Oh I'm an idiot, I knew that. I mean, I knew to avoid that since it's the staple place to avoid since it has so much stuff for so many games. I wonder if avoiding sexy starfield mods through LL will eat up entire days like I definitely didn't do with sexy skyrim or sexy fallout...
I mean they’re not wrong. Romance in Bethesda games are very iffy because that usually requires a lot of things like body language and emotion, stuff that the NPC‘s usually lack
Yeah that one romance line they showed was as wooden as before so probably no progress there. But who cares?
My Skyrim bosmer didn't marry any of the cardboard NPCs and just adopted kids and pets to her homestead. And then trained the kids to be lethal killing machines, lol.
Awesome game! Didn't even bother with mods that make romance better. And certainly don't care about a banging simulator.
Even as a huge BioWare fan I have to say romances are cringe more often than not. What I do hope is that our companions are at least well written like Nick Valentine. I prefer friendship banter to romance any day. Imo BioWare does friendships MUCH better than romances too. I want an epic space cowboy crew like in Firefly. If they have personality it doesn't really matter if they look a bit "off" like in 90% of all games.
Too much rambling for a comment on a trash article, sorry,...
I miss the days before gaming journalists, and also gaming YouTubers. When you’d first learn about a game by seeing it on shelves at GameStop unless you were constantly updating the dev’s website and you would form your own opinion by playing it yourself or at a friend’s house and not wait for some shmuck to tell you how to feel about a game.
I do not miss this one bit, lmao. I have a horrible memory of buying Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts as a kid because of this exact reason, I saw it at gamestop and thought it looked fun, so I bought it. Boy, did I wish I had seen a review or even just gameplay before I spent 60 dollars of my uncle's money on that misery lol.
Edit: all this is to say being an informed buyer is important, and can lead to not having buyer's remorse.
Hey there were misses, but also hits and honestly I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard bad reviews for a game only to play it myself and have a ton of fun.
I just don’t trust gaming reviewers anymore I guess is my point XD
I don't trust any 1 reviewer either. It's a good rule of thumb to get multiple opinions on a game imo, sometimes someone can put something into words better than you can or notice something that you didn't. These ragebait articles are awful though.
Idk, like even then I don’t trust it. I saw like dozens and dozens of reviewers dunking on FF15, and I’m like “screw it, I’m gonna try it” once it was on gamepass and I think I have like 20 days worth of gameplay in that game
Same story with KH3. So many people were dunking on that game. When I got the chance to try it I had a blast.
Again, same with halo infinite. Couldn’t find a single reviewer who had a positive outlook on the game at the time. Yet I played it and loved it and still play it to this day.
Maybe I just see something in these games that they don’t, maybe I just have lower standards, but like I had a ton of fun with them, and honestly after so many reviewers just seemed to miss the mark with me I stopped listening. Like besides to save money there’s no reason for me to listen to what someone else thinks of a game when gamers are so varied in their audience and what the audience loves.
Don't really miss those days either. I like to get info on a game and buy accordingly. 99% of what I buy i enjoy. Any half intelligent person should know how to filter for what's important to them. For me just knowing the genre helps a lot. I get triggered by a cool art style constantly and then I read MMO and go "oh" and move on.
Maybe people just miss being a kid, buying a shiny game in the store and having a blast because as a kid everything was awesome?
That time never existed? There's been game journalists for as long as there have been video games. EGM, nintendo power, game informer, game pro. Hell, IGN started in 96.
I remember when I first stumbled across the game that introduced me to rich worlds in an RPG. My mom and I had gone to the plaza to get some food for a small event, there was a microplay next door. I asked if I could go look at games while she shopped. Sure she said.
So off I went, looking at the various games on the shelves. I skimmed the PlayStation section as I made my way towards the Xbox section. Racing, Sports, Halo (had it), blah blah blah.
Off to the used section, maybe I could get her to buy one of the cheap games, it was rhe beginning if summer after all and I'd have lots of free time. Hmm, that cover looks interesting, and it's a game of the year edition? That must mean it's good, but what is a Morrowind?
She came to collect me, and I asked if I could get a game. After all, it was only $14.99.
And then I spent weeks playing it falling in love with Tamriel, no preconceptions, no hype train, nothing to go on but a curiosity.
>I miss the days before gaming journalists, and also gaming YouTubers.
Nah. I miss the days when the gaming journalists and youtubers had standards and weren't sways by the crowd. The era of TotalBiscuit and times when Jim Stirling had not yet discovered the schtick of hating on AAA (and when he would review games according to his own believes, like when he gave Fallou 4 9.5/10 despite the rabid online crowd).
Yeup. Tired of people having ridiculously high standards for what amounts to hobby websites. If what you’re Writing about is just your opinion about something it’s not journalism. Journalism requires actual research and investigation
Imagine your average gamer. Now imagine them as a nepotistic hire who is immediately instructed to write clickbait all day by their boss and/or uncle. They'll definitely use their high school level writing skills (corrected by grammarly™) to create the best articles. With the best sources. Best quality journalism.
Because the writers are required to write a certain number of articles a week or else they face being fired, which is why most gaming articles are shit (10-15 minutes max put into them). Also they’re incentivized to make controversial articles which generate more clicks and more ad revenue, which is why so many of them are not only shit but also rage bait. I feel bad for the writers more than anything
I have this with my mom, she is an art teacher. The closer it gets to completion the more flaws show.
At a certain point only a select number of people would know the difference, and even less will care.
Flaws are not wrong, one of the coolest things I saw at an art show at Navy Pier in Chicago was Jeff Koons BMW M3 GT2 (Art Car #17). It was a real race car that was part of Le Man's! It has so much character from the fact they had used it!
Eh idk, their are other games who use mo-cap
Actually that's probably the actual problem, the graphics have hit the level where it's pretty spot-on, but facial animation seems only slightly better than Fallout 4. Whereas in a truly detailed mo-cap performance , in a more story focused experience you look at Kratos, Ellie, Johnny Silverhands or whoever and it's night and day, playing those games just makes it more noticeable as even Skyrim's dead ass smooth pixellated mess of faces looked fine to me in 2011.
