0:07

What

0:13

the heck

0:15

is going on everybody?

0:21

Welcome

0:24

back to another episode of the Kinda Funny

0:26

XCast. Your home for all things

0:28

Xbox here at Kinda Funny. Of course,

0:30

I'm one of your show hosts, SnowBikeMike, and

0:32

today I am joined by

0:35

both

0:35

of my gaming dads IRL

0:39

in real life. I can touch

0:41

him, I can see him. It's Paris

0:43

Lilly in the spare bedroom alongside

0:45

Gary Witta. The three of us, the

0:48

first time ever,

0:49

all of the XCast hosts have been at

0:52

one table. Yes. And we're here together

0:54

right now. How are you feeling, Gary? I'm good. So

0:56

this is actually for the spare bedroom launch, right?

0:59

We came and stood here and did like a whole wrestling intro,

1:02

but this is actually the first time that

1:04

any kind of funny host, right? Because the whole

1:06

Alana era, that was over Zoom

1:09

or Discord or whatever. This is the first time that all three

1:11

of the hosts have been at the desk

1:14

in meatspace for real. And

1:17

what a perfect show to do it. Biggest

1:19

Xbox game of the year. And we're doing it for that,

1:21

of course. Paris, it's great to have you in

1:23

the spare bedroom. I'm so happy to be here. I'm not a floating

1:25

head in

1:28

the flesh, and it's been a good two days

1:30

being here at the studio, hanging out with everybody.

1:34

Content,

1:34

you're streaming Starfield earlier. I got

1:36

to hang out in there. It's been a good time. Yeah,

1:38

it's pretty special to be together. It's

1:41

always nice to spend time with you, Paris.

1:43

And of course, Gary, I get a lot of time with Gary, which is

1:45

incredible. But to have you in the mix

1:47

with us, engaging with the team here at

1:49

the spare bedroom, it just elevates everyone.

1:52

It's also one of those like you feel the camaraderie. You

1:54

feel the community, feel your team of like, oh,

1:56

this is what you're doing it for. Oh, this is who you're

1:58

doing it with.

1:59

It's nice to have that energy together and of course

2:02

you got to share that energy on the kind of funny games

2:04

cast yes, because the official review

2:07

for starfield is now live and

2:09

up of course here the kind

2:11

of funny X cast I want to ask these guys about

2:13

their thoughts on starfield we're going to talk

2:15

about that but we're also going to jump into your

2:18

burning questions about starfield

2:20

but if you're looking for the official review from

2:22

kind of funny. Paris, you're the lead reviewer

2:25

it's on the games cast now let's

2:27

start off the show. Let's go animated you

2:29

have a first time watching it that's funny. Let's

2:32

talk about your initial thoughts I want

2:34

to hear just give me the quick breakdown of your

2:36

score and then of course some of your review

2:38

and thoughts because then I want to hear from Gary so yeah, I

2:40

want to take this time let's share with the X cast

2:43

audience what you guys think of the big game sure

2:45

so starfield for me was a 4 out of

2:48

5. Ultimately I feel

2:50

that clearly we need to judge the game for

2:52

what it is today versus what it potentially

2:54

could be down the road, but I think there's a lot

2:57

of good there. The size

2:59

just the the ambition that Bethesda

3:01

had with this there's so many different things that

3:03

you can do in the game which is fantastic but

3:05

there are some things that they're going to need to clean

3:08

up over the next few weeks and months. I

3:10

think one of the common themes that I've seen now

3:12

that the reviews are out is the inventory

3:14

system we talked about on games cast as well.

3:17

It's not it's not ideal was

3:19

put it that way. But the

3:21

good of it is you

3:24

get to play this game how you want to play

3:26

it the main the main stories kind of there

3:28

just to guide you along the way and

3:30

is cliche as this may sound the game

3:33

doesn't even really start until you complete the main

3:35

quest and you get into new game plus which

3:37

we won't spoil here. But this

3:40

is a true Bethesda RPG it is

3:42

meant it is not meant to try and do everything all at

3:44

once the one thing that said during their review is

3:46

the way I play this game during the 2 weeks is

3:49

not how would recommend anyone plays game I

3:51

would say go in there. See

3:53

what you like doing in

3:56

the game whether it be a space pirate a

3:58

smuggler bounty hunter, you know. You're

4:00

part of the freestyle Rangers or whatever

4:02

the case may be. Maybe you like building ships Maybe

4:04

you like, you know creating outposts Maybe

4:06

you just want to go discover all these planets

4:09

and survey them and get the resources But

4:11

find your lane in star field

4:13

and just go from there and have fun

4:16

I like that four out of five on the kind of funny scale

4:18

or five some good positives. Yeah

4:20

some critiques right there Gary You

4:23

weren't on the kind of funny review Of course pairs

4:25

did it to go a little more in-depth with

4:27

his thoughts than just that But we haven't

4:29

heard from you Gary. We've been all patiently waiting.

4:32

What's Gary with a think of star

4:34

field? So a few before we even get into

4:36

it a few things first of all It's just a relief to be

4:38

able to talk about it, right because we you

4:41

know on it We all had to honor the embargo and

4:43

you know, I took that very seriously I even

4:45

even had friends reaching out to me privately saying like

4:47

so is it any good like you can tell me right?

4:49

I said no, I'm serious. I'm taking this embargo

4:51

seriously. I'm not telling anybody Anything

4:54

yeah, I'm keeping this to myself The

4:57

only the only people I spoke to was Paris and I

4:59

would talk back to the other people that I knew were also playing

5:01

The game and under embargo Paris and I talked

5:04

a lot. That's where that stupid redact detect

5:06

came from I can post the unredacted

5:08

version of that now people will finally see it was a big fuzz over

5:11

nothing and

5:13

I spoke to Lucy and Tam over at game

5:16

spot giant bomb and Dan

5:18

Stapleton IGN we talked briefly

5:20

just like kind of checking each other's math on

5:23

On this and we were all in kind of broad

5:25

agreement. I think it seemed like

5:29

Also, I want to say With

5:31

no disrespect to people whose job it

5:33

is to put scores on games because that's the expectation

5:36

I personally I would not put

5:38

a score on the game yet based on my

5:40

experience I think I think it's a very tricky business

5:42

trying to put on this game given

5:44

the amount of time people were given to Play it. Yeah, it's funny

5:47

You say that because I put a score on it because

5:49

I was the lead review right but Greg and Andy

5:52

Said the same exact thing you said they I'm not

5:54

ready to put a score on this game so much of this I

5:56

agree with that so much of this game is built on the

5:58

promise of 130

5:59

150 hours infinite possibilities,

6:02

you know in the time that you can reasonably put

6:04

into it Greg's got I don't have many Greg's I think I've got 40

6:07

hours. I've got about 25 I don't you

6:09

probably got more than anybody close to 90. Yeah,

6:11

so like a lot but even even then is like

6:13

so for me There's so

6:15

much in the game that I haven't even touched yet So he's

6:17

like this interesting that Paris made this point because I was the exact

6:19

opposite I even though I knew I'd be

6:22

coming in here to give my impressions I'm not

6:24

I'm not reviewing the game per se and

6:26

so I went into it I think when you go

6:28

into it as Paris did knowing that you're reviewing

6:30

it you do play the game in a slightly

6:33

kind of unnatural It might not be the way you would choose

6:35

to naturally play the game if you're a reviewer

6:37

you're thinking well I've got to make sure I like try

6:40

everything rather make sure the main quest is good

6:42

side quests all these I've got to try a little

6:44

bit of I've got to

6:45

make sure I've got like a holistic view of the game So

6:47

I can give it a proper review when

6:49

the time comes. I did not approach it that

6:51

way at all I approached it in a way that I think is

6:54

Arguably maybe like a more authentic way to do

6:56

it not necessarily the most useful way for

6:58

people reading a review But like I'm just gonna play

7:00

this the way I want to play it right that's the

7:03

promise of this game Right play it the way you want to play

7:05

do whatever you want to do Pete Heinz There

7:07

was a big thing going Pete Heinz made a big deal of how

7:09

he played like 100 plus hours of the game Hadn't even

7:11

touched the main quest right so they clearly

7:14

want people to like play the game however they

7:16

want right? That's what I did. I

7:18

played it as though I just picked it up on game past day

7:20

one How do I want to play this game so

7:23

I too have not even

7:24

touched the main quest? I've done about 25 side

7:27

quests. I've got like eight different jobs at

7:29

different organizations I'm a

7:31

freestyle Ranger. I'm working for the evil

7:33

side evil cyberpunk corporation. I'm

7:36

working for OC security I'm a

7:38

pirate. I'm doing all these different jobs

7:41

And I'm messing. I'm just messing around just

7:43

doing what I want to do what I feel like doing

7:45

yeah Which you know is the experience I think most people

7:47

are going to play this game I'm not going to have the burden of all

7:50

I need to experience this much of the game in a certain

7:52

time They're just going to play they will want to play at their own pace

7:54

plus you know I've got kids and I didn't I like 25

7:56

hours of this game in the time I've

8:00

had with it

8:00

is a lot for me. Because I said the number is

8:03

I want to play as much of it as I can

8:04

before I come in. But I'm still going to spend

8:07

the time that I spend playing it

8:09

the way I want to play, which is just farting

8:11

around, oh, what's over here?

