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Topic: Starlink: Battle for Atlas

Posts 301 to 320 of 483

Chris77

I'm only a few hours in to this, but it's feels great. Zipping across the surface of a planet reminded me of the old star wars pod racing game nearly 20 years ago.

Chris77

Switch Friend Code: SW-4822-3134-1042 | 3DS Friend Code: 4382-1960-5156 | Nintendo Network ID: Djoser

Quarth

One thing I would’ve loved to seen more of is wildlife, and wildlife that interacts with you more than the few species per planet do (curiously, agressive, etc.).

Edited on by Quarth

Friend code: SW-3941-9887-2293

HobbitGamer

@Chris77 I had the same thoughts! It makes traversing a planet to find everything more satisfying. I think they did a great job with ground movement. From just videos, I was concerned it would feel sort of tank-like. Instead, I get the Arwing dancing like a ballerina during Drake decryptions.

@Quarth I could definitely do with some more wildlife moving about. It's always neat to come across them, but its few and far between, especially when all 3 are grouped together sometimes.

Edited on by HobbitGamer

#MudStrongs

Switch Friend Code: SW-7842-2075-5515 | My Nintendo: HobbitGamr | Nintendo Network ID: HobbitGamr

NEStalgia

This game remains so inexplicably fun. It's not the prettiest thing around. It doesn't have the most sophisticated gameplay. It's highly repetitive, with relatively simplified systems....but darned is it just so fun to do anything.

Overall I hope the IP endures since it's no doubt a total sales bomb on XB/PS1...regardless of Blops4, RDR, Fallout, etc, launching it just after AC:Odyssey alone seems ill advised. They can't be making money on XB/PS. But Switch hopefully saves it as a Switch franchise.

Edited on by NEStalgia

NEStalgia

SwitchForce

Zelda as gets alot of raves but starlink has lesser known but playing open world is the way to go.

SwitchForce

NEStalgia

@Yorumi I kind of agree, but I also think that's kind of an old school mindset either from retro gamers, or RPG/MMO fans in general that tend to like the repetitive loops in gameplay. Modern non-RPG gamers are used to games with tons of variation and "something new to do every 5 minutes". So I think some of that is just preference of the type of gamers that gravitate toward the grindiness of RPGs vs. those that don't.

Ubisoft games have a certain type of repetitiveness of "go to place, do same exact thing many many times." I find it kind of addictively soothing, but there's a lot of opponents of the Ubisoft formula. Starlink is no more or less repetitive than an Assassin's Creed game, though minus the cinematic events. I happen to enjoy AC. And of course AC is now officially and RPG. IIRC The Nintendo page for Starlink lists it as an RPG as a subgenre as well, so the repetition makes total sense here, and why "actiony" type gamers may not be into it. Particularly those looking for the next Starfox rails shooter, or the next Elite Dangerous space sim. In a way the "open world" is just a mask for endless procedural arcade like encounters. So while RDR and Skyrim trains people to expect living, breathing, anything can happen anywhere worlds, the Ubisoft formula is firmly rooted in video game tradition of "repeat loop endlessly, get better, get points/levels/money" and the open world just gives cohesion to that loop.

Starlink isn't terribly cinematic, but it's just crazy fun to play, not to progress a story, not to just "screw around in a sandbox" but because it's fun to go from place to place really really fast, on vehicles with tight controls, across a few varieties of encounters, and shoot stuff with amazingly fast paced, dynamic battles.

I said to someone in another thread it's kind of a cross between the high speed world traversal of Forza Horizon, the fast paced bobbing and weaving gunplay of DOOM (equip the shotgun like piston thing and it feels like a shotgun and imps!), the world/activity design of Assassin's Creed, occasional puzzles, and Freespace thrown in for good measure. It's a streamlined version of half a dozen classics glued into one meaningless but crazy fun package.

NEStalgia

NEStalgia

@Yorumi Cinematics have mass appeal. "Back in our day" most people didn't play games. Nerds played games. Total geeks played games. Those dangerous loners who just must be planning to blow something up played games. And a game selling 100,000 copies was record setting.

