Alanah, Gene and Andy together? This is going to be an amazing time!

I'll count this as an KF/CLS collab

Gene is a gem of this industry. Love his approach to reviews.

Like most, I was initially a little disappointed this wasn't a true space Sim with more Elder Scrolls exploration.. but 20 hours in, I'm absolutely in love. It is a captivating, thoughtful, gorgeous game in so many ways. The stories are enthralling and I'm deeply invested in many of the characters and quests. It's not a perfect game- but the way I'm absolutely enjoying it- easily more than anything since RDR2, makes it a 10/10 game for me. I will easily spend hundreds of hours playing this game. It's amazing.

30 hours in, it's awesome. A Bethesda game through and through. Not the most next gen that exists but boy it's fun. A total 10/10 for me.

So happy to see that Andy loves it! For some reason I thought it would bounce off of him, or just be lukewarm

I love Gene Park. My fav game journalist.

This game is growing on me big time. “You haven’t meet Vlad?” “You can lean” yep….that’s sums up the game. Zero hand holding but it’s so intriguing. I appreciate the perspective on the game play styles, can’t wait to captain a ship and blow shit up!!

3-4 hours in hit mars, and was solar hopping and randomly got hailed, i was going to ignore but decided to hail them back, the ship thought i was someone else and asked me to investigate what is happening on this certain research planet. turns out the get invaded for spacers. and now i am apparently helping these scientists all due to a ship accidently thinking i was some one else lol.

It's criminal how good this game is. As someone who loves space, love's RPG's, and 10 years ago would consistently think "I wish there was a game where i could chart the stars, land on whatever planet I wanted to, experience different planets cultures, complete quests". Played the mass effects and loved them, however space always felt secondary and just acted as a backdrop to travel from planet to planet w/ no actual space flight, therefore not scratching my itch for freeform spaceflight mixed w/ the freedom of an RPG. Got elite dangerous on xbox back when the planetary landing update came out and loved it, but it has it's limitations as your character was basically the ship and the planets you could land on were super limited and had nothing at all on them. However this was the first game that scratched a bit of my vision's itch and i loved it despite it not doing everything i wanted it to do. Then NMS comes to xbox and i spend hours upon hours into it. A game that finally gave me the feeling of boundless space exploration and discovery, however it lacked a true purpose, didn't have developed cities with their own different cultures, and had no real stories. It damn near did everything I wanted in a space game besides making the universe feel lived w/ stories, quests, and roleplaying. It was clear that what I wanted was an full blown RPG set in space on a much larger scale than mass effect.. Starfield.... Starfield is quite literally the space game I've always wanted. It's gorgeous on my high end PC, has everything that I wanted 10 years ago in a space game, and truly gives you an extremely immersive RPG in space experience. Is it perfect? No, but what game is? It's damn near perfect for me though. Im 30 hours in, loving it to death, and I see myself putting 100's of hours a single playthrough alone and another 100 if no 1000's of hours into a 2nd playthrough when the modding community starts realeasing meaty content and taking advantage of a vast universe ripe for mods. The possibilites w/ this game are endless.

I’ve only played around 3 - 4 hrs and I’m loving the game. I bought myself a Series X just to play Starfield and I don’t regret it.

I love no man’s sky. I’m glad that Starfield is it’s own thing. Will continue to play NMS alongside Starfield

That's one of the greatest strengths of Starfield - pretty much any playstyle you would want in open world space opera is not only available, it is viable. Say you want to play straight up explorer? Sure, there is decent XP and credits to be made just from scanning and surveying planets, then selling the survey data. You want to be pirate? Check. Space trucker? Check. Bounty hunter? Check. Security force? Be my guest. Speaking of Mass Effect comparison, Starfield is what Mass Effect Andromeda should've been.

Many might not know this but when you're flying your ship in 3rd person view, if you click the mouse wheel and move your mouse it goes into a free-cam view that allows you to rotate the camera all around the ship. It's a great way to admire your ship while flying. Also, this view toggles, so you don't have to hold the mouse wheel click button down.

Another example of a thing that I learned a bit late. When you scavenge minerals in the intro of the game you are teached to do so with a laser cutter. But at some point you encounters some minerals on planets that are a bigger chunks. So I was trying to laser cut them and it was not working. My bet was that I needed a more powerful laser cutter for these ones. Just to realise by accident that I could scavenge them by exiting the scan mode and hovering near them and take the minerals like it is a chest box.

Wow Andy + Gene in the same place, what a treat!

