PC Gaming

Just a rambling comment in general vis a vis Starfield. The loading screens mentioned in the article made me think of this.

I am a wierdo who really liked and played alot of FO4 (4 replays). My introduction to Bethesda games was FO3 and FONV just before FO4 released. After FO4, I tried Skyrim - which was ok, I was never blown away by it and have never replayed it. I have tried to play Oblivion but it was so ancient and janky I gave up. I played FO76 for about a year and generally enjoyed it to a point, but always wished the development effort had been applied towards a full-on single-player (or coop!) FO5 game.

I was looking forward to Starfield (I loved Mass Effect, replayed twice). But, I have not bought Starfield, nor am I likely to in the next year. I am going to wait for patches, mods that fix what Bethesda doesn't, and a banging sale on Steam.

In the meantime, I am playing a game I never thought I would play because I never thought it sounded like a game I would enjoy - ELDEN RING. I am not a very good twitch-muscle player (ridiculously bad, in fact), and I play exclusive M+KB games as I never had a console growing up and don't know how to use a control well. Am I enjoying ELDEN RING? Yes...I am with reservations, I still do not like "boss fights" (in any game really, when a boss fight boils down to a box you can't escape with a giant thing in it that insta-kills you, I just roll my eyes in disappointment). But, I am enjoying *everything *in between (glorious seamless no-loading-screens self-directed exploration and problem/puzzle solving) and hate-playing through the bosses.

In fact, the overall seamlessness (ie, lack of loading screens) of ER has spoiled me (it has them, but only during fast travel/respawn). Unvarnished in-your-face loading screens for doing something like stepping into a cave mouth or opening a door will take a full point (out of 5) off a my private evaluation of a game from now on.