Flash forward to today, RDR2 is set to blow 6M copies in a week, destroying most box office hits. Everybody plays games. Why? Because they tapped into the movie going-TV watching public with cinematic interactive entertainment. We call it games, mostly I'd call most of it "interactive entertainment." RDR2 is interesting. It's a world to explore. It's a place to visit. It's definitely interactive entertainment. It's not really much of a video game.

Ubi takes a lot of flak for AC being a movie, or their questionable redundant open world mechanics at times, but IMO they're the only AAA that really struck a balance between presenting an interactive entertainment experience, and offering a proper good old video game. Sony makes playable movies. Rockstar makes....I don't know...virtual experiences? EA and Activision make digital sports, some with guns. Nintendo and Ubi and a variety of Japanese studios still make video games.

I'm not against 'interactive experiences" and "playable movies", I enjoy those too, they have their place, just as watching a movie does. But so many game buyers today are really just movie watchers who like a little interactivity, and people who like arena sports (a.k.a CoD and most shooters) and that's why the industry has grown so much outside the nerds who talk in public about our level 99 earth magic as though we're normal

Starlink is like Mario + Rabbids and Rayman and Child of Light. That part of Ubisoft that still lives in the same past Nintendo does, but with some bigger budget open world AAA flair. It's a game that barely has a story, doesn't try to be a social platform or a casino vendor, and isn't a "sandbox to mess with your friends", but is just a plain old video game to play. Objectives, action, economy, and stats. It won't knock AC:O off any charts or steal thunder from Division 2 (though I will say for the record The Division is actually a really good game as far as online shooters go...at least after they fixed it.) But it's just a game, you load it, you play it, you enjoy the feel of it.

Actually maybe the best way to describe Starlkink is: Far Cry with spaceships. Far Cry is another series that other than select locations lays off the cinematics, and just lets you play the game, and there's always something going on. But Starlink is more fun to play. Fast flying things always makes things more fun.

I can see what some critics mean by repetitive. Doing outpost missions can often have the same pattern of "scan the animal" which never changes, etc. It's MMO-like, and to most non-MMO players MMOs are extremely repetitive, which is why they avoid them. "Repetitive" may not be the best word, but the synonym "MMO-Like objectives" may suit it better. Still, that's misleading. XC1 had MMO-like objectives. This isn't quite that either. What makes it seem more repetitive is the simplicity of tasks like scanning, and the lack of variety in voices/phrases,acknowledgements on returning them. That static-ness comes across as "repetitive." To be fair though, AC1 was lambasted for how repetitive it was and it spawned one of the top 5 franchises in gaming. That's not always a harmful critique.

NEStalgia

NEStalgia

@Yorumi I feel like Ryu may have hacked your account and is writing in your place I'd tag her but she has a big enough backlog without dragging her into Starlink too

It's ironic to look to Starlink for refuge from stupid stories when it's a Saturday Morning cartoon about space magic starring a talking dog, bird, bunny, and frog in space ships But it sets out to be a stupid story by design and then it gets out of your way

Speaking of it being a hard game, I was amazed that the difficult scales from a default of 2 through 5! Not what I expected in a toys 2 life game!

NEStalgia

HobbitGamer

To me the presentation of the story was similar to AC1, in that you know it’s there but if you take your time you’re not getting fussed at. You know what you have to do, but there’s not an artificial sense of urgency forcing you to hurry up and ignore doing other things. The comparison to Far Cry was pretty good. I know I don’t have to get rid of extractors and find all the outpost areas, but the sheer fun of the gameplay makes me want to.
I’m much more impressed of how fun it is than I thought it would be, and I was looking forward to it since the Fox reveal!

#MudStrongs

Switch Friend Code: SW-7842-2075-5515 | My Nintendo: HobbitGamr | Nintendo Network ID: HobbitGamr

SuperWeird

Yep, Starlink feels like Far Cry in outer space with Starfox. That's why it's so awesome.
That and the gameplay is just fantasticly fun. I've put in 36 hours so far and counting.

SuperWeird

Quarth

@NEStalgia #329 Great post!