8:13

And it is that kind of game. I discovered

8:16

a planet the other day. I was on my way to do something else.

8:19

Paris, you'll know that something you can't jump

8:21

straight to a system. You have to jump

8:23

along the way. And so a

8:25

system that I was supposed to be just passing through, I was like, wait,

8:28

this planet looks interested. I landed on. There's a bunch of

8:30

shit going off there. And now I'm involved

8:32

in that. So it's a kind of game. If you're like

8:34

ADHD, you're never going to get anything

8:36

done in this game. Because you're always something out

8:38

there. No, come over here. Come over here. And you'll never get anything

8:41

done. But that's fine. It's a little bit

8:43

overwhelming and a little bit of a mess in the sense that,

8:45

like

8:45

I said, I have eight different jobs.

8:47

And I don't know if any of these things are time sensitive. But

8:50

a lot of the places when you apply will say things

8:52

like,

8:53

it's flexi time. Do it on your own time. They're

8:55

encouraging you to just do missions

8:58

and you feel like it, which is not how a real job

9:00

would be, like come in whenever you feel like it. But they've

9:02

done it that way to make you feel like you can take on

9:04

all these different things. Like my quest log

9:07

is just so. And you'll pick

9:09

up quests without even trying to. You're like

9:11

you'll walk past it. You'll overhear a conversation. And

9:13

just based on that, it'll add a quest to your log. Oh,

9:16

you overheard that. So now you can go

9:18

do this. And so quests are piling up. And

9:21

it's a massive to-do list.

9:24

But it's good to have. It's nice

9:26

to have all that. I think the one thing that the game does

9:28

do a

9:28

good job

9:29

of, again, at least in the first 25 I spent, is

9:32

you really can do whatever you want. The

9:35

game's not encouraging you or pushing you to

9:37

play the game a certain way. You can just

9:40

fart around. And I've said before a million times,

9:42

the games that I like the most are games that feel less

9:45

like a game than I play, than a place that

9:47

I go. Mass Effect or Los Santos, just

9:49

like some of my most fun GTA 5 play

9:52

sessions, I didn't do anything. I played

9:54

golf. I did yoga. I just fucked around. I'll

9:56

drive over here and see what's. And Starfield will

9:59

let you do that.

9:59

And that's one of my favorite things about

10:02

it. I do have some serious problems

10:04

with the game and we'll get to those. But let's

10:06

well, yeah, let's let's stay on the positive

10:09

really quick because of course a lot of people probably wondering,

10:11

hey, Mike, where's your thoughts? What's your impression

10:13

so far as many of the kind of funny best

10:15

friends know I am currently doing a marathon

10:18

stream with the launch of Starfield

10:20

as of recording today. So I've actually gone

10:22

these two weeks just kind of waiting. I

10:24

have not been able to play the game. I wanted

10:27

it to be my first experience. So I

10:29

am still very

10:29

early into this probably like two real

10:32

hours of playing. We've had some talking,

10:34

but I've just jumping in. So

10:36

I look forward to next week. I'll have my real

10:39

thoughts and we'll be able to dive a little bit deeper on what I

10:41

think, but I do want to give some compliments because I

10:43

want to start off with give me one more positive

10:45

from each of you before we get into Gary's critical

10:47

thoughts and one positive for me is I

10:50

am really impressed with the lighting of the game. This

10:52

game looks good. The lighting

10:55

whether you're inside or outside looks good

10:57

as well. I am impressed with the facial

10:59

animations

10:59

and the character creator of this. I

11:02

was really blown away going man. I'm

11:04

making someone that looks very much

11:06

like me and I like the backgrounds.

11:08

I like reading through all the different ideas. They had I'm

11:11

a spaceship trucker out of nowhere.

11:14

Like you wouldn't think oh, yeah, you're just going to

11:16

be a ship hauler. No, I am that and

11:18

so I want to give kudos to the character

11:20

models and the character creation and the lighting. I think

11:23

look very very well done.

11:25

I'll just give kudos to the performance

11:27

of the game. We obviously know

11:30

coming in, you know Bethesda and their reputation

11:32

of Buck Fester, but the time

11:35

has been well spent. This is a pretty polished game

11:37

across PC across the Series

11:39

X and more specifically the Series

11:41

S. I know some people had concerns about that, but

11:44

it's been a great. It's great. I

11:46

mean, I played I played a lot of it on the S

11:49

no issues at all the X like that's what

11:51

they're streaming on right now is great and obviously

11:53

PC is going to be the top. You know depending

11:55

on your rig, but

11:57

I saw real issues. I saw blessing

11:59

playing the PC.

11:59

version on an ultra-wide monitor. It

12:02

looks so good, I went and bought an ultra-wide monitor.

12:04

Nice. Because this is the kind of game with

12:06

those big planetary vistas in the space comet where

12:08

like an ultra-wide, like that's the kind of game that these

12:11

monitors were made for. Yeah. And

12:13

yeah, so people, a lot of it, because there's been so much like,

12:15

we talked about the polarization, right? And people on social media

12:17

have divided into pro and anti-staffer, because

12:20

the game is such a standard bearer for the Xbox. The

12:22

PlayStation fans are out for blood

12:25

and the Xbox super fans are defending it, all

12:27

without having played the game,

12:29

right? But like the 30 frames a second thing, like

12:31

people have been, like I tweeted a thing about,

12:33

I did a TikTok about how I'm playing Starfield, and

12:36

I saw I had a bunch of, oh, enjoy your 30 frames a

12:38

second.

12:39

I, I, I, I, I, no, not at one

12:41

time did I think this, this game's not performing well.

12:43

Like it, it's great. It looks, again,

12:45

PCs, no doubt going to be better, but

12:48

I, I'm, I have no performance criticisms

12:51

at all by your frame rate, whatever. I will

12:53

say just on that comment, like

12:56

going from, I'm playing above 60 frames

12:58

on PC, you know, with my rig. So

13:00

when you first jump over to playing

13:02

on Xbox, it takes

13:04

a second. Is it

13:06

harder to, is it harder to come back to Xbox after

13:08

playing it on a Ninja PC? There

13:11

is like killing first, like you

13:13

can tell it's at 30 frames, but once you kind

13:15

of settle in, it's

13:16

fine. Yeah. And again, shout out

13:18

to Xbox play anywhere. You know, I had

13:20

my cryptic tweets over the past two weeks, but

13:23

I was hopping back and forth from platforms

13:25

because of Xbox play anywhere in the cloud saves.

13:28

I mean, I ran it. There was a couple times where the cloud

13:30

saves didn't sync properly, but

13:32

I mean, 90% of the time it was great

13:35

experience. It was easy to just pick up and play between

13:37

platforms. No problem. Really quick before we go on

13:39

to Gary for one final one. I didn't want to put a pin on

13:41

that one. The Xbox series S you

13:44

said ran good because that's been our hot topic. I

13:46

want to make sure the audience here is like you did

13:48

play on that and you thought it went well. Yeah,

13:50

I can break. I can kind of break now my percentages. 60%

13:53

of the time I played on on the

13:56

PC and then I would say was

13:58

almost an even split from there between the.

13:59

and they asked 20 and 20.

14:02

It's

14:02

fine. I mean, it was fine. I mean, there

14:04

was no,

14:05

I mean, the resolution, obviously, I think it's 1440p or whatever.

14:08

So resolution drops. But

14:10

I mean, it's virtually identical to the X

14:12

as far as the way it performed and everything. Everything's

14:15

fine. I'm telling you, there was no issues at all.

14:17

They did a great job. Kudos to

14:19

that team, you know, optimizing it for that

14:21

platform. There was no problems. Gary,

14:23

give me one more positive that you like out of this game.

14:25

Well, I know that just in general

14:27

say like in the in the main, the

14:29

headline, have I enjoyed playing this

14:31

game? Yes, very much. Can I

14:33

see myself putting another 100 hours into

14:35

the game? Absolutely. Some of

14:37

that is because this game is extremely my shit,

14:39

right? Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games of all time.