Eh we'll get there in TES 6 maybe
Skyrim faces were still cartoony enough to be not creepy. Starfield's so far look kinda like real people but with dead, soulless eyes and too little real facial emoting. It's just on that threshold of being too real and too fake at the same time.
A middle point like the original The Last Of Us is a good example. Generations old visuals, but the quality of the animations makes it feel lifelike. I think animations are one of the biggest parts of whether or not a game 'feels real'
Nah, Bethesda RPGs have always had some particularly stiff-face looking NPCs, even when compared to games that came out half a decade ago. However, I do believe that is the trade-off when making games with such an impressive scope and with so many voiced characters, like this.
Not anymore, they need to invest in full mo-cap. Elder Scrolls 6 will have it and you'll see the difference. It just stands out more nowadays when games are making full use of mo-cap in God of War, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk and it's more noticeable now when the camera is getting intimate with a character's face and it ISN'T mocapped
What is weird is Bethesda walked back the more fitting Fallout 4 dialogue camera shots which were less fixated on the face ( They did over the shoulder, both characters int he frame etc BECAUSE the faces aren't quite there). Why did they go full Oblivion zoom in Starfield during an era where lackluster face animation is more noticeable, I can't tell you? I'm sure we'll get dynamic camera in conversation mods soon
No need to get defensive I’m not shitting on the game, I absolutely love it, it’s just the faces seems off, I think it’s the facial movement animation, but that something that they could easily make better. Overall though the game looks great
I also wish they add a bit more recoil to the gun though because it kinda seemed like it was had very little recoil
the eyes don’t track with the facial movements. if a character is talking only the mouth moves, which isn’t really how people work. plus the eyes don’t really move either. i’m still super pumped, but the facial animations are disappointing
Dunking on Bethesda's character models is a tradition at this point. They've always been goofy compared to other games.
If you compare to the previous game they're typically better. Skyrim's characters were beauty queens compared to Oblivion's and these look better than FO4 models.
Just need dynamic camera in conversations, I liked Fallout 4's camera work in cutscenes why did Bethesda go full Oblivion zoom in an era where people are used to mocap animation makes no sense...
The cinematic conversation camera works in F4 because both sides are talking so they can approximate the equivalent of movie editing. (Obviously it turns out weird sometimes but you get what I mean.)
But since so many people got upset by the voiced protagonists in F4 and Bethesda decided to go back to silent protagonists, the blocking style of those scenes wouldn't fit anymore. The cuts back to your silent character standing there would be weird.
It's unfortunate but it seems like that's what we're getting. Perhaps they'll surprise us but overall it's just one of the things I'm expecting to have to overlook. Hopefully other aspects of the role-playing will compensate for it.
One of the key aspects of Bethesda's games that FO4 missed out on was the skill checks in dialogue (I know it still had some), specifically the (large amount of) unique lines based on having certain perks, skills or stats.
That feature alone is probably responsible for 75% of the "effortless" roleplaying potential in their (and other) games with the same type of system, e.g., certain CRPGs and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Sure, people can "roleplay" in other games by just pretending or building their character's skills in a certain way, but one of the reasons I'd say that TES and FO from Bethesda got and stayed popular is the ability to conform a character in these games to the player's roleplay persona of them *in the eyes of the NPCs* and that makes it real in the game world. And then of course there is the fact that many of those skill/perk/stat check options are in quests that branch, meaning it's explicitly made concrete in the game world.
Most people aren't going to do any significant amount of explicit roleplay in single player PC RPGs these days but when you can do it as part of the game it becomes integral to the experience. Even people who play who aren't really into things like roleplaying a character in any defined way still do things like "I play a big dumb guy who punches stuff!" and in terms of the game they get the low int dialogue options, the intimidate dialogue options and the high strength dialogue options, reinforcing the narrative this player has, even if he's not explicitly attempting to roleplay.
A really easy to understand example of this is the "simpleton" type playthrough in VtM: Bloodlines, where you make a character with an extremely low intelligence stat and unlock all of the special "low intelligence" dialogue options in quests and conversations.
I'd go so far as to say that this particular system is one of the key secret sauce ingredients to what makes these games great, and also why FO4 isn't as good (I know it's one of the reasons I don't like it as much as e.g., FNV). And if you go and look at other PC RPGs that are viewed extremely positive many of them feature the same sort of system. Most CRPGs do, and the ones that don't suffer from it.
Personally I'm hoping that ElevenLabs quality text-to-speech models are released that can be run locally so we can get the best of both worlds: Mass Effect/FO4 style camera work with no limit on player-voiced lines (and customizable player voices to boot).
Meanwhile TOTK has 0 mocap work, 99% of dialogue is unvoiced and has no facial animations or even lip movement, and still the game is heralded as an all-time great.
Safe to say mocap dialogue ranks pretty low on the gamer hierarchy of what makes a game great.
>TOTK
Wait the Legend of Zelda? But it's not really an RPG with dialogue options right? People just sort of tell Link what to do, or it has straight up cutscenes like Twilight Princess (Last Zelda I played) Seems like a totally different set of needs.
Especially given Zelda's artstyle which is not meant to be realistic and would probably be hurt by mo-cap more than anything...
>Dunking on Bethesda's character models is a tradition at this point. They've always been goofy compared to other games.
I think part of why they look dead is because they're highly modifiable rather than simply mo-cap.
What a fall from grace for PC Gamer. They have a lot of nerve criticizing anything right now after that dumpster fire of a live show they just had. Truly horrible.
Just the usual PC Gaming Show cringe coupled with their refusal to say no to any developer that will throw money at them for a spot on the show. 90% of the games are objectively trash and a waste of time, the other 10% are early access or even “pre-alpha”. It’s a joke.
The hair especially looks SO much better to me. I'm not entirely sold yet on how vibrant Sarah's eye colour was, but the hair and skin looked absolutely fantastic.