I can't 100% confirm that this is an actual mechanic, but my experience is that your persuasion attempts are far more likely to succeed if you say something the person would want to hear. Telling someone who's annoyed with you that they're not going to get rid of you, or someone who wishes they could help you that you understand their position, seems to work far more often. The reason I believe it's intentional because there's a faction quest that tutorializes that interaction by having you read dossiers on people before trying to persuade them - I just wish that was in the "main" experience so that everyone could learn it.

Took me a long time to watch this whole video, but something that occurs to me - that I think speaks to the diversity of gameplay offered by STARFIELD and makes me really appreciate it, is that there’s a reviewer out there - WHO GAVE IT A 10! - without even meeting Vlad. That is - in a word - incredible. Bethesda should be proud.

More you play it and more game mechanics you learn the better it gets. Edit: You can harvest minerls with spaceship. When you are in asteorid area you blast them with weapons and when they broke to peaces there is a chunk with minerals that you can pick up. And if you have large ship with all the work-stations it become a mobile base with everything you need.

Thank God, too much content nowadays is focused on the criticism side rather than just the love of the thing. Everybody feels like they are doing a service by spending 90% of the time deep diving their perspective flaws and 10% "but anyways I had fun".

I have had the perfect level of jank so far, from insane corpse launch to dramatic introduction to a companion while zoomed in on just her upper lip and nostrils, I was in stitches

This game is incredible.. probably my favorite rpg game ever… the more you play the more insane it gets… so much fun

Finally, i can be the stealth assassin ship builder i always wanted to be

These 3 doing a weekly podcast would be perfection.

Gameplay mechanic update here I just stumbled on that is very useful. Change view button (select on controller), if you are in your ship, in space, you can hold it and it gives a free spin view option. Great for photo mode. Some maneuver is limited. But if you have an object selected, that same free spin view stays on object selected. Ship maneuvering normal now. Great for combat. Enjoy CDRs.

The three of you have great chemistry. I really enjoyed this

I've been having a blast with this game. I can't remember the last time I've put this many hours into a game sense release.

Alanah, Andy, and Gene are few of my favorites in video games coverage - much love!

I've been a Bethesda fan since Daggerfall (1993). I have early access and have only played 18ish hours so far. I can already tell this one is special. I really believe this is the best game Bethesda has ever made, and arguably one of the top ten greatest RPG's of all time.

This was such an interesting chat and has made me even more excited abiut starfield. Like, what an interesting game that it takes a while to unfold and people can have completely different experiences.

I've seen a few reviews saying the beginning is slow, but I actually enjoyed it. I learned about the characters and the world. Granted, Skyrim came out of the gate with a freaking dragon attacking you, but I don't need action all the time. I'm about 8 hours in and enjoying the game! I will go back to the game after completing this video.

Gene Park seems like a nice guy

11 hours in and I am 100% playing it as Andy is doing, just completing side stuff. As soon as I could be Freestar ranger I joined up and just started doing their missions and it defitinely feels like a completely different game. Actually having a lot more fun doing their stuff than the main missions (though I haven't gotten far in the main missions so that might change later on). I am not even sure when I am gonna pick up the main missions again tbh, probably gonna be a while😅

I prefer an open world game that doesn’t hold your hand…and in this game it helps with the immersion specifically related to discovery and the feeling of exploration.

The thing that stands out to me is the level of details. The game is immersive in that all the details contribute to make it feel "living". Yes there is empty planets, but they went to realism. I was not expecting landing on Mars and spend 20 hours there discovering its 5 major cities who are as big as New Atlantis. But the level of details in the major cities in the game and also in facilities is really great. So much different furnitures, decorations, lootable items, things to read in books, computers, etc. They surely have put lot of time handcrafting all these items. I agree that the game does not teach you well how it works. Just navigating in the menus feels like learning to use a new software without relying on the help menu. For example, I knew that my ship has a cargo bay and I wanted to drop my inventory in there. I searched in the ship where to go to do that by overing everywhere and couldn't find it (eneded up finding it by accident while at 15hours in the game). And I found that I could drop things in the cargo trought the menu options (but was not obvious). So I will say the downside is that menus are not intuitive and esay to learn. Just getting at a vendor for the first time I was buying and selling items and I could not see what I bought or sell and the balance amount of the transaction and nothing saying the tansaction was completed so when I exited I feared that it just cancelled the transaction and that I would need to do it again. While there is cons with menus and mechanics explanations, I came to think that I prefer it to be that way. Discovering a mechanic by yourselves is kind of part of the discovery process and when you do its compelling. I understand it can be also frustrating at the same time a bit because you would have liked to learn that thing way earlier. But, i'm fine with it, I feel it hads to the immersion, realism and unique player experience.