14:42

And this is very much in the Mass Effect

14:44

pocket, right? In fact, it looks a lot, it

14:46

has a lot of similarities to Mass Effect in the world

14:48

building and so forth.

14:52

And again, I'll say, and this is without,

14:54

because I want to do all the shit that the game, let's say I haven't

14:56

done most of this stuff yet. I haven't upgraded.

14:59

I haven't put any modules on the ship. I haven't done any

15:01

ship design.

15:03

I've only recruited two companions and I'm not

15:05

really sure exactly what they do or how they're

15:07

helpful to the game. I haven't done much research

15:09

or crafting or modding. I haven't built

15:11

any outposts. I've been to all the major

15:14

planets, like the big ones. I've been to Neon

15:16

and New Atlantis and the

15:19

Cowboy Firefly planet. Yeah,

15:21

with Freedia. Mars. And

15:23

I've seen all that. I think I've seen most of the major,

15:27

built out planets that are available to you early

15:29

in the game. I've done a bunch of side quests. I

15:31

don't even touch, I don't even know what the main quest is. I've not even

15:33

touched it. Like there's a thing where the

15:36

quest giver says, like, are you ready to go? Or do you want to fart

15:38

around? So I'm going to fart around. And then I haven't come

15:40

back to it yet. So I'm just doing all the other stuff. Just

15:42

trying, again, just playing it the way I would naturally

15:45

choose to play it without any,

15:47

thought about,

15:50

I'm not like a restaurant critic who needs to try everything on the

15:52

menu. I'm just someone going to the restaurant and

15:54

eating what I want to eat.

15:55

I like that. And I really,

15:57

I really like

15:59

the space. combat. I

16:01

think the space combat is very good and I like the

16:03

fact that this is a game that is a full featured like

16:06

walk around on planets Bethesda game but there's also this

16:08

whole other space combat thing going on. I'm

16:10

a guy who grew up on the

16:11

original Elite,

16:13

like one of the one of the greatest you know space combat

16:15

space trading games of all time and you can and

16:17

when you jump into a new system and

16:20

the local you know law enforcement will scan your ship for

16:22

contraband like it takes me right back to playing

16:24

Elite

16:25

on the Commodore 64 and that

16:28

stuff I like and the space combat I think it's pretty fun

16:31

I'm enjoying it I love how when you blip the ships

16:33

blow up real good and then you can like go and grab

16:35

the debris and like harvest materials and

16:37

stuff there's a lot of stuff about it I like.

16:39

I have one major

16:42

criticism that is really weighing

16:44

the game down for me. Give

16:47

it to me right now. And it's in the area where

16:49

you know I look for a game to deliver

16:52

which is you know I like immersion I like story

16:54

I like character I like narrative

16:56

I like that feeling of suspending disbelief

16:59

unless I'm in this other place I am Commander Shepard

17:01

I'm on

17:02

a maid I mean I'm

17:04

in the afterlife nightclub I just I feel like

17:06

I'm there right.

17:10

And again I haven't done the main quest where most

17:12

of the storytelling is gonna go so I don't know again

17:14

don't have any thoughts on like the overarching how

17:16

good it could be an amazing overarching story

17:18

I don't know yet.

17:20

In the moment to moment gameplay

17:22

my my opinion

17:25

is that the writing is not great the

17:27

characters are not great. I

17:32

don't think the character models are very

17:35

good they look very flat

17:37

and my biggest issue is this and this

17:39

is the analogy that I've been waiting to use

17:41

all week and I mentioned this to a couple of other embargoed

17:43

reviewers and they went oh my god that's dead on like

17:45

this and now I think this analogy works Greg said the same thing.

17:49

I never felt like

17:52

I am in out of space being

17:55

this character what I felt like

17:57

was that I'm whenever I play the game I feel

17:59

like I'm

17:59

a really good

18:01

space adventure theme park, like a Westworld

18:04

kind of place, where everything's

18:06

curated and built around my experience

18:08

and I'm on a vacation having a good time.

18:11

And that's manifested in so

18:13

many ways. And one of the most obvious ones is the

18:16

characters, all the NPCs

18:18

that I'm interacting with all feel like either

18:20

animatronic dummies

18:22

or

18:25

like the guys that work at the Star

18:27

Wars Hotel where you can go and like, and

18:30

hey, the Empire stolen these secret plans, I need you to

18:32

take them from me. And everything's a little bit cheesy

18:34

and overactive and like very expositional and kind

18:36

of delivered to you. And that's kind of

18:38

how it feels. Like that Bethesda way of doing

18:40

things where the characters, when you interact with the character,

18:42

they're just basically

18:44

full on just staring at the screen, staring

18:46

at you in first person. And that's what you see. I

18:48

kind of feel like if you could see the bottom half

18:50

of that, you would see like the animatronic robot

18:52

base that the top half of the dummy is kind of sitting

18:55

on. Oh, hello, you are here for an outer

18:57

space adventure. I will give you a mission. It feels

18:59

a little bit like that because the writing is very pedestrian.

19:02

Again, at least in the side quest, they may have saved

19:04

the best stuff in the main quest. I don't know. But the

19:07

writing is very pedestrian. Characters don't

19:09

talk anything like people

19:11

talk like in real life. And again, dialogue

19:13

is not supposed to sound like the way that people

19:15

talk. It's supposed to be most interesting than that. But it's very,

19:18

very naked and brazen in its exposition.

19:20

Like you just walk up to somebody and like you never met

19:22

this person and they're telling you their fucking life story.

19:24

And it's like, or, you know, oh,

19:27

hi, I hear you're interested in the freestyle Rangers. The

19:29

freestyle Rangers were first founded

19:31

in 22, some guys like, why are

19:33

you telling? I didn't even ask you this shit. Why are you giving me

19:35

all this, like all these expositional dumps?

19:38

It sounds like a Bethesda game though.

19:40

That's how it's always done. Well, and that's the thing. So I would

19:42

say this, if you'd like, so I'll finish it,

19:44

I'm dominating right. But I've been wanting to get this off my

19:46

chest all week because it's really bugging me. It's taking

19:49

me out of the game

19:50

because it doesn't like, at one point

19:52

do I suspend my disbelief and not feel like these

19:54

aren't like puppets. Because the character

19:56

models are flat.

19:58

They're really flat.

19:59

Mass Effect 2 did this shit better, and that's an

20:02

Xbox 360 game.

20:04

And the real problem they have, I think, is that

20:06

the timing is so unfortunate with Baldur's Gate 3. Because

20:08

Baldur's Gate 3, even though it's a very different game, does

20:11

so many of these things better. Starfield

20:14

has a very good character creator. Baldur's Gate 3

20:16

has a better one.

20:19

Starfield has all

20:21

of these NPCs and quests. Baldur's

20:24

Gate has better ones. Like,

20:27

everyone in the game is so flat,

20:29

and that whole thing where it's just a person just talking

20:31

to you like this, it's not cinematic, it's

20:34

really flat. The character model's animations,

20:36

again, make them just feel like they're animatronic,

20:38

because they don't have... They have these lifeless

20:41

eyes, these dull eyes. Like, they don't

20:43

feel like real

20:44

people to me. And it just... For

20:48

me, some people don't care. If all you care about... This is

20:50

my first big Bethesda game I've ever played.

20:52

I was never into Fallout games or Elder Scrolls games. So this is

20:55

kind of a new way of storytelling. Very familiar

20:57

to people who played Bethesda games. And if you want, hey,

20:59

Bethesda, Fallout, Stroke, Elder

21:01

Scrolls, but in space, you're going to love

21:03

this game.

21:04

I found it really off-putting, because I just

21:06

don't... I feel like the rest of the world since Bethesda

21:09

established that style, has moved on and

21:11

found more interesting ways to curate

21:14

story and present other characters and cinematics.

21:17

And Bethesda's still doing what they've

21:19

been doing for years, and it feels to me, coming

21:22

to that style of presentation for the first time, very

21:24

dated, not cinematic, not engaging.

21:27

And I'm still enjoying the game, but it's in spite

21:30

of all of these things. Two things. Tell

21:32

me, Parris, hit me. Kind of address

21:34

what you talked about with the visuals and everything that

21:36

you're talking about with the NPCs. I

21:38

think this is the beauty

21:41

and the curse of the creation engine at work,

21:43

because I think it can have some

21:46

beautiful visuals, great attention to details,

21:48

some great lighting. But then when it comes to the

21:50

NPCs, exactly what you're talking about... In my notes,

21:52

I had the dead-eye thing talking about the whole thing.

21:55

Because you can tell the NPCs

21:57

that were specifically curated for

21:59

certain...