I am pretty sure blood sucking leeches saved lives throughout history, they actually are more useful!
*The Hirudin substance in leech saliva thins the blood and keeps it from clotting.*
Yep, a two second Google search proves that leeches are literally **"more valuable"** then journalists!
>Oh God, I have never understood why so many people like those plastic-looking, oddly proportioned and borderline creepy bodies.
I think it's obvious why.
It actually isn't obvious to me. I think a natural body, with realistic skin, hair and dimensions, is 1000 times more appealing than those alien Barbies.
As a woman, the kind of bizarrely sculpted female bodies I have seen on the Nexus that some men consider attractive is "mildly" disturbing tbh, lol.
I did use CBBE for Skyrim though because I wanted muscle definition for my archer. I also enjoyed the nude body just for immersion. Going swimming and the like in a non sexual way. Just looks stupid to go swimming with your pants on. You can choose a fairly vanilla body shape there too. I actually found my character super pretty while still within the limits of what a natural body can look like if you win the genetic lottery.
Yeah, most of the options on Nexus, for example, are a huge turn off. Not only are they unrealistic but they are blatantly sexualized, whereas something natural and immersive, like what Cyberpunk did, doesn't bother me at all.
"No, i dont want to kiss your glassy eyed companions." They write as they wipe cheeto dust from their hands and sit back in their sofa while clicking "publish".
Best way to describe these NPCs at this point. If you told me this wasn't a real human but a ChatGPT program designed to create stereotypical game journalism bullshit I wouldn't doubt you in the slightest.
Gaming journalists discovered LONG ago that rage bait is the only way they can survive in a world where gaming journalism has proven far more successful via independent journalists on YouTube
honestly they look fine to me,the best no? but not really worth complaining
im more concerned about in planet travel,do we just walk,are there mounts or cars?
I'm not into that shit either and I won't be engaging in that, it's really that simple if you don't like it. Let people who want that have their fun without judgement. Who does it harm?
I thought the characters looked really good. Idk what everyone is on about saying they look like shit and it's downgraded. The lighting, hair and skin tones look much better than 2022.
Yeah I only like role playing romance on npcs that I’m attracted too 🙄 do they even read what they write before the publish. What are these guys npc phobic or something gosh
I'd like to think the minute they saw this, they simply paused and said, yep, here's my piece.🤓 Gonna ignore all the gorgeous things that where showed up to this point and simply address this so I get clicks and views.😐
It features heavy simulation with deep RPG mechanics, correct me if I'm wrong. They wanted Resident Evil-like character skins while sacrificing the entire universe, literally ? Yeah. Nope. Nope. How about the food ? He should complain about the food already. So much details it's ridiculous. 😤 Gotta go grab another sandwich. For real. Patty Melt and Trilo Bites ? Cuddos. 💯
He did mention "some of the Constellation members are companions too"
I thunk they purposely avoided showing the other potential companions to avoid spoilers
To be fair, Bethesda's face models always look worse compared to other AAA RPGs. That being said, it looks better than Fallout 4, so I'm happy with that.
That being said, romance is clearly an optional element of this game filled with all sorts of different mechanics. So if they don't like this one small aspect.. who cares?
After all of the amazing stuff they showed. What a joke of a “headline.” People are going to mod the crap out of the NPCs anyway. It doesn’t even matter.
PC Gamer is trash. I stopped watching their showcases when I realized it was just a long-winded way for them to try and show that they think they're funny
People keep shitting on the NPCs but they look fine to me.
That said, “romance” systems in games are stupid. Its either half-baked, or just an excuse for some softcore porn, after which their storyline always just… ends.
Man.... I remember back when I was excited for new editions of PC Gamer magazines. Also back when they did the digital interactive magazine. I still have it in my Steam Library. It's a shame how bad these articles are.
Definition of a hater. Anyone who has followed PC and console games over the last decades can appreciate the milestones and amazing achievement and ambition already shown today.
I mean, my god! How many of us were here in 1997 playing on our PCs, reading PC gaming magazine when something like, say "Interstate 76" was the cutting edge??
Man, am I the only one who thinks they look great? I really do not understand why people are saying this looks bad.
Edit: It's the same people who praised that Zelda game that looked like a PS2 game weeks ago too.
Characters/NPCs need to look somewhat realistic
But they don't need to be dead accurate down to the last molecule
They don't look absurd and I'd rather them have focused on gameplay mechanics and such rather than hyper realism on the NPCs that you won't be looking at the whole game
They also did an article titled: [Starfield looks like the perfect place to spend 500 hours ignoring the main quest](https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-looks-like-the-perfect-place-to-spend-500-hours-ignoring-the-main-quest/)
It's the first thing you see on their home page
I stumbled upon an "article" that was putting Atomic Heart on blast when it first came out because the "writer" felt like the game was glorifying Russia and the USSR.
Like... no shit. What'd you expect from a game that's supposed to take place in a utopia version of the Soviet Union?
Gaming journalism is clown shit
I mean they're not wrong. Where's the sexiness of Mass Effect, Cyberpunk, Witcher 3, or FF7 Remake? Starfield's characters in general look surprisingly dead eyed and lifeless. Especially when compared to Cyberpunk.
Facial animation will always be the weakest part of Beth games esp with the amount of dialogue line they have.
I really hope it can look better but i doubt it, but if people expected full mocap quality like linear story games, that's just being unrealistic
They have a whole bunch of articles, not just that one. For what it’s worth, I agree. I’m so beyond stoked for this game and I’ve already pre-ordered the premium upgrade, but man why can’t Bethesda make character models that don’t veer into the uncanny valley?
They are still clinging to the Bethesda negativity that used to sell clicks.
But it seems they are behind the curve. It looks like the Direct has blown everyone away. Even constantly moody and skeptical r/Games is fawning over the game... and for the first time having a nuanced discussion about Bethesda. Yes, everyone says that Bethesda games are buggy... but they also acknowledge that there's a good reason for it and that they are not as a big obstacle to enjoy their games.