@HobbitGamer Yeah, all the animal encounters I’ve met so far have just been walking about, minding their own business. Maybe it comes later on, but I would love to see some large dinosaur type of creature trying to attack or something.

@Yorumi Yeah, maybe that could be part of a sequel, though it doesn’t seem as if this game is that big of a success.

Friend code: SW-3941-9887-2293

Ryzaerian

@Quarth

At some point, you’ll probably get the urge to climb out of your ship and punch a Ghoulcrab in the face.

Friend Code: SW-4697-0836-1490

Currently playing: Warframe, Diablo 3, Splatoon 2, Paladins, Zelda: BotW, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Bastion.

“...and we will send you to whatever god you wish.”

JasmineDragon

Seriously, so far the only real disappointment for me is the super simplistic animal behavior. I've been trying to engage with all the animals I've discovered, just trying to see if they programmed ANY kind of behavior into them, and it's been a pretty dull experience. Three kinds of animal per planet, got it. They move around the planet in straight lines, okay. Shoot at them for long enough and they will either do some kind of area effect reaction that disables your ship for a few seconds or drop an item that you can collect, after which they will run away.

It's too bad, because the creatures LOOK very cool. But they only come in one size and they don't do anything! Give me some creatures that hate prospectors and will wreck their outposts, or things that will start following you around. Things that travel in herds or flocks. Things that only come out at night, things that are attracted to ice-based weapons, things that have babies they will protect.

I know it's not the point of the game, but it feels like a big wasted opportunity to me. The planets are beautiful, and I want to do so much more than just flying around shooting at Legion and outlaws. There are already scientists there actually studying the wildlife, for crying out loud!

Switch FC: SW-5152-0041-1364
Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

link3710

@JasmineDragon Yeah, only one planet had animals that were actually interesting, and that's because they'd just attack you before you even noticed they were there sometimes. The rest were just scenery really.

link3710

farrow000

I 100 percent each planet. Had to buy certain weapons to do it though for some of the tower puzzles and to break the pink imps in the wreckages. So annoying having to go out into space every time so planet doesn't get covered in legion.

I cleared one planet went off to do another didn't notice the ship in space as I wasn't looking at the menu when I go to next planet I notice the previous planet been taken over, all that for nothing. Did it all in the end.

farrow000

My Nintendo: SW-3219-1520-3721

Ryzaerian

Finally finished this gem tonight. 60+ hours of playtime.

I really tried to make it last by getting all of the mentor skills and Equinox perks, completing everything on each planet, clearing all of the Outlaw hideouts, and so forth. But, with D3 releasing this Friday, I knew it was time to wrap things up.

I really hope to see some DLC in the future.

Edited on by Ryzaerian

Friend Code: SW-4697-0836-1490

Currently playing: Warframe, Diablo 3, Splatoon 2, Paladins, Zelda: BotW, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Bastion.

“...and we will send you to whatever god you wish.”

HobbitGamer

@Ryzaerian Yep, I’m trying to wrap the story now since I’ve not got much game time next week before Let’s Go launches.
How does the end work? Is it a Mass Effect with a point of no return, or a BotW, or Odyssey? That’ll determine how I approach it. Thanks!

#MudStrongs

Switch Friend Code: SW-7842-2075-5515 | My Nintendo: HobbitGamr | Nintendo Network ID: HobbitGamr

DarkRula

@HobbitGamer The end-game takes place within its own contained area which you'll return from once finished. Everything is still open for exploration afterwards.

DarkRula

3DS Friend Code: 4253-3513-2745 | Nintendo Network ID: DarkRula

HobbitGamer

@DarkRula Fantastic, that's what I was hoping for. 'ppreciate it!

#MudStrongs

Switch Friend Code: SW-7842-2075-5515 | My Nintendo: HobbitGamr | Nintendo Network ID: HobbitGamr

NEStalgia

I unfortunately ahven't touched the game in a while. I made the mistake of buying MHGU on sale last week......hooooo boy that's a big MonHun...... Fantastic game. I miss this though!

NEStalgia

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