21:59

story beats, there's

22:01

a lot more detail into them and a lot,

22:03

they do seem to have more motion

22:06

to them, right? Whereas the standard ones,

22:08

they're doing exactly what you're saying. And I

22:10

think that is a ding and a limitation

22:13

to what they're trying to do in that style. But

22:16

that is also classic Bethesda at the same time.

22:18

So the one thing that

22:20

we said in our review,

22:21

as well as I've seen in other reviews,

22:24

like even more specifically the IGN one, I

22:26

think stands out what Dan was talking about, is part

22:29

of the problem that keeps this from reaching

22:32

that epic generational level that we

22:34

were hoping that it would be is

22:37

it

22:38

takes too long to get going.

22:40

I think where you're at, like

22:42

you said, you're about 25 hours. I think

22:44

you're about to hit that point where it is going to

22:46

go over the top and you're going to get into some really

22:49

cool shit. And that's why a preface is by saying,

22:52

I will not be drawn on a score. I will not give you a score

22:54

today because I'm not ready to give one.

22:57

Another thing that I wanted to mention about the character

23:00

interactions, though, the

23:02

acting is not great. And again, maybe

23:04

it's better in the main quest for the main characters. I'm just dealing

23:06

with side quests and NPCs where maybe they're not like

23:09

bringing the A game the way they are with

23:11

the central stuff. But

23:13

like a lot of the line reader, a lot of

23:15

the line reader, it really just feels like they're

23:18

reading lines off of a script. And there are several

23:20

occasions where I'm like, that wasn't the right

23:22

line reading. I don't think that's the way you were supposed to read

23:24

that line. And like they didn't get you didn't get to

23:26

do another take. You just went with it, even though it feels really weird

23:28

and wrong. Like the

23:31

it's just not what it's just not well

23:33

acted in terms of the vocal performances. It feels

23:35

very amateur dramatics, very

23:37

larpy. And then the other

23:39

thing I wanted to mention, because Paris and I talked about this is sometimes

23:42

the character behavior

23:43

is really weird. It's got

23:45

to be stuck in corners. They'll spin around

23:47

because you'll follow me with them to go spin around and then

23:49

walk off like that takes me out of the game. Weird

23:52

things like a car. I'm talking to a character now. Don't

23:54

forget when you're talking to a character, that's not

23:56

a cinematic. That's all happening live in engine. So

23:58

characters will just walk through.

23:59

Walk in the middle of through a conversation or there's

24:02

weird stuff. I'm talking to a woman I remember I talked

24:04

about this is a woman standing there. There's another

24:06

woman standing right behind her I look like it

24:08

like it's something out of Something out of a horror

24:10

movie like this weird other character that no one's talking She's

24:12

like standing right behind her like lurking behind her in a

24:14

really unnatural way like that happened

24:17

several times Several times I interacted

24:19

with characters that wouldn't even they would talk to me, but they

24:21

wouldn't turn around I come I come to the character

24:23

from behind. Yeah supposed to turn around They

24:27

sound towards the back of Paris's hair, that's

24:29

like a third of my interactions

24:29

in the game Yeah, sometimes they'll figure out

24:32

and turn to face you other times They won't although just kind of

24:34

like half turn so they're kind of

24:36

like I'm like I'm I'm like

24:38

so Paris. I'm like this. Oh, yeah, I heard

24:40

about that. It's like why did turn around? What

24:42

is wrong with you around? There was a lot of weird

24:45

stuff like that. Okay, I'm a that

24:47

stuff that can be fixed and patched Yeah But

24:50

the vocal performances and the writing

24:52

and just that general sense of like this all feels

24:54

a bit fake And and and performed

24:57

and contrived for my enjoyment rather

24:59

than feeling real and

25:00

you know Like again suspension is believe that

25:03

I don't think they can fix and it's been a problem

25:05

for me so far Well, I look forward to more

25:07

starfield talk Of course if you want the

25:09

big in-depth review go check out the kind

25:11

of funny games cast right now We're of course

25:13

lead reviewer for kind of funny Personally

25:15

will give you all of his in-depth thoughts and

25:17

analysis alongside Greg

25:20

Andy blessing and Tim So the big

25:22

review is there of course here on the kind

25:24

of funny X cast We're gonna answer your burning starfield

25:26

questions in just a moment because of course

25:28

This is the kind of funny X cast we

25:30

post each and every Thursday at 6 a.m West

25:33

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25:56

Thank you to our patreon producers for the month

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28:18

August 31st. All right guys

28:20

we're back. It was great to hear your initial thoughts.

28:23

I'm ready to jump into some burning questions

28:25

from the community because man oh man people

28:27

are excited for this game. We got a lot of questions

28:29

and we're all over the place. So

28:32

I kind of want to just start jumping from

28:34

piece to piece. If there's something you guys want to bring

28:36

up let's talk about it but let's jump in

28:39

to the viewer questions. Of course people

28:41

want to know about weapons and combat. Let's

28:43

talk about it because now there's guns.

28:45

We got some gun play in here and people are questioning

28:48

did they elevate the gun play in this. So

28:50

our first question comes from Mike Foster.

28:53

My wife isn't a shooter type of gamer. Will

28:56

she be able to play starfield as just an explorer

28:58

and since I'm a shooter

28:59

will I get shooter enjoyment out of

29:02

this.

29:03

I want to say it's yes to both. I

29:06

think she might have to do some early

29:08

on combat but I think again

29:11

going back to what we're talking about you'll get to

29:13

the point where you can just be that explorer

29:15

going the planet

29:16

but you'll you will get to some plans will

29:18

you need to defend yourself against some of the alien

29:21

life. So there is

29:23

some combat I think all that's always

29:25

going to be needed even if it's at a melee level.

29:27

But like I told you one one

29:30

shortcut is the cutter can

29:32

be used as a weapon. Yeah so you don't necessarily like the default

29:35

weapon. Yes. But but

29:37

I think to the second part of it I think the

29:39

combat they got it to an acceptable

29:42

level to where it feels like you

29:44

obviously just played. So I mean the guns felt

29:46

good. I mean is it at the top tier level

29:48

of shooters. No but it gets the job

29:51

done. I

29:51

think the shooting is solid. Yeah.

29:54

I don't think you even if you try and play in the

29:56

most stealthy persuasion type way possible you're

29:58

not going to be able to go through this game without.

29:59

doing some shooting, you're gonna have to shoot some stuff. You

30:02

don't like shooters, probably that's gonna be an issue. I

30:05

do wanna say

30:06

that some of the encounters are

30:08

really weird. So the very first Freestyle Rangers

30:10

mission I did, they were able to say like, before

30:13

we take you on as a Freestyle Ranger, let's give you a sample

30:15

mission. Go over to the mission board and pick something. So I picked like,

30:17

go kill this pirate captain guy, right? I've

30:20

gotten the ship, went to the system,

30:22

landed on the planet,

30:24

walked past all of his security, all of

30:26

them, they don't know who I am, I just showed up, all

30:28

of his security, all of his guards walked

30:30

right up to the boss who just stands

30:33

there and I shot him in the head. And then if

30:35

you're not encumbered, don't even get me started on that. I

30:37

just fast, you can fast travel out. And I just, I was done.

30:40

Like it was like, it didn't

30:42

feel like it, I mean, I'm sure there are other examples in the

30:44

game that maybe that one was bugged, but like, I'm

30:46

literally standing, the guy that I'm supposed to kill is going, yeah,

30:49

this is the guy that you kill. I'm like, is he gonna even

30:51

acknowledge? I'm standing here right next to him, I've got my gun

30:53

right on his head.

30:54

Okay, boom, dead, fast travel

30:56

out, done. That didn't feel right

30:58

to me. For my early impressions, the shooting is

31:00

fine. Like you said, pass, this isn't doom

31:03

or quake, this isn't Halo Infinite. And

31:05

that's not what this is going for, right? This is a

31:07

match of many different games

31:09

put into one. It is not prioritizing

31:11

the shooting over anything else. So I would say,

31:14

yeah, it feels fine to have a pistol, an automatic

31:16

weapon in your hand. I went long, long periods, like

31:18

not even remembering that it was a shooter, but then like you

31:20

walk into a thing and it's

31:23

a bunch of bad guys, oh shit, yeah, I shoot

31:25

in this game as well. But it's not like a shooter

31:27

driven game. Let's keep up with the combat, let's

31:29

jump into weapons, because people wanna know about the

31:32

weapons. James Wrighton says, hello,

31:34

X-Cast crew and fans. My question is,

31:36

during Starfield, did you come across any

31:38

named weapons that felt like

31:41

powerful versions of regular

31:43

weapons? And then on top of that, Muffinman

31:45

writes in and says, can you dual wield weapons

31:48

in this game? Like two pistols, two swords,

31:50

a laser gun in one hand and a knife in the other,

31:52

et cetera?