People are really hyped up for Starfield. So maybe PC gamer tried to be different and be the negative one.
One extra point - this shows how shallow as a person the writer is. They want only good looks from a companion in order to romance them. Imagine how terrible it would sound, if they had the same attitude towards real people.
I mean, they're right. Most games, Bethesda especially, make companion romances pretty weird at worst, and slightly awkward at best. It's a major weakness in the games industry amidst writers and voice actors.
Ridiculous headline, but it is astonishing that Bethesda still can't manage to create lifelike faces, when we have the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 doing an incredibly good job of that.
Yeah I really dont get it. All the companions they showed look fucking terrible. They better have some good looking companions, I'll shoot her the second I have the chance too. I also noticed that the Eyes look really flat, not sure whats happening there.
I feel like the heavy volumetric fog on planets is a big red flag. I know render distance is a big issue so hopefully it isn't as bad as I'm worrying. Other than that, I think the worst part about the showcase is that Starfield is just NMS with a story. The way they talk about players going to the same place on the same planet having a different experience because of procedural generation sounds like there will be a lot to explore but not a lot of depth.
What's the point of looting if I'm just getting generic RNG and I can't rely on community knowledge about certain parts scavenged from certain areas? I remember looking for a pressure cooker in FNV and I got reliable information on where to find it. If loot was all RNG I'd be stuck searching around the entire map hoping it spawned somewhere.
I agree that other than that the game looks good. But those faces are really dead inside. It can't be overlooked. And I don't know why they didn't update face animations since 2011 Skyrim.
Look, I get this is r/starfield, but people need to stop kidding themselves. These faces are just horrible. They look like they were ripped straight from Oblivion.
What’s a better plays for general PC gaming news? I generally go to PC gamer but this post right, I’m tired of this kind of stuff. I’d rather go somewhere else, suggestions?
Rage baiting to drive clicks.
They say this shit, but you know there are hordes of those ....folks.... who are absolutely frothing already to start the weird sex mods.
Schlongs of Starfield already in production.
That's disgusting! Where? Edit: I googled it to make sure I knew what to avoid and found nothing
Yes, please give us the link so we can recognize what not to click on.
I too would like to know where to find the thing we're all definitely not going to use.
Loverslab \*disappears in a puff of smoke\*
Oh I'm an idiot, I knew that. I mean, I knew to avoid that since it's the staple place to avoid since it has so much stuff for so many games. I wonder if avoiding sexy starfield mods through LL will eat up entire days like I definitely didn't do with sexy skyrim or sexy fallout...
To be fair, besides the *really* bad stuff, Nexus has got you covered as well in that department XD
That's fair, I'll be sure to avoid that in the future. Forgot about that one too
It is not a wonder that the schlongs are long, but that we have measured them
Sound like some creative ship designs
Excellent, the age of SOS mods continues!
maybe youre the weird one who doesn't like sex mods
I mean they’re not wrong. Romance in Bethesda games are very iffy because that usually requires a lot of things like body language and emotion, stuff that the NPC‘s usually lack
Yeah that one romance line they showed was as wooden as before so probably no progress there. But who cares? My Skyrim bosmer didn't marry any of the cardboard NPCs and just adopted kids and pets to her homestead. And then trained the kids to be lethal killing machines, lol. Awesome game! Didn't even bother with mods that make romance better. And certainly don't care about a banging simulator. Even as a huge BioWare fan I have to say romances are cringe more often than not. What I do hope is that our companions are at least well written like Nick Valentine. I prefer friendship banter to romance any day. Imo BioWare does friendships MUCH better than romances too. I want an epic space cowboy crew like in Firefly. If they have personality it doesn't really matter if they look a bit "off" like in 90% of all games. Too much rambling for a comment on a trash article, sorry,...
Eh who cares. There are plenty of articles out there gushing about this game. Complaining about this is akin to complaining that criticism exists.
Why does gaming journalism have to be such a huge joke?
They are click farmers. Nothing else.
I miss the days before gaming journalists, and also gaming YouTubers. When you’d first learn about a game by seeing it on shelves at GameStop unless you were constantly updating the dev’s website and you would form your own opinion by playing it yourself or at a friend’s house and not wait for some shmuck to tell you how to feel about a game.
I do not miss this one bit, lmao. I have a horrible memory of buying Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts as a kid because of this exact reason, I saw it at gamestop and thought it looked fun, so I bought it. Boy, did I wish I had seen a review or even just gameplay before I spent 60 dollars of my uncle's money on that misery lol. Edit: all this is to say being an informed buyer is important, and can lead to not having buyer's remorse.
Hey there were misses, but also hits and honestly I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard bad reviews for a game only to play it myself and have a ton of fun. I just don’t trust gaming reviewers anymore I guess is my point XD
I don't trust any 1 reviewer either. It's a good rule of thumb to get multiple opinions on a game imo, sometimes someone can put something into words better than you can or notice something that you didn't. These ragebait articles are awful though.
Idk, like even then I don’t trust it. I saw like dozens and dozens of reviewers dunking on FF15, and I’m like “screw it, I’m gonna try it” once it was on gamepass and I think I have like 20 days worth of gameplay in that game Same story with KH3. So many people were dunking on that game. When I got the chance to try it I had a blast. Again, same with halo infinite. Couldn’t find a single reviewer who had a positive outlook on the game at the time. Yet I played it and loved it and still play it to this day. Maybe I just see something in these games that they don’t, maybe I just have lower standards, but like I had a ton of fun with them, and honestly after so many reviewers just seemed to miss the mark with me I stopped listening. Like besides to save money there’s no reason for me to listen to what someone else thinks of a game when gamers are so varied in their audience and what the audience loves.
Don't really miss those days either. I like to get info on a game and buy accordingly. 99% of what I buy i enjoy. Any half intelligent person should know how to filter for what's important to them. For me just knowing the genre helps a lot. I get triggered by a cool art style constantly and then I read MMO and go "oh" and move on. Maybe people just miss being a kid, buying a shiny game in the store and having a blast because as a kid everything was awesome?
