Space Simulations – Page 2

Starfield and Vehicles: Pros and Cons

In the above image, a vehicle in Starfield is clearly visible. I saw this vehicle in one of the random settlements that appear in the game. It is clear that we can have vehicles in Starfield, but should they just be props in the game or should they be something more? That is the question here in this entry.

The issue that many people have with Starfield is that the game does not have vehicles that the player can use. This has been a sticking point for many players, especially those on Steam, who are a very active minority who are constantly trying to critique this game. Those who are more generous to the game tend to congregate on Reddit. While there are many complaints that abound about this game, it is clear that the game has one particular issue that people have been clamoring about for many months. That issue is the inclusion of ground vehicles into the game. As of right now, it seems the game is simply too big for one player to handle. This is of course, the complaints of a certain group of players, who want the game to be more like Skyrim. However, Starfield is a new game and people should respect that.

The man behind the game, Todd Howard, was probably right in saying that they didn’t need ground vehicles in the game. The game is just not designed in that way. Currently, a lot of planets in Starfield have tons of foliage in them. This is great aspect of Starfield and truly separates it from older games. The older games usually had variations on a color, rather than being planets with multiple biomes. The inclusion of multiple regions on these planets makes them more interesting and allow for great amounts of player interaction with those areas. However, many players have been complaining that these procedurally generated planets are simply too big in size.

The issue of size when it comes to the vehicle question in Starfield is an interesting one. We have a game that more variety in its environment than most video games on the market. You can have snowy forests and also tropical ones. There are also barren planets that are mostly one biome and others that have incredible savannas and gorgeous coastlines. However, Starfield is something of a victim of what is known in the video game industry as feature creep. It seems that Bethesda was more interested in throwing everything at this game than being conservative and making a more traditional game. Of course, this is the studio that made The Elder Scrolls Arena in 1994; they are known for being experimental and ambitious. I believe that makes Starfield a truly unique game. It is not just trying to be a traditional game but something that you truly live in as another character.

However, that means playability is an issue with those who just want an experience that does not require tons of effort and investment.

I think that the main issue with vehicles in Starfield is that the planets are largely made by computer not the human. The plants, animals, and buildings were all made by human hands, but the way that they are represented in the world is done by the computer. To have vehicles in Starfield would mean that the game would have to change the way that environments are made in the game. The game’s environments are not built around having vehicles in the game. There are tons of areas on Jemison for example, that are full of foliage, and I believe the team at Bethesda was not going to spend time trying to program many physics into this game. The vehicles that would be in this game would collide with these trees and even animals and that takes a lot of time to program correctly. They obviously wouldn’t want the vehicles clipping through the environment as this game is pretty high budget. With this game already costing tens of millions of dollars, it is not surprising to me that they decided not to include them. They already were putting many features into the game. Putting in vehicles would have probably put a great strain on their resources.

However, incorporating vehicles would be quite a task in this game that the player uses because they would have to redesign the game and its structure. When you look at the way in which Starfield was marketed to gamers, it is clear that the game was meant to be used by people who are walking on the planets not using vehicles to drive around in the game. A great comparison to make with regards to this issue is Mass Effect, especially the original game, this game, which was made in the mid 2000s by BioWare, and then released out onto consoles in 2007 is one of the most influential science-fiction video games. However, Mass Effect was always advertising the game as something that was made to use the Mako vehicle. This vehicle was highly prominent in how Mass Effect was presented to the public. While the player can walk on these planets, it isn’t the main aspect of how these planets are supposed to be experienced in the game. This way of experiencing planets in Mass Effect would remain consistent throughout the series all the way up to Mass Effect: Andromeda, which did see a change towards a more Starfield style gameplay but was still heavily reliant on the way how it was done in previous games.

Starfield is probably going to have vehicles included in the game at some point. However, I expect that their use will not as freewheeling as one would led to believe. Of course, there will be modders who are going to try their hand at loosening some of the restrictions and make it more like a No Man Sky type game. There are already mods that have allowed for players to free roaming space travel as well moving ships across planets. I believe that inclusion of vehicles will probably stick out like a sore thumb, but I expect that the people making the game will probably do a competent job at trying to implement it into the game. While it may not be the most useful feature in the game, I think that it would add some complexity and help to alleviate some of the issues that players have with this game.

Starfield is too big complaints

Big is necessary for change in the Video Industry, Starfield leads the way in that change.