31:54

Hey, where's the camera? You don't want me

31:56

to answer that question about named weapons because

31:58

I'll be spoiling stuff, but yes, there are.

31:59

are some named weapons in the game that are quite

32:02

enjoyable and powerful that you'll want to use.

32:05

But to a lesser extent, there are some that like

32:07

I just use the Grendel as an example.

32:09

There are some examples of like a Grendel like

32:12

I have an exotic version

32:14

of the Grendel that has mods

32:16

on it to where it has these explosive rounds.

32:19

I mean, it's actually one of my go to weapons to use.

32:21

I really like using it feels really good. And

32:23

there's going to be other examples of those as well.

32:25

Not to mention, you can research and

32:28

craft mods to basically take any of the

32:30

weapons that have the mod slots on them and add various

32:32

features to them as well to upgrade them.

32:34

So in the gun plan, the weapons feel you know, when you pull

32:36

the trigger, you want to have that meaty feel like

32:38

and yeah, the weapon that I liked

32:41

into a legendary weapon early on, I was oh, man,

32:43

this is this is fun to play with. Then I couldn't

32:45

find any ammo for it. The game, the game's a little bit stingy with

32:47

ammo. Sometimes is

32:49

it? Well,

32:50

the problem is there's so many like all these different

32:53

guns take different kinds of ammo. So you might have three guns,

32:55

a bunch of ammo, but none of them are compatible. Yeah. So

32:57

again, that's just something you'll you'll figure out and learn

33:00

and sell and you'll buy the right ammo and not

33:02

waste time carrying ammo you don't need. And

33:04

that again, well, I got to mention the other thing,

33:06

the encumbrance to the

33:08

two other things was major encumbrance

33:11

and and and pathfinding mapping

33:13

to the two of the bigger problems of this game. I

33:16

maybe it's unfair me to say because I don't like encumbrance

33:18

in games. I think it's stupid. Baldur's Gate three

33:20

does it.

33:21

Zelda doesn't is to do two best RPGs

33:24

of the year have

33:26

very different ways of doing it. Starfield

33:28

chooses to have encumbrance. Fine. The

33:30

problem with it is the encumbrance

33:33

limit and when you start is really fucking low.

33:35

I got a warning. Oh, warning your oxygen will deplete

33:37

because you're encumbered. I'm like, well, how much am I carrying?

33:40

Virtually not not really very much at all. Now

33:42

you can here's the thing you can spend points. Yeah,

33:45

your skill points to so I resented

33:47

the fact because I want to level up fun stuff. Gun

33:50

shooting, damage, you know, weapon

33:52

damage, persuasion skills, pickpocketing.

33:55

I had to waste a skill point just

33:57

on upgrading my encumbrance limit and it only

33:59

act.

33:59

I don't want to have to spend skill points just

34:02

to be able to carry more stuff, because you can max out

34:04

really quickly. I said to Parry, he says, do I have a stash?

34:06

He said, yeah, on your ship. I went to the ship. And

34:10

that maxed out almost immediately. This

34:12

game is really, really stingy on

34:14

how much it lets you carry, and it's really

34:16

limiting. And you can't fast travel while

34:18

encumbered, which is, I don't know how

34:21

they think that's additive to the

34:23

game experience. I understand why you can't fast

34:25

travel in combat. I can't fast travel because I'm encumbered.

34:27

I had to drop a bunch of shit, because I couldn't find

34:29

my way back to the ship, because the mapping is bad. Yeah.

34:32

So there's a bunch of little problems. This is all

34:34

fixable, but they need to fix it. Yeah, honestly,

34:36

and we talked about

34:36

this during the review, it is probably

34:39

my number one pet peeve about the game, is

34:41

the inventory management and the encumbrance. I

34:43

mean, I can just kind of elaborate more on what Gary was just

34:46

talking about. It's the fact

34:48

that this game is designed, and I get this

34:50

classic, because I understand encumbrance. I mean,

34:52

there's other games that do it. I just feel that this

34:54

version of it is not very forgiving,

34:57

and it doesn't encourage you to do what the game

34:59

does best. And that's go out and explore

35:02

and grab every free thing. Right. That's what you want

35:04

to do. That's what you want to do. Let me take this back to the

35:06

ship and check it out. But you have

35:07

to be so, oh, if I pick that up, I can't carry this. It's

35:10

like, I don't want to be making those decisions. Yeah,

35:12

you shouldn't have to be thinking that hard about it. And

35:15

to your point, again, about the skill tree, it

35:18

was like the first thing I started leveling up, and

35:20

I shouldn't have to. Right, because

35:23

it's not like basic capacity, like being able

35:25

to just carry shit around. It's not a fun thing to

35:27

have to level up when I could be spending those points on more

35:29

fun stuff. But here's, again,

35:31

I know this is the complaining section of Starfield.

35:34

But

35:34

speaking on that, I'm in need, basically

35:37

at the end point of it,

35:38

and I max out on the weightlifting,

35:41

I'm putting skills into my ship's cargo

35:44

so I can hold more on that. Every

35:46

companion I have is a mule

35:48

at this point. I'm giving them everything. Can you upgrade

35:50

the ship's storage? Like an additional

35:52

locker space? Yeah, you can.

35:54

But part of that problem is it's not

35:57

every, and then you have like in the lodge, you have that

35:59

locker.

35:59

where you can store stuff, but it's not all interconnected.

36:02

So then when you get into scenarios where you need

36:05

resources,

36:06

it's not just pulling a pool from everything.

36:09

So now I gotta try to frickin' remember, wait, did

36:11

I give this person this? Is this on the ship?

36:13

Is this here? It's all over the place. I don't understand

36:16

the point of that. Number one thing they

36:18

need to address again. I get that that's technically more realistic.

36:20

No, your ship really is back on that planet, but it's not fun for

36:22

me to have to go all the way back there. I don't wanna do busy work,

36:24

I don't wanna do chores.

36:26

And by the way, that's another, again,

36:28

side quests only, I get it, but so many

36:30

of the quests are just like run around, flip

36:32

a bunch of switches and come back to me. It's not exciting

36:35

stuff to do.

36:36

And that also plays into it. I got a lot,

36:39

the other players I know are like this.

36:41

I'm one of those, I don't have a great sense of direction.

36:43

I get turned around and lost in maps

36:46

all the time. So I need a helpful tip.

36:48

I need a map, or what I really

36:51

like is when there's a waypoint thing that's telling me,

36:53

a little glowing line that's showing me where, select

36:55

a waypoint or pin a location and it'll basically

36:58

path it for me. And I follow the path. The

37:00

game does have those. It has a little

37:02

dots, it will tell me like, but you get

37:04

stuck with this. You know it's like 20 feet away, but

37:06

you still can't figure out like where it is. Like how do I

37:09

get there? You can hit the- Right, scan

37:11

button. Yeah, that's a scan button. Yeah. Or trust

37:13

me,

37:13

I know. If you press left bumper, you can turn on

37:16

a scanning system that highlights things and it will turn on

37:18

like a little line, but it's not very good.

37:20

Like it comes and goes, it's not persistent.

37:22

Sometimes you can't even, I'm like, I turn

37:24

on the line, but I can't figure out where the line is or where

37:26

it's going. Like it's, it's so

37:28

many, they've made it look cool and futuristic,

37:31

but it's not as useful or simple as it can

37:33

be. I got lost in maps

37:35

all the time, turned around like dead ends

37:37

and going around in circles. And so

37:40

I got, when I killed that pirate captain, I could not

37:42

find my way back to the ship. I could not remember the way

37:44

I came. I couldn't, the way the path

37:46

thing for some reason was broken for me, it wouldn't work. Oh,

37:49

I'll just fast, I'll just fast travel back

37:51

to the ship. Can't do it. Can't do that, you're encumbered.

37:53

You need to drop all the cool, interesting shit that you just picked up.

37:55

So for a game that in a big picture says

37:57

you can go anywhere, you can do anything, what, actually.

37:59

actually says no to you a lot of time over like

38:02

really basic mundane things that are like day

38:04

to minute to minute gameplay, which is I find that

38:06

annoying.