This podcast is why I love this game. Kinda sad that I’ve heard the walking out of the vault moment as basically the biggest reason ppl hate it. That was an iconic moment in gaming period

Ive heard a lot of people complain about there not being a local map but there is one. Open the scanner then press RB. Its pretty rudimental but it does help.

Everyone has their own opinion! For me it’s a 9/10 so far, could improve depending on the ending of the main story and when I eventually get in-depth with outpost system. You can’t play this game for even ten hours and expect a lot, it really improves the more you improve your skills which takes hours and hours and hours so if you don’t give it a proper playthrough and invest your time then you’ll probs not enjoy the game loop at all. I LOVE IT!!!! If you have 0 imagination or patience I’d swerve loool

Did Andy just suggest space station building for bases when he was talking about mobile ones? Because that would be amazing to see modded in.

Nice vid and conversation! To the people who don't know (like me after playing for 10 hours 😂) you can land anywhere on a planet or moon. I was a little disappointed because I thought you could land only on specific locations like outposts, bases, etc. But you can just pick a random spot and land on it. I did it randomly on Neptune's moon and found outposts with pirates, loot, etc. Changed my whole perspective of the game after that.

I went in with middling expectations and have been pleasantly surprised. Personally, I feel like it kinda rushes through the intro a bit where I feel like it could've taken a bit more time to ease us into the world before launching us into the chosen one mantle but I can also imagine lots of players would then dislike the slower pace so it's tricky. The planets I've explored feel a lot larger than I was expecting given the discussions around invisible walls and such going in. Honestly, I don't think it's quite as groundbreaking as it maybe could have been but it's definitely a fun RPG if you enjoyed Bethesda's previous works.

Great lineup 👍 I too started on some of the side content, and just forgot about the main story. For me it began with 'Failure to communicate' (I was way underleveled for!) And continued with hiring Marika Boros. Whom's personal story inspired some investigation, and ends up being a whole chain of impromptu quests, with choices you likely would not have made without that insight to confirm your skepticism. - At some point, all the factions et al, end up forming a matrix of potential outcomes. I feel like most people on the game are on a similar trajectory with it, that you three are. For example, getting into the ship building; it might help people to know that A, B & C reactor classes, are not about good - better - best, but instead light, medium & bulk. Taiyo make a Sensory module for those of you putting points into Astrodynamics, Scanning, and Astrophysics. At first the lack of information can be frustrating, and make the game feel slow to wind up. Then you begin to notice a lot of the info you are looking for is in your face. A lot of the things you are looking for surface along the way. Just looking for potential outpost sites, scanning different planets, will likely have you at rank 4 Pilot in no time flat! - ya just gotta ..do it.

The kinda cool thing about Starfield reviews is that it showed me whose game opinions I lean more towards. I LOVE the game.

I really enjoyed this conversation.

Andy! Have to give NMS another shot. Capital Ship customization sounds like what you were looking for.

So the game starts off slow then gets really good the more you play. Sounds like a win to me!

I was like dude at the bottom. The exact way. I never played Bethesda games like that, I was just playing b/c it was on gamepass. I was playing but it's weird. I like doin missions in any game more than just running around on my own, so I think it was just the checklist. The most intimidating part was never playing a game, knowing how to sell, knowing how much not to carry, building, what skills to unlock, etc. It was me playing the storymode I figured our alot of this. My step out moment is when I realized I had an actual job as a vanguard & then the United Colony missions is what made it click. It just makes me feel like I'm apart of it

The Kinda Funny X LSM collab we been waiting for!

Best thing to do if you want to designate NPCs as unkillable? Make your crosshairs disappear and/or lower your weapon when looking at them. Or have it as an option

Persuasion works by getting to know what will work for the character’s personality

Space travel thing that the game doesn't tell you that helps improve immersion in space flight, you don't have to use the map to travel between planets. You can open the scanner while flying your ship and while it is open it will show you all of the other planetary bodies in your current system allowing you to fly between them by target selecting them and then flying to them. This helps make space flight feel better and less menu driven. You still have to use the map to grav jump between systems but within your system it is actually much cleaner with the use of this system.

Starfeild is the first game Iv played in years where the moment I clock out at work, I rush home to play more. I don’t really wanna play anything else, I just wanna make ships, explore, and commit space murder.

Man. I need to finish the game before listening to this 😆.