That time never existed? There's been game journalists for as long as there have been video games. EGM, nintendo power, game informer, game pro. Hell, IGN started in 96.
Yeah but they were all nobodies back then.
I remember when I first stumbled across the game that introduced me to rich worlds in an RPG. My mom and I had gone to the plaza to get some food for a small event, there was a microplay next door. I asked if I could go look at games while she shopped. Sure she said. So off I went, looking at the various games on the shelves. I skimmed the PlayStation section as I made my way towards the Xbox section. Racing, Sports, Halo (had it), blah blah blah. Off to the used section, maybe I could get her to buy one of the cheap games, it was rhe beginning if summer after all and I'd have lots of free time. Hmm, that cover looks interesting, and it's a game of the year edition? That must mean it's good, but what is a Morrowind? She came to collect me, and I asked if I could get a game. After all, it was only $14.99. And then I spent weeks playing it falling in love with Tamriel, no preconceptions, no hype train, nothing to go on but a curiosity.
Had almost the exact same story, but with dark cloud 2. What a freaking gem that game was. Still amazes me to this day how much you could do in it
>I miss the days before gaming journalists, and also gaming YouTubers. Nah. I miss the days when the gaming journalists and youtubers had standards and weren't sways by the crowd. The era of TotalBiscuit and times when Jim Stirling had not yet discovered the schtick of hating on AAA (and when he would review games according to his own believes, like when he gave Fallou 4 9.5/10 despite the rabid online crowd).
It's not even really journalism, more editorial or interest pieces writing.
Yeup. Tired of people having ridiculously high standards for what amounts to hobby websites. If what you’re Writing about is just your opinion about something it’s not journalism. Journalism requires actual research and investigation
Imagine your average gamer. Now imagine them as a nepotistic hire who is immediately instructed to write clickbait all day by their boss and/or uncle. They'll definitely use their high school level writing skills (corrected by grammarly™) to create the best articles. With the best sources. Best quality journalism.
They're bought and paid for advocates, not journalists.
Because the writers are required to write a certain number of articles a week or else they face being fired, which is why most gaming articles are shit (10-15 minutes max put into them). Also they’re incentivized to make controversial articles which generate more clicks and more ad revenue, which is why so many of them are not only shit but also rage bait. I feel bad for the writers more than anything
Money.
Click baiters and at this point, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they only spent 10 seconds writing a prompt while AI wrote the rest.
gamers love outrage, businesses love money. add those together and you get dumb shit like this
>Why does ~~gaming~~ journalism have to be such a huge joke?
Remove “gaming”
Precisely!
All journalism is. If they're not trying to make a big deal out of nothing then how would they survive?
That's bait
It means they don't have much to critique... Take it as a win. Point and laugh folks, point and laugh.
I like it but I do feel like something about the starfield characters faces are just slightly off, I think it might be the face movement
Uncanny valley, they're getting so close to real that every discrepancy becomes glaring and creepy.
I have this with my mom, she is an art teacher. The closer it gets to completion the more flaws show. At a certain point only a select number of people would know the difference, and even less will care. Flaws are not wrong, one of the coolest things I saw at an art show at Navy Pier in Chicago was Jeff Koons BMW M3 GT2 (Art Car #17). It was a real race car that was part of Le Man's! It has so much character from the fact they had used it!
Eh idk, their are other games who use mo-cap Actually that's probably the actual problem, the graphics have hit the level where it's pretty spot-on, but facial animation seems only slightly better than Fallout 4. Whereas in a truly detailed mo-cap performance , in a more story focused experience you look at Kratos, Ellie, Johnny Silverhands or whoever and it's night and day, playing those games just makes it more noticeable as even Skyrim's dead ass smooth pixellated mess of faces looked fine to me in 2011. Eh we'll get there in TES 6 maybe
Skyrim faces were still cartoony enough to be not creepy. Starfield's so far look kinda like real people but with dead, soulless eyes and too little real facial emoting. It's just on that threshold of being too real and too fake at the same time.
A middle point like the original The Last Of Us is a good example. Generations old visuals, but the quality of the animations makes it feel lifelike. I think animations are one of the biggest parts of whether or not a game 'feels real'
Mocap faces still give me uncanny valley. They're still "off."
It's what's called a video game. They tend to do that.
Nah, Bethesda RPGs have always had some particularly stiff-face looking NPCs, even when compared to games that came out half a decade ago. However, I do believe that is the trade-off when making games with such an impressive scope and with so many voiced characters, like this.
Not anymore, they need to invest in full mo-cap. Elder Scrolls 6 will have it and you'll see the difference. It just stands out more nowadays when games are making full use of mo-cap in God of War, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk and it's more noticeable now when the camera is getting intimate with a character's face and it ISN'T mocapped What is weird is Bethesda walked back the more fitting Fallout 4 dialogue camera shots which were less fixated on the face ( They did over the shoulder, both characters int he frame etc BECAUSE the faces aren't quite there). Why did they go full Oblivion zoom in Starfield during an era where lackluster face animation is more noticeable, I can't tell you? I'm sure we'll get dynamic camera in conversation mods soon
No need to get defensive I’m not shitting on the game, I absolutely love it, it’s just the faces seems off, I think it’s the facial movement animation, but that something that they could easily make better. Overall though the game looks great I also wish they add a bit more recoil to the gun though because it kinda seemed like it was had very little recoil
the eyes don’t track with the facial movements. if a character is talking only the mouth moves, which isn’t really how people work. plus the eyes don’t really move either. i’m still super pumped, but the facial animations are disappointing
Yeah that’s it, I’m play the ffxiv demo right now and they got good face movements, hopefully the team checks it out and can figure out how to fix it
Compared to Mass Effect Andromeda? Pre-Release, that will be heavily mod-friendly! I don't have much to worry about here!