38:07

There's

38:08

a mission that and I

38:10

talked about this briefly in the review, but

38:12

it is literally the plot of Wally. And

38:15

I say that because

38:17

one of the solutions, the one that I was on was

38:20

requiring me to get an enormous

38:22

amount of resources that I was going to have to do

38:24

to complete this. I looked at that

38:26

and I go, there's no effing way I'm doing

38:29

this because I it's chaos. All

38:31

my stuff's all scattered. So

38:33

it discouraged me from continuing that

38:35

and I eventually went back to and did it, but it's

38:38

to the point of what we're saying that

38:41

fun should be the first priority

38:43

in right. Right. You're taking the fun factor away.

38:45

And I know this sounds like we're super complaining, but

38:47

I'm saying all that to say this.

38:49

These are one of the things that they

38:51

will be able to address with the proper feedback.

38:54

So that's why these are all fixable things

38:56

and they do understand quality of life because again, it does

38:58

a lot of things, right? The ability that long as you're

39:00

not encumbered, the ability to fast travel back to the ship is really

39:02

useful. When you board the ship, you can

39:04

either just bought it or you can go straight to the cockpit

39:07

for takeoff, little things like that that just save you

39:09

time. So you're spending more time playing the game than

39:11

you are doing just like boring traversal

39:13

back and forth. But you do end up doing a lot of that for

39:16

me. If I could wave a magic wand and have them fix

39:18

one thing now, something that can be fixed

39:19

is raise the encumbrance

39:21

levels. Cause the game does not let me carry enough.

39:24

I've never seen a game that lets me carry so little

39:26

and like, and I really, really resented having

39:30

to spend that point just to be able to carry more stuff.

39:33

It's like, Oh, like my guns do more damage.

39:35

That's cool. Oh, I've got more chance of persuading

39:37

this character to do something. That's cool. I can

39:40

carry more stuff.

39:41

No, just let me carry more stuff. I

39:44

hope

39:44

that a year from now we're having a conversation

39:47

going, man, remember when star field came

39:49

out and it really sucked that we couldn't carry

39:51

a lot. Glad they fixed that. And that's the kind

39:53

of the thing. That's why I know what we're talking

39:55

about right now is kind of the grievances, but

39:58

these are things that I'm sure they want.

39:59

want to hear that the community is going to be vocal

40:02

about as well. Because to your point, these

40:04

are fixable things that's just going to improve the quality

40:06

of life. And in any number of ways, and

40:08

this is why I said I would not put a score on it right now.

40:11

In any number of ways, I think you're going to see updated

40:13

reviews and updated impressions on the game weeks

40:15

from now, months from now, as people learn

40:18

more about what the game, where the limits of the game

40:20

really are, how much you can explore what you can

40:22

and can't do and we'll have a better understanding. Plus, as Bethesda,

40:25

fix things like please fix encumbrance. It's

40:28

bad. Again, I don't like encumbrance to begin with, but

40:31

if you're going to have it,

40:32

don't make it so limiting. Now, there's stuff I

40:34

want to pick up and I can't pick it up because most

40:37

of the stuff that I just need to survive, my

40:39

suit, my helmet and my pack,

40:41

those... Oh wait, half

40:43

my encumbrance is gone just to walk

40:46

on the surface of a planet. Now I can't

40:48

pick anything up. Let's talk

40:50

about role playing. Dave writes in and says,

40:52

hey guys, love the show, keep up the stellar

40:54

work. I was wondering how the game

40:56

pulls you in a role playing scene.

40:59

I love all of Bethesda's past RPGs,

41:01

but usually I don't find it pulls my

41:03

RPG strings as much as

41:06

Outer Worlds or Baldur's Gates. I

41:08

usually go in with a plan of sorts,

41:10

but then it falls

41:11

by the wayside and I end up a

41:13

Jack of all trades God.

41:15

What's up with role playing? Do you feel like you're really in

41:17

it? You feel like you can make your own story?

41:19

I think when we're specifically talking about this

41:22

game,

41:23

that possibility is there. This

41:25

is why I was saying before, the way

41:27

I played it during review is not

41:29

how I'm going to play it after review because you

41:32

can focus in on one thing

41:34

and truly role play that way in

41:36

this game. I think obviously

41:38

to the level you do it, you can't immerse yourself into

41:41

it and it feels like you're really doing it.

41:44

That comes

41:46

back to my biggest problem with the game is that the other characters

41:48

in the game don't feel like characters. They feel like actors. They

41:51

feel like cast members at Disneyland

41:54

whose job it is to make sure I have fun. I've

41:56

never done it, but you go to that galaxy's edge

41:59

or whatever they call it.

41:59

the Star Wars hotel where

42:02

everything, where they give you a backstory

42:04

and everyone's in character and people are coming

42:06

out to going, oh, are you the Miller

42:08

family? You would have helped me steal the Death

42:10

Star plans or whatever. It's

42:12

like, yeah, okay, great. But no one's believing for a second

42:14

that they're actually on a spaceship. I

42:17

feel the same way. It feels like it just feels

42:19

very fake.

42:21

It

42:23

doesn't feel cinematic. I think the character models,

42:26

just like, again, compare it to Baldur's Gate.

42:28

Look how good those characters look and look

42:30

how they move in a cut scene or how

42:33

they move around the space in a scene. These characters

42:35

literally just sit there like that.

42:37

And they're like, hello, I'm talking to you

42:39

and I have a mission for you. Oh no, please

42:41

don't kill me. Like, it's not, it

42:43

takes me out of the game every time I'm in one of those interactions.

42:46

The dialogue options are good. If you wanna be Commander

42:48

Shepard, renegade asshole. There's

42:51

some good asshole dialogue choices. So

42:53

it does give you a full suite of choices. It's

42:55

just that all of the characters that

42:58

I'm interacting with are so vanilla

43:00

and so dull. So Ranch Dressing

43:02

wants to know in Starfield, how fleshed out is

43:04

an evil play through, Gary? How

43:07

evil are we talking? I haven't, well, things

43:09

I haven't really, I haven't really settled on a vibe yet. Sometimes

43:11

I'm a, sometimes I, the renegade.

43:15

Yeah, yeah. Quote unquote option is fun. Sometimes it's not

43:17

what I wanna do. One thing I did do a lot,

43:19

like say you'd be out in orbit

43:22

and you see a ship and you hail them and you have those

43:24

conversations and then the piracy option

43:26

would come up. I'd be like, give me all your stuff.

43:29

People wanna know from our space pirate Paris

43:32

Lilly. Jeff Wright says, when you

43:34

want to take over a ship in Starfield, do you need

43:36

to kill everyone on the ship or just

43:38

the captain?

43:39

You gotta kill everybody because

43:42

that person will probably still come at you. Maybe you could still

43:44

probably hop in the cockpit and take command

43:46

of it, but I don't think there was ever a scenario

43:49

where I left an NPC alive if

43:51

I boarded. It's a good example of like, again, an area

43:53

of the game that I wanna get, I haven't done any piracy,

43:55

I haven't boarded a ship or done any of that stuff.

43:58

I haven't even done any smuggling.

43:59

Yeah, there's a there's an illegal

44:02

substance in the game called Aurora, which I

44:04

think they extract from yes guts. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

44:06

yeah so the so neon

44:08

is basically Omega

44:11

from Mass Effect on a giant like

44:14

Oil platform in space right and they harvest

44:16

the fish and I think I may have

44:18

gotten this we tell me from like but the Aurora Is like derived

44:20

from these fish? I think it's like I believe so. I'm

44:22

own or something. Yeah, and it's it's it's their

44:24

drug Right. Yes, it's whatever. It's the drug

44:27

that exists in in this one that for yeah Well

44:29

since it's a this thing that you can only

44:31

you can only carry it legally on neon

44:33

and you can only buy it From one place legally

44:36

on the on the astral and the place has a license to sell

44:38

it. You cannot take it off

44:40

World it legally right

44:43

and and and if you carrying on your ship, it's gonna

44:45

get detected by Law enforcement

44:47

who were all weekly and if you go to any kind of like civilized

44:49

system law enforcement will scan your ship the moment

44:51

You warp into the system unless you've

44:53

got like a smuggling module and I like

44:56

I had this Aurora And

44:57

I couldn't leave and I couldn't leave with

44:59

it

45:00

because the sinkers like the gate agent is saying like

45:02

you can't take that off Well, and they didn't have the ability to

45:04

like smuggle it through and even if I had it on

45:06

there I knew I couldn't this is really funny It's

45:08

like when you get stuck at the airport with all your duty free like

45:10

your mouth We'll just try to drink all the Aurora

45:13

and got like totally high on a roar which is fun because it slows

45:15

down time for 10 seconds. Yep, and so it's

45:17

actually a useful thing in combat. You kind

45:19

of go into like a bullet time, right? like a max

45:21

pain bullet time it actually has

45:23

Usefulness but like a lot of the stuff

45:25

a lot of stuff in the game like okay fine I'm

45:27

gonna go upgrade my ship and add a smuggling module.