I think GOTY will go to BG3 because a lot of the voters only play so many hours in the games. I have 168 hours in BG3. Though BG3 is amazing it’s problems are found in Act 3. Performance issues in Act 3, Final battles, Evil endings, and crafting and economy being an after thought were it’s flaws. I think they needed more time with Act 3. With Starfield it took me nearly two days to not be overwhelmed and I can tell by how good it is starting to get that it will just get better over time. I haven’t even touched the ship or outpost building yet. Side missions are strong. Also it’s shocking as I think everyone was expecting a No Man’s Sky with Triple A quests and features but to me it is more Fallout/Oblivion/Mass Effect which I loved all those franchises. I can see Starfield being too much for many people and some people being disappointed it is not a better version of No Man’s Sky and quitting early. BG3 was by far my GOTY before playing Starfield and I currently still have it at top but I can see that changing as I delve deeper into Starfield. I will say if you do not like Bethesda games or Mass Effect games then I would probably say to pass on the game unless you are into building.

Great conversation! First time I visit your channel. Subscribed!

That's so funny when you mentioned to Andy about Vlad, I had the same reaction and I'm 30 hrs in. I thoughts I'd done a decent chunk of the main. Feel a bit excited now 😂😂😂

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but you can clear those bodies off the stolen ships by going into ship editor, move a module around tweak something on the ship. Save it, go back and move it back if you want, and save it again. Then the dead bodies are gone. Also anything that got jostled around during the firefight to take the ship will be reset in position too.

Uses of ships: Combat Smuggling Cargo Running Exploration (zillion encounters in space, including derelicts, stations, pirates, other ships, etc.) Inventory Space (You can store stuff and sell directly from your cargo hold) Crafting (not needed, but convenient) The one thing that's missing is "supercruise" - meaning free interplanetary flight with a true purpose. That is, indeed, unfortunate - but I see what they're doing here. The game is literally too big for anyone to reasonably want to spend time doing manual space flight - beyond maybe a few minutes to just try it. They just got rid of that.

Peeking around cover has been around since (I think) Fallout 4. Moving corpses (and other objects) has been around since Oblivion.

Cool chat. I don’t get the comparison with the oblivion persuade game though - Starfield has a chance of failure depending on colour. Oblivion’s is not chance based at all - you just match the happy NPC facial expression to the strongest response and repeat, it’s impossible to fail

This isnt the CLS/KF show people have been clamoring for...lol jk thanks for this alanah

All BGS games take a while to get going. There's a lot to learn and master but it's always been like that in these games for me

The 3 of you should keep this going ❤

Great to see you, Gene! Love your work!

I absolutely love hearing Gene's thoughts on videogames. What a great brain. I'm at work now but this video has inspired me to jump back into Starfield once I log off.

Think there are a lot more plus 9's and 10's than there is 7's and 8's on the review scale.

It was exactly what I thought it would be. It’s great

Thank you for this video. I love the positive vibes. Truly enjoyed. Amazing efforts! ❤

This is amazing conversation. Love it❤

I know we all have different opinions, but the number of people saying the opening hours are boring, I just don't understand. I'm maybe 5 to 7 hours in, but I've been captivated from the beginning. The world feels lived in. Characters are interesting. You can interact with pretty much everything. There are so many systems at play. The game doesn't explain everything, but when I discover something that's more gratifying, then it telling me everything. Really don't know what people were expecting.

Another tip regarding space: you can sell from any NPC near a planet in another spaceship. So you don't need to land to unload all that stuff.

It’s so interesting to hear how different people’s opinions are to the game and how the gameplay vary so much.

I give it a 9 out of 10,it's really good.

Wow, this video is enlightening and nice to watch. LOL leaning and no one knows about it! Another thing they do not explain well is that the ships actually have Newtonian physics. I watched a few reviews where the player was like you dont drift in space and when you let go of thrusters you slow down but you have to press a button to free fly the craft.

Yeah, great discussion guys. I definitely agree with Lanah though. Two weeks was not enough time to properly review this game.

Only bug I've had so far has been a alien walking near a ship that was landing just getting launched into the air. It was incredible

"tHEy dO eXisTS" - Santa Clause

The "you have to find your fun" rings super true to me, and was like a bit of an epiphany I had in my 3rd or 4th session with the game. I can imagine for lots of people if you play the game "passively" so to speak, you might bounce off it quite hard. I don't mind that at all, but can absolutely understand that it could leave others feeling like the game is shallow and boring. For all the restrictions that exist in this game which largely don't exist in Bethesda's other games (namely much less seamless travel) it certainly does feel much more free to me. I was also worried that Starfield would follow the trend of Bethesda simplifying their mechanics with each successive game, and have been pleasantly surprised that this game feels quite a bit deeper than their last few games. Personally I would prefer certain mechanics and systems to be even deeper, complex and interesting than they are, but honestly I'm just so damn glad they stopped "mainstream-izing" every mechanic so much. Also rather than No Man's Sky x Fallout, which is the comparison I've seen the most, the game feels *much* more like Mass Effect x Oblivion to me. Specifically the space and ground traversal feels like what I would expect to get in a more faithful Mass Effect 3 sequel in 2023. Very disappointing that we got a more Bioware style of travel as opposed to Bethesda, but it's not even close to a deal breaker for me. Also very excited to see where mods take this game in the next year or so, and hoping Bethesda are willing to quickly patch up some of the issues.