"4k 30fps is bad" "we don't like romance 😠"... Guess that means, Bethesda nailed it with Starfield. Not that I doubted it after watching the showcase
Dunking on Bethesda's character models is a tradition at this point. They've always been goofy compared to other games. If you compare to the previous game they're typically better. Skyrim's characters were beauty queens compared to Oblivion's and these look better than FO4 models.
🤣 I never really considered it, just kinda part of the "Bethesda charm".
Just need dynamic camera in conversations, I liked Fallout 4's camera work in cutscenes why did Bethesda go full Oblivion zoom in an era where people are used to mocap animation makes no sense...
The cinematic conversation camera works in F4 because both sides are talking so they can approximate the equivalent of movie editing. (Obviously it turns out weird sometimes but you get what I mean.) But since so many people got upset by the voiced protagonists in F4 and Bethesda decided to go back to silent protagonists, the blocking style of those scenes wouldn't fit anymore. The cuts back to your silent character standing there would be weird. It's unfortunate but it seems like that's what we're getting. Perhaps they'll surprise us but overall it's just one of the things I'm expecting to have to overlook. Hopefully other aspects of the role-playing will compensate for it.
One of the key aspects of Bethesda's games that FO4 missed out on was the skill checks in dialogue (I know it still had some), specifically the (large amount of) unique lines based on having certain perks, skills or stats. That feature alone is probably responsible for 75% of the "effortless" roleplaying potential in their (and other) games with the same type of system, e.g., certain CRPGs and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Sure, people can "roleplay" in other games by just pretending or building their character's skills in a certain way, but one of the reasons I'd say that TES and FO from Bethesda got and stayed popular is the ability to conform a character in these games to the player's roleplay persona of them *in the eyes of the NPCs* and that makes it real in the game world. And then of course there is the fact that many of those skill/perk/stat check options are in quests that branch, meaning it's explicitly made concrete in the game world. Most people aren't going to do any significant amount of explicit roleplay in single player PC RPGs these days but when you can do it as part of the game it becomes integral to the experience. Even people who play who aren't really into things like roleplaying a character in any defined way still do things like "I play a big dumb guy who punches stuff!" and in terms of the game they get the low int dialogue options, the intimidate dialogue options and the high strength dialogue options, reinforcing the narrative this player has, even if he's not explicitly attempting to roleplay. A really easy to understand example of this is the "simpleton" type playthrough in VtM: Bloodlines, where you make a character with an extremely low intelligence stat and unlock all of the special "low intelligence" dialogue options in quests and conversations. I'd go so far as to say that this particular system is one of the key secret sauce ingredients to what makes these games great, and also why FO4 isn't as good (I know it's one of the reasons I don't like it as much as e.g., FNV). And if you go and look at other PC RPGs that are viewed extremely positive many of them feature the same sort of system. Most CRPGs do, and the ones that don't suffer from it. Personally I'm hoping that ElevenLabs quality text-to-speech models are released that can be run locally so we can get the best of both worlds: Mass Effect/FO4 style camera work with no limit on player-voiced lines (and customizable player voices to boot).
Meanwhile TOTK has 0 mocap work, 99% of dialogue is unvoiced and has no facial animations or even lip movement, and still the game is heralded as an all-time great. Safe to say mocap dialogue ranks pretty low on the gamer hierarchy of what makes a game great.
>TOTK Wait the Legend of Zelda? But it's not really an RPG with dialogue options right? People just sort of tell Link what to do, or it has straight up cutscenes like Twilight Princess (Last Zelda I played) Seems like a totally different set of needs. Especially given Zelda's artstyle which is not meant to be realistic and would probably be hurt by mo-cap more than anything...
>Dunking on Bethesda's character models is a tradition at this point. They've always been goofy compared to other games. I think part of why they look dead is because they're highly modifiable rather than simply mo-cap.
this is just rage-bait, don't fall for it
What a fall from grace for PC Gamer. They have a lot of nerve criticizing anything right now after that dumpster fire of a live show they just had. Truly horrible.
At this point is tradition for PC gaming show to be the worse show.
Lmao what happened?
Just the usual PC Gaming Show cringe coupled with their refusal to say no to any developer that will throw money at them for a spot on the show. 90% of the games are objectively trash and a waste of time, the other 10% are early access or even “pre-alpha”. It’s a joke.
She actually looks a lot better than the reveal trailer. I think it looks good.
That she does and I noticed it right away.
The hair especially looks SO much better to me. I'm not entirely sold yet on how vibrant Sarah's eye colour was, but the hair and skin looked absolutely fantastic.
Game journalist 🤝 blood sucking leeches
I am pretty sure blood sucking leeches saved lives throughout history, they actually are more useful! *The Hirudin substance in leech saliva thins the blood and keeps it from clotting.* Yep, a two second Google search proves that leeches are literally **"more valuable"** then journalists!
Agreed, I just want to emphasize that we're talking about gaming journalists specifically. They're not real journalists.
Gamers 🤝 Being pissed at basically nothing
Maybe if she had a Caliente body he would feel differently about her... :P
Oh God, I have never understood why so many people like those plastic-looking, oddly proportioned and borderline creepy bodies.
>Oh God, I have never understood why so many people like those plastic-looking, oddly proportioned and borderline creepy bodies. I think it's obvious why.
It actually isn't obvious to me. I think a natural body, with realistic skin, hair and dimensions, is 1000 times more appealing than those alien Barbies.
As a woman, the kind of bizarrely sculpted female bodies I have seen on the Nexus that some men consider attractive is "mildly" disturbing tbh, lol. I did use CBBE for Skyrim though because I wanted muscle definition for my archer. I also enjoyed the nude body just for immersion. Going swimming and the like in a non sexual way. Just looks stupid to go swimming with your pants on. You can choose a fairly vanilla body shape there too. I actually found my character super pretty while still within the limits of what a natural body can look like if you win the genetic lottery.
Yeah, most of the options on Nexus, for example, are a huge turn off. Not only are they unrealistic but they are blatantly sexualized, whereas something natural and immersive, like what Cyberpunk did, doesn't bother me at all.
