load an autosave from god knows when The moral of the story here is to save before doing something stupidCombat is pretty fun though there are several weapons to choose from From time to time you will discover rare or legendary weapons that will enhance a bunch of stats or deliver unusual damage to the opponents With the drop rate the way it is I also like the fact that this isnrsquot an MMO game where I would eventually have to pay to get something powerful Instead I can just steal it or craft something exceptional Space dogfighting doesnrsquot hit the same level though I found it very difficult to aim and shoot with the Xbox controller It feels like a system that would work well with a keyboard and mouseUnfortunately this game doesnrsquot support keyboard and mouse on the Xbox Another disadvantage of playing on the Xbox is that you cannot cheat in the game There are several cheats available for the PC version but they cannot be accessed on the console and Mods the lifeline for a game like Starfield is also unavailable on the console versionThe universe is huge and while it doesnrsquot compare to the actual universe this one is big enough according to me Though you canrsquot always directly jump to a faraway undiscovered planet travelling between worlds can happen through wormholes I love the wormhole bits from the captainrsquos seat it looks spectacular though after a while I would like the option to skip watching the animation every time I dock undock land or take off from a planet or space station The animations are way too long and not skippableInteractions with the crew and with people during quests are pretty nuanced and the voice acting is very good Some of the animations could be better but it isnrsquot something you will notice after a few hours into the game I absolutely love trying to persuade people The points system for it is well done interestingly there is a mod online that now takes over conversations for the perfect outcome every timeStarfield is rough around the edges but has a lot of potential It is a play that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking to sink a couple of months into a single game If you are willing to do that Starfield is definitely rewarding Needless to say it is in much better shape than Cyberpunk was at launch Starfield is free to install and play if you have a game pass so you might want to hop on that but if this is a game that you will be playing for a few months maybe purchasing it is the best optionStarfieldRating 455Developer Bethesda SoftworksPublisher Bethesda SoftworksPlatform PC XBSPrice Rs 4999