The White Fleet's Landfall

Today, the second of January, is The White Fleet's Landfall in the universal solar calendar. The sun rose at 7:42 this morning and will set at 5:40 this evening for 9 hours and 58 minutes of daylight. The rest is darkness.

The Gaming Desk wants you to know that during those dark hours, we finally finished The Evil Within 2. I didn't much like it. I hadn't played TEW 1, so there was a lot of context I didn't understand, but that's on me - I could have played 1 first (2 was available for free on the Epic game launcher so I impulsively grabbed it and jumped in uninitiated).  

It's a horror game and the tone was unremittingly grim. There were few chances to take a breath, unwind, or relax a little, maybe engage in some random exploration. Weapons didn't work very well, and ammunition was extremely scarce. I think this was all by design to amp up the tension and fear for the horror atmosphere, but it didn't make for a very enjoyable experience.  I found myself putting off opening the game, finding something (anything) else to do instead. But to be fair, once I did start it, I got sucked in like one does in a video game, and would play for hours on end.  All in all, though, I was glad when it was over and doubt I'll ever play it again.        

  

So now I'm playing Starfield, a new (2023) game. It's such a relief after TEW to play a game that's actually fun to immerse yourself into. I'm already some 56 hours in generally enjoying my experience. 

I like that the game doesn't belabor you with a lot of burdensome tutorial quests at the beginning like some games do, but to be honest I still have no idea how to operate the spaceship I've been commanding. During battle, a character in the game will suggest I deploy the forward thruster or warn me that the shield's almost depleted, and I have no idea how what to do about either, and yet somehow I keep winning the battles with enemy ships. Except when I don't for some reason and my ship blows up, but you just respawn to fight again and I win on the second go-round each time.  

And the storage capacity and weight limits are both way too restricted.  Maybe I'm just used to other Bethesda games where you loot everything you can find and perhaps I'm hoarding too many weapons and resources, but I spend way to many hours each session trying to off-load excess luggage I've picked up.  But like spaceship training, the game gives little guidance on how you're supposed to manage your stuff.

But these are minor, almost trivial, complaints. The game's generally been fun, especially the main, story-lines quests.  I found some of the side quests tedious and they felt like filler material to meet someone studio executive's quota of x-number of side quests. Generally, they consist of "Go over there and meet someone who tells you what to do, than go somewhere else and do the thing, then go to a third place for no apparent reason, and then go back to the original spot to complete the task." I'd ignore the side quests, but my list of missions has gotten so long and full that I need to run some side-quests just to eliminate the clutter and be able to find the main missions.

Did I mention the game is visually stunning? And the characters are fun and interesting? Characters and character development are my favorite things in video games.  And unlike TEW, I find myself looking forward to opening Starfield. We think we may be in some 200 or so hours before we complete Starfield, so you may not hear back from The Gaming Desk for a while.