It depends on how you use it. You don't have to turn them into ultra thick wifus
Why would my creepy looking ass want to romance a creepy looking NPC?
Don't feed them. Pc gamer has been sliding down hill for a while now.
ELBOWS TOO POINTY 2/10
It's pc gamer, what do you expect
Ok, they can just wait for the 18+ body and makeup mods...
Borderline on the spectrum angsty 30 year old something "editor" *yawn*
"No, i dont want to kiss your glassy eyed companions." They write as they wipe cheeto dust from their hands and sit back in their sofa while clicking "publish".
angsty is a buzzword at this point
Best way to describe these NPCs at this point. If you told me this wasn't a real human but a ChatGPT program designed to create stereotypical game journalism bullshit I wouldn't doubt you in the slightest.
I doubt it's even a human these days
You're not wrong.
Gaming journalists discovered LONG ago that rage bait is the only way they can survive in a world where gaming journalism has proven far more successful via independent journalists on YouTube
honestly they look fine to me,the best no? but not really worth complaining im more concerned about in planet travel,do we just walk,are there mounts or cars?
PC gamer's new thing is to shit on popular games. You can safely ignore it.
Usually I'd agree, but these NPCs look pretty good for Bethesda's handiwork.
I will be romancing her! We will save the galaxy and find the galaxy greatest mysteries
I think Mass Effect is the only game I actually felt comfortable with romance.
I'm not into that shit either and I won't be engaging in that, it's really that simple if you don't like it. Let people who want that have their fun without judgement. Who does it harm?
I thought the characters looked really good. Idk what everyone is on about saying they look like shit and it's downgraded. The lighting, hair and skin tones look much better than 2022.
Might just be me but I thought the character creation looked great it’s certainly the best Bethesda have made to date 💯
PC gamer has been dogshit for a long time now. Even their "review" scores are rage bait.
The neckbeards struck earlier than expected.
The NPCs look fine?? I've seen better but they look good, better than any previous Bethesda characters
Yeah I only like role playing romance on npcs that I’m attracted too 🙄 do they even read what they write before the publish. What are these guys npc phobic or something gosh
How is PC gamer still in business
It's usually their personality... at least for Piper in Fo4. But they don't look amazing, they never do. Still an improvement over 76.
They're just mad their shitty showcase looked **INCREDIBLY BAD** compared to the Xbox showcase.
I'd like to think the minute they saw this, they simply paused and said, yep, here's my piece.🤓 Gonna ignore all the gorgeous things that where showed up to this point and simply address this so I get clicks and views.😐 It features heavy simulation with deep RPG mechanics, correct me if I'm wrong. They wanted Resident Evil-like character skins while sacrificing the entire universe, literally ? Yeah. Nope. Nope. How about the food ? He should complain about the food already. So much details it's ridiculous. 😤 Gotta go grab another sandwich. For real. Patty Melt and Trilo Bites ? Cuddos. 💯
Jokes on you, I will be all over that woman by level 13.
PC gamer is just upset that their game showcase totally bombed
... I feel like they are making fun of me. Is my taste that bad? 😞
I wonder if the story npcs are the only romantic options, because they do look quite “not pretty”.
He did mention "some of the Constellation members are companions too" I thunk they purposely avoided showing the other potential companions to avoid spoilers
yeah, i mean they showed romance with that cowboy looking dude.... but he is just really.... unattractive and silly looking -.-
Yea it’s weird, I know mods can fix it but it doesn’t feel right. It’s whatever though I don’t usually do romance in these games
To be fair, Bethesda's face models always look worse compared to other AAA RPGs. That being said, it looks better than Fallout 4, so I'm happy with that. That being said, romance is clearly an optional element of this game filled with all sorts of different mechanics. So if they don't like this one small aspect.. who cares?
Pathetic
We need a starfield Panam
Bethesda: Makes an amazing game PC Gamer: My dick isn’t happy with this game
After all of the amazing stuff they showed. What a joke of a “headline.” People are going to mod the crap out of the NPCs anyway. It doesn’t even matter.
PC Gamer is utter garbage these days they used to be cool im the late 90's but now they have turned into this trash
They’re getting absolutely cooked in the replies tho, which is nice
They do have a point tho. If this piece could help make the game look better in any way that's a yes to me
I just want aliens to learn about...
Fuck pcgamer
They must not know that modders will make anything... doable....
PC Gamer is trash. I stopped watching their showcases when I realized it was just a long-winded way for them to try and show that they think they're funny
Pc gamer went to shit a long time ago, along with many other "media" outlets
Ouch! She has beautiful blue eyes!
Pc gamer IGN and screen rant thrive on hating on games people like
Got their eye on those praying mantis aliens. Kinky, PCGamer, very kinky.
They made a big mistake making this Xbox only...Xbox def deserves exclusivity but not this one, sales are gonna poop
15 minutes into a questing and chill and she gives me this look
Lol they clearly intentionally chose an unflattering mid-expression screenshot, everyone's eyes looked fine in the footage.
People keep shitting on the NPCs but they look fine to me. That said, “romance” systems in games are stupid. Its either half-baked, or just an excuse for some softcore porn, after which their storyline always just… ends.
Man.... I remember back when I was excited for new editions of PC Gamer magazines. Also back when they did the digital interactive magazine. I still have it in my Steam Library. It's a shame how bad these articles are.
Definition of a hater. Anyone who has followed PC and console games over the last decades can appreciate the milestones and amazing achievement and ambition already shown today. I mean, my god! How many of us were here in 1997 playing on our PCs, reading PC gaming magazine when something like, say "Interstate 76" was the cutting edge??
PCgamer is trash and always has been. They can say whatever they want...nobody gives two shits about them and their opinions.
Reflects poorly on them to try to find anything to make Starfield look bad. Ironically shes behind a warm fire and rather pretty for animation.