20:40 You know they updated it to "Creation Engine 2" for this

I see Gene, I click on the video.

Yeah this is the closest to a Kinda Funny/Last Stand Media collaboration we're gunna get

ths game is nuts ...the immigrant gameplay is something else....I landed on a moon to build and outpost just to check out the system...a dude landed near me and started exploring the moon...I had the idea to break in and steal his ship ...a gun battle started ...he ran into his ship and locked it ....I couldnt break in because its a master lock..he stayed in his ship and taunted me for a few minutes ...i left and hid behand some rocks he came out....i killed him...and took his ship.

You've done the Vald stuff right? "I've got know idea who that is" 😆🤣 That's why this games amazing haha

You can use your ship as a mobile crafting station, instead of building and maintaining outposts. It’s the best use of time and resources. Especially on the first play through.

Played around 16hrs... absolutely loving the game, i keep getting side tracked and their is so many fun little side quests to do with quirky ppl to meet. its so far 10/10 and i feel like its only just opening up which is exciting.

I love Starfield, not perfect but damn awesome

Why the hell would someone who liked Deus Ex NOT enjoy Starfield? You have virtually no ground to stand on with that assumption.

It's great to see two pros like Alanah and Gene talking about this game.

The vast majority of reviewers scored this between 9 and 10. A quarter of reviews are a straight 10. Yet we are focussing on 2 reviews that gave it a 7 against the massive consensus opinion. I also dispute the game is a ‘slow burn’ it starts amazingly and is drawing you in after a couple of hours like no other game does. It’s legitimately up there as one of the greatest RPG’s ever made.

Finished Starfield last night. Really enjoyed the experience, especially the gameplay, ship building and the faction quests. With that being said, I did not like the persuasion options, they didn’t make sense most of the time. Also some of the writing was not that good. I will not spoil anything but the ending should’ve had more decision options. Also the aceles vs microbe quest didn’t make sense, since you’re lead to believe one option is better, then all your crew gets mad at you for picking that decision. The game also feels sterile, and overly pg. Sometimes it feels unrealistic, not one single swear word, Neon is supposed to be a pleasure city, but it seems like they surgically removed sex from the game. I dont even want explicit scenes or stuff like that. But narratively it doesn’t make sense that Neon is like that. I still have to digest it a bit more. But I agree with the 7/10 scores. Overall I really like the game, but it definitely has it’s flaws.

I'm not dealing with endless load screens, no planet landings or take offs and 1000 planets with pretty much nothing on them.

Number 1 games journalist Andy Cortez

im exactly where andy is. 18hrs in and i just now met Vladimir. the main story isnt my problem. The galaxy needs The MANTIS!!!!

Love this!! Yeah first 10 hours or so I was really bummed about a lot now I’m 25 plus hours in and I’m LOVING IT! I get STUCK in the ship customization it’s so fun but very overwhelming at first

Holy shit, here’s a trio I can get onboard with!

Could of just asked the community, we absolutely love Starfield and can’t stop playing, we could care less what IGN or any other reviewer says, the numbers from launch and concurring players prove this.

Space exploration games are kinda niche to begin with alot of people like to have a smaller world that's more dense and hand holding which is fine but starfield is more just open do what you want And I love game with a smaller world but also love games like no mans sky, star citizen, astroneer and now starfield

I really like the Starfield. I have yet to play the main quest. Granted I am an older player. I got rid of companions and like to explore as I fall a sleep kind of thing like Skyrim. Although, Skyrim was more engaging and I bought it probably 5-6 times on different consoles. Currently on X series Starfield is amazing. I did do like 30 hours in the game and enjoy the understanding of creators of empty space in actual Cosmos. I think that this is an adult game, and full of wonder. My Starfield is 9/10 as the animations and conversation, as well as outcomes after Witcher 3 are simply missing. Thank you for all of the different perspectives to you Lady, and the Gentlemen are giving.

Andy do be looking like Rahul and Cory Barlog had a child.

There is a local map. Pull up the scanner and hit right bumper or pc equivalent.