I took a walk around the first nice city we get to in Starfield last night. It is quite pretty at night and it was a peaceful walk. I talked to a few people, did some shopping, looked around the Lodge and then I just signed out of the game… I stared at my library thinking about loading up Baldur’s Gate 3, but then I remembered that I’m at a part of it that has me kind of frustrated and I didn’t load it up to play. I’m watching a bunch of gamers I know who are happily immersed in these games and it’s left me  wondering why I’m not.

Sadly, I think it boils down to the UI in each of the games and a few design decisions that annoy me. I think I’m starting to hate vendor trash loot in games. Why not give us fewer but high value things to loot in these games rather than spreading cheap trash at our feet to block the things of real value like resources for crafting?! Or even worse, empty boxes that can be looted (I’m looking at you BG3!).  I feel like time could have been much better spent spreading interesting creatures or POIs around a planet than rolls of toilet paper and trapper keepers. And what is up with not letting me scan things until I’m nose to nose with them?! There are just a few too many little fiddly annoyances that so far haven’t killed my enjoyment of Starfield, but surely haven’t helped me get over my Ennui. 

On a positive note, I do like how my character turned out in the character creator for both games. I see my BG3 character a heck of a lot more than my Starfield character, but going into 3rd person does let me see how she’s dressed. Sadly, it also lets me see how she walks, but we won’t go there while I’m trying to write something positive about her. 

I got really frustrated with the first bit of space combat and looting that we get to do after launching the ship. It definitely didn’t help that I had my hubby hovering over my shoulder trying to be helpful while I was still trying to read where to lock on to something or launch a missile or even SEE the trail on an incoming missile. Hopefully familiarity will breed less stress rather than contempt. I find it strange that futuristic games don’t do more of what Cyberpunk 2077 did, which is give you a high tech simulation rather than just throw you into the thick of things and have you learn on the fly while under fire. I think I enjoyed hacking and stealth in Cyberpunk a lot more because of learning it via simulator before implementing it in the game. 

So yeah, you could say I’m feeling oddly discontented with my latest games. Annoyance and frustration might make me bounce from them for a while, but the good news is that I’ll probably go back and play again later (or not, I never did finish up The Outer Worlds, hmm). No Man’s Sky is one game that I left for a while but have since played many hours of fun, sometimes still annoying, exploration in.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bunch of useless cheap crap to get rid of that I suppose I’ll sell off. I had picked up various loot in the hopes of turning them into useful things like fiber, or recycling in some fashion for crafting. Recycling doesn’t seem to exist in Starfield and weapons with mods in them can’t be taken apart to slot into your weapons of choice. There are some really big gaps in the implementation of this “modern” space game that make it a weirdly dissatisfying amalgamation of a sandbox and space RPG. I mean seriously, you can’t do anything with the vacuum (duct) tape?! Please tell me it has a use.