It has been a very common complaint amongst Starfield players that the game is too big. This is one of the points against Starfield that I just cannot understand. The game was always meant to be large in scope and I find the complaints to be rather petty and lacking in substance. Starfield is a game that was made in the spirit of space trading games of the 1980s such as Elite Dangerous and Space Control but on much grander scale and with 3d visualizations of the planets. People who have played those games would understand what Starfield was doing in comparison with other games such as Skyrim. Unfortunately, because Skyrim sold so many copies, Starfield is literally in the shadow of that great game.

This shadow on Starfield is to its deteriment. There are too many people who just seperate Skyrim from Starfield and instead conflate the concepts of such games together.

Those two games were particularly very popular in the 1980s and 1990s but have since been submerged by titles such as the GTA series and the later Elder Scrolls games. Because of their obscurity, people do not really seem to understand what Starfield is really about. They just think that is a continuation of Skyrim even though that is not entirely the case.

Starfield harkens back to the Space Race

Starfield has an appearance that looks similar to Skyrim but it is really harkening back to those older space trading games. The second generation of video games often had many space games, generally made by the Japanese, such as Space Invaders and many others. Space in video games would be an incredibly important topic because video games grew up in the glow of the Apollo Moon landings and the construction of space stations by America and the Soviet Union. Many of those in the nascent industry were big fans of space even if they did not spend any time working in the actual machine that made the moon landings actually happen. Starfield is really more of a game for Gen X’s than the millennials. It harkens back to the afterglow of the years after Apollo missions.

Starfield isn’t a game that wallows in cynicism.

Starfield has often been compared to Mass Effect and how they differ in the content. I think that people’s reaction to Mass Effect being better than Starfield have to remember that Mass Effect was never particularly a very consistent story. Many players who are criticizing Starfield for being outdated and being too big should understand that Starfield was meant to be an ambitious game. It was not meant to be reliant on old ways of showing space exploration.

Starfield is about compromise and innovation in games

There are not many games that do what Starfield does. While players can complain about Starfield and say that its realism is what messed up the game, I think that it adds to the game’s character. It makes it different from other games. While it may not be the most innovative game ever made, it is getting difficult to truly make an innovative game these days anyway. Bethesda’s structure with its game is reaching an apex with Starfield. However, I believe that Bethesda still has much that it can improve upon this model that it has. The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games have been in state of change since Bethesda has been making them. Starfield is essentially an attempt to combine Elder Scrolls and Fallout together into one package.

The size of Starfield is to be expected from a developer such as Bethesda. They have been making such huge games for many years and they won’t be stopping making those games. The planets in the game are all varied and have a variety of biomes. They could have easily made the game into what we saw with Star Wars, where most of the planets have only one biome. However, the game provides a variety of environments that will help to help to keep the game fresh and interesting.

The main issue with Starfield at the moment is that the planets are either too big or do not have enough content. I think that because this game is so big that players often lose a sense of perspective with such games. I think that Bethesda was aware that this would be case but I think that they understand that criticism is going to happen with these games. They made Arena and Daggerfall so many years ago and Starfield is simply a new version of such a game.

Daggerfall in particular is a very similar game to Starfield in many ways. While the graphics in Starfield are immensely more complex in Starfield, there is a significant connection between these two games. It is the scale. I believe that the scale in Daggerfall was pushing the limits of computer technology in 1996. Starfield is doing the same thing as Daggerfall was in 1996 and I think that over time that the game will gain more respect as time goes on.

I am confident that Bethesda will continue to improve the game and keep the haters at bay and give us something incredible and interesting to play on our computers. I hope that the developers are able to achieve this.

Starfield and the Modding Community in 2025

Starfield has received much criticism for being a boring game. I understand that many gamers have gotten used to certain kind of gameplay since many games are put on assembly lines and put out to the public. The criticisms are stemming from the inability of Bethesda to match up with what is on the assembly line. While the game is some sense is too big to some, this size is important to help flesh out the game’s story and gameplay mechanics. Setting it on one world would have been criticized for being too conservative and making a compromise between small and huge would have been seen as not having a vision. Starfield maybe boring to some but it isn’t to me.

There is great hope I have in the modding community, one of those bastions of the gaming culture that still has creativity and is not just about consuming batches that are given to players in order to placate them with nostalgia hits. As a young man, I have never really given into nostalgia. I think about it, but I do not allow it to control me, which is why I am looking forward to what the modding community has to offer us. Starfield has a great foundation as a game, and I hope that the modders will continue to improve the game. I think that criticism will continue as the gaming community is well known for being outspoken on the internet. This is double-edged sword in many ways, but this community is much livelier and more energetic than other community except for sports communities. However, in comparison to sports communities, gamers are more creative and interesting to engage with than other group of people in my view. That’s why I confident the modding community will continue to enhance this amazing game.