this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Starfield's art direction is painfully boring. I've ben watching friends play. It looks like a totally soulless, characterless distillation of every forgettable science fiction movie in the last 30 years. It sure does look NASA, and NASA doesn't have an artistic vision, they just slap shit together in whatever way won't explode. The menus, the costumes, the weapons, even the planets, just look painfully generic. Like congrats, Todd, you successfully executed the NASA part alright. There's no way you could have made more intensely bland, vague, inoffensive rendition of space. There's no "punk" anywhere to be seen, though.

: p

I can't believe they made this shit instead of TES Six. It's like every 2010s space show that got cancelled half way through the first season.

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[–] Bakzik@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Yesterday a friend was streaming the game in our discord.

Dear lord, it felt so dull. We came to the conclusion that the ambiance and art direction, that made the mid Skyrim so awesome, wasn't there.

The Nasa style is just so boring. Is like an hospital, where everything is clean, white and monotonous. There is a word for it, but I don't remember it.

Is just Capitalist Realism in space.

Is not for me, but I'am glad other comrades are enjoying it. Also, I liked the customization.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Is just Capitalist Realism in space.

I used to really, really like space sci-fi, but the decades of "what if truckers in space" "what if mercantilism in space" "what if manifest destiny in space" "what if corporate police state in space" capitalist realism have made it both a bleak thing I rarely look forward to in games/fiction and it also normalized the idea of "space exploration is about doing a capitalism" for way too many people.

[–] Bakzik@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Same deeper-sadness

That's one of the reasons why I like classic Trek. As a kid, watching a tv series that showed a better world, was really cool. Now "there is no escape" of the bleak capitalist future in media. Well, at least in the mainstream.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Expanse was a non-starter for me for the same reason Bezos loved it so much that he subsidized it lord-bezos-amused

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it makes you feel better, the politics in the Expanse aren't dogshit. It does engage in some "all-sides"ism but the oppressed outer planets militia are depicted pretty reasonably.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago
[–] Frank@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's one of the things I really like about Eclipse Phase. There's a bleak hyper-capitalist future happening inside the orbit of the asteroid belt, but beyond the belt are countless small, loosely aligned pro-social socialist and anarchist habitats and communities. One of hte big setting conflicts is the post-capitalist hypercorps trying to use IP and DRM to prevent people from taking full advantage of the nanofabricators that can just build anything if you have schematics, while hackers and anarchists and information wants to be free people are trying to break the DRM to give people the ability to make whatever they need whenever they need it. It says "Yeah, a better future is possible, but you're going to have to fight for it.

[–] Bakzik@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

This was the first time I heard of Eclipse Phase. Very interesting setting.

Shared it with my friends and we will play it, probably, in our next game session.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

Plucky communists creating a new life far from capitalism when

That's why I like the Hyperion Cantos, which is much more what if the EU made an interstellar civilization and it sucked and had to be destroyed

[–] 1nt3rd1m3nt10n4l@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it also normalized the idea of "space exploration is about doing a capitalism" for way too many people.

Which is hilarious, because exploring space is probably one of the worst ROI things that there is, next to trying to economically exploit the lowest depths of the ocean floor.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

It's usually "ASTEROID MINING IS GORILLIONS OF EXTRA RESOURCES THAT WOULD SOLVE EVERYTHING" takes, ones that never ask or even think about where all that extra pollution would go, or whether those extra resources would really solve anything or if they'd be hoarded like DeBeers diamonds.

[–] Grebgreb@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

clean, white and monotonous

sterile and/or cracker

[–] Bakzik@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

Sterile, that's it!

Thank you, Greb!

hexbear-specter

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Arguably even more offensively boring, it's rainbow-washed capitalist realism in space. No need to think about any of those icky social effects capitalism perpetuates.