45:30

I haven't yet figured out like how to do that I've

45:32

been to ship services But again, there's just

45:34

so much stuff that I think will open up once I figure out how

45:36

to do basic things I know

45:38

a guy. Okay, I'm gonna talk to

45:40

you after the show one talk about ultimate

45:43

freedom

45:43

You know, this is what Bethesda is known for role-playing

45:46

having it all at you at the players choice

45:49

Colin writes in and says

45:51

Are there black holes if there are black

45:53

holes can I jump into one? Can I also

45:55

launch myself into the Sun a la

45:58

outer worlds or talk about that during a sport?

45:59

I like that. Okay.

46:02

How about how about the Sun one? Can we answer the Sun

46:04

one? Can I jump into the Sun? I'm pretty sure that

46:06

when you okay that didn't I like that one. I can say

46:09

I hate you know, it's funny A lot Alana asked

46:11

me that one Like can I jump

46:13

in the Sun? I'm like, I don't think so One of the one

46:15

of the things that made me laugh this way that went viral

46:17

is like one of the again There was certain people out there that have

46:19

decided they love a hate star field already because they're in

46:22

a certain camp One of the haters did you

46:24

see this? Oh, well, you can't even land on this planet and this

46:26

planet and this one Because they're gas giants. Yes,

46:28

you're not something you would not be able to land on those anyway There's

46:30

plants literally don't have a surface. Yeah,

46:32

what are you complaining about? I

46:34

don't care. I want to be on the surface Gary How

46:38

about resource management crafting Christian

46:41

writes in and says as someone who loves customization

46:43

Crafting but can't stand resource

46:45

grinding do the companion slash outpost

46:48

mechanics allow me to automate resource

46:50

gathering How would that work? Also,

46:53

can we change weapon colors? Oh

46:55

a little two-parter right there don't know about the weapon

46:57

colors I'm gonna lean towards know I cuz

46:59

I if it's there I absolutely

47:01

missed it and wasn't

47:02

looking for it but From

47:04

the resource automated go. Absolutely. You

47:06

can the one outpost that I built

47:09

and really put some time and effort into I had

47:11

it set up it was What

47:14

was it? It was?

47:15

grabbing uranium

47:17

for me and I was doing helium

47:20

and

47:20

Something else but to his

47:23

point. Yes, you can do cosmetic

47:25

changes to the ships, right? You can modify

47:28

the look at the ships just cosmetically like now the

47:30

ships you can change colors, right? I did that

47:32

that that you can definitely do but

47:34

there's a lot of like to just to do things

47:37

in this game There's designed to be this way. There's a lot of

47:39

things you got to do. We were trying to make people the show Let's

47:41

say you want to add a Sniper

47:44

scopes or weapon that you have. Well, you've

47:46

got to research that

47:48

And in order to research it you've got

47:50

to collect all the raw materials So I've got to run

47:52

around on a bunch of different planets It tells

47:54

you you need three aluminum three of this three of that

47:56

now I've got to go scan those planets walk around find

47:59

the part of the

48:00

of the, because I remember I got confused by this, like

48:02

there's, it says it's aluminum, but I can only mine

48:04

the stuff that actually lights up on the scanner, use

48:07

the cutter, get it, get all the aluminum. Now I've

48:09

got to go back and research it. Now it's researched,

48:11

I've got to actually, that just gives me the ability to

48:14

build. Now I've got to craft it. So what

48:16

I figured out leads into this, what we're talking

48:18

about. So remember how like you would see like aluminum and

48:21

there'd be like an area that's lit up on the ground.

48:24

You can

48:25

set up an outpost near something like that

48:27

and you basically set up whatever thing. And

48:29

it's gonna farm. Right. See

48:32

this is exactly what I'm saying. I would not put a score

48:34

on it. I think Paris and other people have played

48:36

it enough that they can get it because you knew that and I didn't. I

48:39

cannot score it yet because like there's all this shit.

48:42

I've played it for another hundred hours. I'm gonna have a lot,

48:44

probably a very different,

48:46

it could be a 10 out of 10 game after a hundred hours. But

48:48

see, that's the pole. And we talked about this during the review. That to

48:50

me is the polarizing thing about this

48:53

because

48:54

it will require time investment into

48:56

this game. Anyone that plays

48:58

this game for 25, 30 hours, I just completed

49:01

the main question, I'm done. You're gonna go, and this is

49:03

the three out of five. What am I doing here

49:05

for everything that you were talking about? But if you're

49:07

willing to go past that and truly invest

49:09

a lot more time into it, that's

49:12

when it opens up. And

49:15

that's what I think, and I know this wasn't a question,

49:17

but I might as well say it now. This is what I think will

49:19

hold this back from being that generational

49:21

title for Xbox, being the signature

49:24

game for Xbox. Whereas I

49:26

think this will be a solid, great,

49:29

hey, Starfield was a great start

49:31

to the generation. Look, that was the starting

49:33

point for

49:34

all these games versus defining

49:36

the generation. I don't think Starfield's gonna be

49:38

that for Xbox. But I think it's

49:40

good that this is a game for Xbox because

49:43

you will go buy an Xbox and go play this game.

49:45

Yeah, 100%. It's overwhelming from the beginning

49:48

how expansive and open it is. If you're someone who has

49:51

trouble making decisions about where you want it, like two

49:53

places for dinner and you can't make a choice, you're gonna have

49:56

a hard time with this game because so much stuff opens

49:58

up to you. Like I said, questions being put.

49:59

pushed on you without even asking for my walk past. I

50:02

hear a conversation. Here's another quest. And

50:04

like, so I'm ADHD. I'm like, I

50:06

can't like

50:07

focus on jumping around discovering things by accident.

50:09

And again, that's kind of fun in itself. Like, OK, I'll go do

50:11

here. The game never says you can't do it.

50:13

It says you can't do lots of little things, but

50:15

it really lets you do lots of big things.

50:17

And I think it is the kind of game that says this

50:20

game is going to demand a lot of your time.

50:22

But if you wanted to put that time in, you will be rewarded.

50:25

That's the vibe that I'm getting. Let's

50:27

keep it going for a little bit longer here. Planet size

50:30

and mission size. Levi writes

50:32

in and says, in Starfield, I assume it varies.

50:34

But what would you say is the average size

50:36

of a random unimportant planets

50:39

you can land on, those not connected

50:41

to any major questlines, smaller

50:44

or similar in size to maps in Skyrim,

50:46

Oblivion, Fallout 4? Also,

50:48

side quests, how large is the largest

50:51

planet

50:51

you land on? Oh, OK.

50:54

Just wants to know, side quests, how large can the side

50:56

quests be? That's a hard question for me to

50:58

answer, because I never framed it in

51:01

that way of like, let me push the limit of

51:03

this planet, how far I can go. I know there

51:05

was the whole zone controversy that was happening

51:07

and everything. I never got to the point

51:09

where I edged up to the end of a zone,

51:12

and I needed to get back in the ship to

51:14

come here. I was even showing you how you can move around, and

51:16

you can do the different landing spots. So

51:19

I apologize. I can't really

51:21

answer

51:21

that in saying that

51:23

how big or small something was. I

51:26

definitely went around, did a lot of

51:28

surveying of resources and all that, and

51:30

I was able to mostly accomplish that in one

51:32

zone. I purposely would

51:34

have gotten back in the ship, well, let me go to this

51:37

side of the planet. Let me do this. I did those kind

51:39

of things, but I never got to the edge of something.

51:42

And when you'll see as you go around, there's

51:44

some planets that are super big, some that are really

51:46

tiny, moons, things like that. But

51:48

like I said, I never pushed the limit on it. Did you go to

51:50

Earth just to check

51:53

it out? I'm not going to talk about that.

51:55

Gary, let's talk about side quests really quick,

51:57

because you've been doing side quests. You talked about that.

51:59

I'm just kind of being like fetch quests and kind of basic

52:02

right did you find any that wowed

52:04

you in size maybe going from Another

52:06

planet to a planet to another planet and onward

52:09

and it was more of a fetch quest but on a global

52:12

Bigger scale or no Typical

52:15

side quests and not the kind of ones that we were joking about

52:17

when Todd was on the show like go kill ten Of these things

52:20

I haven't seen anything like that But it but it's a lot

52:22

of what

52:23

just feels like busy work Like there's

52:25

literally a quest where you have to go get someone coffee And

52:28

you know there's more to it than that as it eventually goes

52:30

on But there's a lot of like run around and hips

52:32

Flip switches at five locations or run

52:35

around and check like ten different senses and it

52:37

is just like go here go here Go here go here

52:39

come back and that's it and a lot of them are like

52:41

that and after a while like

52:43

It's again. They're just side quests. So

52:45

like they're not maybe not meant to be the most interesting part

52:47

of the game, but like

52:49

Again, I should that's what I'm choosing to do. That's

52:51

how I choose to play the game Like every play every

52:53

play through the game should be valid. Like I think it's a failure

52:56

I'm not necessarily saying is in this case But it's a failure

52:59

if a game says you can play any way you want and

53:01

that includes ways that you can play it That make it really

53:03

boring.

