Gaming

Having played the game some last night, the load screens haven't been what's bothering me but if I had to complain it'd be for the menu diving. Tab goes back a page and there are 3-4 levels of map, the city you're in, the planet that's in, the {system?} that's in and the galaxy it all resides in. You can travel to any of them so you can directly land in a city on a planet in its galaxy, or just outside one.

For a little while it was telling me to press R to bring up a system map but I think that's only in certain situations, so I've been pressing tab and selecting map (galaxy) or M for local map (then tab to pull back a menu).

So far there have been other little quirks, like F in scan mode prevents M, L, I, (map, quests, inv) it gets tedious but it's again, trying to nitpick something that stood out as annoying but doesn't actually matter? Like, it minorly affects me but then I press F and continue on my way lol.

I'd say a much bigger oversight is quest streamlining. Without too much in specifics, I was captured via "trait" (I assume) at level 5 put into a level 12 situation. My ship couldn't survive the scenario and I had to pull back to the previous auto save (technically it was 2-3 previous, but only because I tried to win). That situation was also made more annoying due to a bad energy distribution and getting attacked pretty immediately jumping out of hyperdrive, if there was a fight advantage number I'd have been at -7 at least lol.

Rolling back the save was fine though, I didn't continue that quest and will level up some before going back to it. First time I had to do it though and it was a little jarring since you'd expect the game stealing you to put you in relatively level-appropriate scenarios.

Overall I've been enjoying the game though. These gripes are pretty minor overall and I think just a little more information and distance between jumps and being attacked and it was hardly have been an issue. Oh, last thing about information I do wish the shops and certain trade areas had more labeling for like weight or details, I've been making a point to not overloot the raw world but even just enemy encounters fill up your weight fast and sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what is taking it all up.

I played it for the later half of yesterday, so maybe 4-6 hours or so? The main story is a little silly but it's a fine premise so far. People calling it absurd or ridiculous, I just don't see what they'd want instead? The character creator was actually pretty fun with seemingly fairly varied possibilities. One encounter I've come across is a religious cult who are known to openly attack. Well, you can trait to be one of them so hopefully the game plays into that. If it does, I'd say the game is actually going to be quite great. If it does not, then I'd say it's a Bethesda game that could have a little more depth but is also pretty fleshed out for the early game. Like I said, I'm only a few hours in and I've not visited many planets. I've been pleased with the choices I have available, the options I have to complete them, and the results of them even if it didn't succeed the way I had hoped lol. I'll have to see non-settled planets more before I comment on those.

Tl;Dr there's some flow issues that I've encountered, mostly with how many menus and how often, could do with a little more information in some spots and a little less in others but overall it feels like a prettier space Bethesda game and I've been more pleasantly surprised. It's ran well on a 5800x3D and a 10gb 3080 with everything but motion blur on ultra/native with RT/med. Some areas do feel less smooth, but not choppy or anything like that. Just feels like 165hz vs 60+ variable. That said, with the hardware it'd be a shame if it ran poorly.