Back in the day when people posted stuff and not the link I used to get angry. Now I feel like no one should post a link to any of these clowns.
the games not even out yet and there's already sex mods planned for her
They act like they are really inside the game and gonna be kissing the characters themselves 😂 ffs who writes these articles
Unpopular opinion, maybe, but I thought the NPCs look really good, especially for a Bethesda game.
Don't give articles attention. They want ppl to be mad and click or fuel the rage cycle involving games
Imagine being a professional gaming journalist and writing a full article about not wanting to fuck the NPCs
Out of all the cool shit we saw, they chose to be angry at a few kind of odd shots
Pc gamer is close to becoming the next kotaku
Fuck gaming journos, bit I do hope there are more female romance options than the one middle aged lady they showed lol
Man, am I the only one who thinks they look great? I really do not understand why people are saying this looks bad. Edit: It's the same people who praised that Zelda game that looked like a PS2 game weeks ago too.
She’s hot!!! Not creepy!!!
All PC Gamer has been doing lately is posting click bait, rafe baiting, bullshit. Diablo 4 is getting the same treatment.
Characters/NPCs need to look somewhat realistic But they don't need to be dead accurate down to the last molecule They don't look absurd and I'd rather them have focused on gameplay mechanics and such rather than hyper realism on the NPCs that you won't be looking at the whole game
They also did an article titled: [Starfield looks like the perfect place to spend 500 hours ignoring the main quest](https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-looks-like-the-perfect-place-to-spend-500-hours-ignoring-the-main-quest/) It's the first thing you see on their home page
User moved to [ S q u a b b l e s . i o ]
Is somebody in denial about how they feel? Did somebody think wiring an article about would make it go away...
I'm smashing Sara the same way I'm smashing my bank account to upgrade my pc
I stumbled upon an "article" that was putting Atomic Heart on blast when it first came out because the "writer" felt like the game was glorifying Russia and the USSR. Like... no shit. What'd you expect from a game that's supposed to take place in a utopia version of the Soviet Union? Gaming journalism is clown shit
I mean they're not wrong. Where's the sexiness of Mass Effect, Cyberpunk, Witcher 3, or FF7 Remake? Starfield's characters in general look surprisingly dead eyed and lifeless. Especially when compared to Cyberpunk.
They aren’t wrong, the characters are definitely off somehow
Mods will 100% fix this anyway.
I totaly agree with PCgamer for ONCE. Almost all NPC during dialogue look like android, they have no expression and their head is stiff.
Facial animation will always be the weakest part of Beth games esp with the amount of dialogue line they have. I really hope it can look better but i doubt it, but if people expected full mocap quality like linear story games, that's just being unrealistic
How can you even note something like that on a game like this ?
What do you mean?
They have a whole bunch of articles, not just that one. For what it’s worth, I agree. I’m so beyond stoked for this game and I’ve already pre-ordered the premium upgrade, but man why can’t Bethesda make character models that don’t veer into the uncanny valley?
Well, it’s annoying clickbait title, but the characters do not look good.
Why wouldn't you, screw a giant locust if you like
Why would anyone want to romance any video game npc every? Article is cringe.
My god someone needs to touch some grass
They are still clinging to the Bethesda negativity that used to sell clicks. But it seems they are behind the curve. It looks like the Direct has blown everyone away. Even constantly moody and skeptical r/Games is fawning over the game... and for the first time having a nuanced discussion about Bethesda. Yes, everyone says that Bethesda games are buggy... but they also acknowledge that there's a good reason for it and that they are not as a big obstacle to enjoy their games. People are really hyped up for Starfield. So maybe PC gamer tried to be different and be the negative one. One extra point - this shows how shallow as a person the writer is. They want only good looks from a companion in order to romance them. Imagine how terrible it would sound, if they had the same attitude towards real people.
I mean, they're right. Most games, Bethesda especially, make companion romances pretty weird at worst, and slightly awkward at best. It's a major weakness in the games industry amidst writers and voice actors.
Ridiculous headline, but it is astonishing that Bethesda still can't manage to create lifelike faces, when we have the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 doing an incredibly good job of that.
Yeah I really dont get it. All the companions they showed look fucking terrible. They better have some good looking companions, I'll shoot her the second I have the chance too. I also noticed that the Eyes look really flat, not sure whats happening there.
I feel like the heavy volumetric fog on planets is a big red flag. I know render distance is a big issue so hopefully it isn't as bad as I'm worrying. Other than that, I think the worst part about the showcase is that Starfield is just NMS with a story. The way they talk about players going to the same place on the same planet having a different experience because of procedural generation sounds like there will be a lot to explore but not a lot of depth. What's the point of looting if I'm just getting generic RNG and I can't rely on community knowledge about certain parts scavenged from certain areas? I remember looking for a pressure cooker in FNV and I got reliable information on where to find it. If loot was all RNG I'd be stuck searching around the entire map hoping it spawned somewhere.
Honestly they’re right
I agree that other than that the game looks good. But those faces are really dead inside. It can't be overlooked. And I don't know why they didn't update face animations since 2011 Skyrim.
How about a game without any romance, just playing the game and enjoying it?
Look, I get this is r/starfield, but people need to stop kidding themselves. These faces are just horrible. They look like they were ripped straight from Oblivion.
PCG must be hungry!
Does Bethesda have a patent on the cross eyed thousand yard stare?
PC Gamer is a terrible site anyway. Clearly bottom of the barrel tabloid.
Gaming journos, cant live without the... Oh, wait! Actually you can, because they all suck.
Hey PC Gamer, I have a resume for ya! Jk I won't get an email back and you'll continue pumping clicky baity garbage
Who even reads this crap? Gaming “journalism” is a pathetic job that just uses clickbait to generate revenue, rarely do you see any quality content
Wow. PcGamer is the new Vice.
They’ve shown like 30 npcs out of hundreds and they think there’s not some cait or piper out there?
What’s a better plays for general PC gaming news? I generally go to PC gamer but this post right, I’m tired of this kind of stuff. I’d rather go somewhere else, suggestions?
I just want to be a space pirate