53:04

I will say this though

53:06

One of if not the best quest that I did

53:08

that turned out to be took me hours

53:11

to wind up completing

53:13

Started off that way right something very

53:15

mundane and random and I totally believe

53:17

that they have a slight that I've maybe I've A lot of

53:19

the ones I've got have been very kind of pedestrian.

53:21

Yeah

53:22

Let's round out the show with two more questions because we

53:25

have a lot of questions and we're gonna be talking Oh my god,

53:27

are we already out of time? So long The

53:31

full review is up now on games

53:33

cast we here at the X cast are gonna be talking

53:35

about this next week the week on We're

53:37

gonna be talking about star field a lot.

53:39

So let's keep it tight right now Two

53:42

more questions coming in shipbuilding

53:44

and outposts muffin man wants to know

53:46

how are the pre-built ships and outposts?

53:49

Compared to building your own from scratch fallout

53:52

4's base building was

53:52

too much for me But I'm hoping that pre-built

53:55

options are good and worth using as

53:57

well like in Skyrim house building DL

53:59

see, sorry if the submission is too early. My

54:02

favorite ship in the game was a pre-built

54:04

one. Okay. It was one that I earned through

54:07

a quest. I

54:08

messed around with the ship building. It

54:11

can get very complex, but

54:13

I just did something simple to say I did it. But

54:15

there'll be people, again, talk about role-playing and all

54:18

that, that they'll get into in-game activity.

54:20

And I'm actually excited to see what the community

54:22

is going to come up with with some of the creations that you

54:25

do. But there's a lot of different options

54:27

and things that you'll be able to pull off. So

54:29

the more creative people are, the better

54:31

it will be. Now, the question about pre-built outposts,

54:34

as far as I know, there's no pre-built outposts. Oh,

54:36

really? Okay. You have to build your own. You have

54:38

to build your own. It's not like a, here's a five

54:40

bedroom home. You just plop it down there. No,

54:43

no, no. There's a resource outposts. You know, there's the one trait

54:45

where

54:45

you get the house. Yes, yes, yes. But no,

54:48

nothing that's pre-built for on a planet.

54:50

There's an outpost and whatever, not that I know

54:52

of. One other, just a couple of small things I want to highlight,

54:54

because again, like I want to make sure that, because

54:56

I've talked about a bunch of stuff that bothered

54:59

me. There's a lot of stuff in it I really like. I really like

55:01

the traits you get to pick at the beginning. There's some

55:03

really fun and interesting ones. Did you pick any wacky traits? Well,

55:05

I picked one that I really like, which is my parents are alive

55:07

and I go visit them, but I have to send 2% of everything

55:10

I own back to them every month. That's

55:12

fine. Let's just go. And I went and found them.

55:14

And they're a very nice couple. And they're happy to

55:16

see me. That's awesome. And I feel like

55:19

I may be wrong or maybe

55:22

I wanted it to be there, but like the mother

55:24

looks like my mother. I think what they're doing is taking

55:27

your character model

55:29

and like saying, what would that character's mother look like?

55:31

Cause she looks like my mom. Yeah. Okay. Really? Like

55:33

the character's mom. Yeah. Yeah. And

55:35

so that was cool. I think some of the traits

55:37

and perks are really, really fun. You know what I picked?

55:40

What? A Doring fan. Oh, I have the guy who chases

55:42

me all around. He's the best. He's bringing

55:44

me gifts and he's part of my crew now. And he

55:46

sleeps in my bed. Of course you like him.

55:49

One thing that I did early on, and I think they put it in there deliberately

55:52

because it does illustrate how the game I do.

55:54

One of the

55:54

things that they advertise and I think is true is that three

55:57

people could play 50 hours of this game and be, and,

55:59

and not.

55:59

have overlapped with anyone else, each other's content at all.

56:03

You can see totally different stuff. I applied

56:05

for a job at OC security, which is like

56:07

the local cops.

56:09

And they

56:12

said, oh, your locker's back there. Go check

56:14

it out. And I went back. And there

56:17

was a blanket or something in a locker. I thought, oh,

56:19

I'll grab that. And I didn't realize I was stealing it. And it says

56:21

steal. I didn't pay attention. Grabbed it. There's a security

56:23

guard right there. You're under arrest for stealing a blanket. Next

56:26

thing you know, I wake up in an interrogation room. And

56:28

some fucking space CIA dude comes in and

56:30

says, well, I can either throw you in jail

56:32

forever for stealing a blanket, or you

56:35

can come work for me and infiltrate this pirate organization

56:37

and be like an undercover operative.

56:40

I thought, fuck, I'll do that. And now I'm doing that. And

56:42

that's like a whole massive quest line. And

56:44

that's really cool. Like, I'm in

56:46

tight with the pirate captain, but then I'm going back

56:48

to the vigilance to like debrief my

56:50

guys on what I've learned. Like, that's nothing

56:53

to do with the main game. But it's just really

56:55

cool. I've been doing that a lot. It is one of the best quest

56:57

lines in the game. Yeah, it's really fun when you get to the

56:59

end. Yeah. Let's end it out here.

57:02

We have so much to talk about. I wish we could stay forever,

57:04

especially with you and the building parents. Blow

57:06

off all the afternoon stuff. Let's just keep talking,

57:08

X-cast. But let's talk about end game. OK,

57:11

we're here at the ending now. Aaron

57:13

and Toby Blue have both written in, and I want to hit both

57:15

of their questions. Aaron first, what's up,

57:17

y'all? My question is,

57:19

what is the end game of Starfield like? One

57:21

of my favorite thing in Bethesda games is

57:23

how there is always things to do and places

57:25

to discover after the main story ends.

57:28

Are there endless procedurally generated

57:30

side quests, like Fallout 4, that tend to get boring

57:32

and repetitive after a while? Or do you think

57:35

that all of the various systems, pirating

57:37

out, post building, exploration, crafting, et cetera,

57:40

keep gameplay fresh and the player hooked for

57:42

a long time? Can't answer that question directly

57:44

because it will spoil the end game, other

57:47

than to say

57:48

they've taken a unique approach to that.

57:51

And this is why I've said it. I

57:53

know Pete Hines had said it before the game even came

57:56

out,

57:56

that the

57:57

game does not truly start until you complete

57:59

the main story.

57:59

quest.

58:00

So Toby Blue wants to know, Hey, X cast

58:03

crew, I'm a player who likes to take my time and

58:05

explore all the side content before I

58:07

finish the main story. But from the games

58:09

cast discussion, it sounds like the post game

58:12

is actually where the game starts to sing.

58:14

So with that being said, do you recommend

58:16

me completing the main story earlier

58:19

in order to experience the post? I think the

58:21

way it's designed, and I'm being careful because I

58:23

don't want to spoil it is.

58:26

You could take either approach and I think it

58:28

would be satisfying to you. Personally, I

58:31

would not

58:32

rush through the main quest. I would

58:34

experience the game. I would experience all

58:36

the systems that you can, the different roles you can

58:38

do the factions.

58:41

Before you decide, Hey, I want to knock

58:44

this out. Find what you like. Yeah,

58:46

that's exactly how I've been playing it. Yeah. Find what you

58:48

like.

58:49

Then. Okay. Let me, let

58:51

me get the main quest going. Let's get into that end

58:53

game and we can go from there. That's what I

58:55

would do. Well, kind of funny, best

58:57

friends, X cast listeners near and far

59:00

Starfield is now officially out as

59:03

of recording this. Uh, I believe early

59:05

access starts at 5.00 PM. When you're hearing this, it's

59:07

already live. Of course, if you're playing on game

59:09

pass, you'll get that next week. You can pay for the

59:11

upgrade to play it right now. And we

59:13

can't hear, can't wait to hear what you think

59:16

of Starfield next week. We'll talk all things

59:18

Starfield one week removed. So we'd love

59:20

for you to write in kind of funny.com slash

59:22

X cast with your thoughts and impressions

59:25

of Starfield after your first initial

59:27

play. And, uh, can't wait to talk

59:29

to you more into the beyond. We'll see

59:31

you later gamers.

59:32

Goodbye.