September 4 - 10

  Felix “No Man’s Skyrim” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “190th anniversary of hiring the first newsboy” week!

In September 1833, the publisher of the New York Sun advertised that he was hiring people to sell newspapers on the streets. He expected a bunch of unemployed men to answer the ad; instead it was a gaggle of children. And so the newsboy was born—a job that lasted until the 1930s, when it was phased out by radio, child labour laws, and America’s relentless suburbanisation. You may all celebrate by playing a game that moves the story forward with newspaper headlines.

It’s finally here. BG3 on PS5. Starfield leaves Early Access for a full, proper release on PC and Xbox Series X this week.

Unfortunately, Starfield is not for me, purely because of its system exclusivity. I’m a Sony guy with a few dips in Switch—not because I have rationally calculated what systems are best, but simply because it’s what we have. You reach a point where it’s hard to justify bringing another console into the house, unless you have a mid-life crisis or become a streamer, or both.

I could pull a ‘sour grapes’ and smirk about Starfield bugs, a less-than-compelling main quest, or the facial animations… but the truth is, those have never bothered me with Bethesda games before. They’re my ultimate free-roam adventure games. I can’t handle aimless open-world pootling in other games, but with Bethesda I can “Look, squirrel!” my way to level 50 with no complaints, while barely touching the main quest. One reason for this is that Bethesda doesn’t like to lock you out of stuff, outside of a few endgame faction choices. The storytelling may suffer, because it feels like there aren’t heavy consequences, but it means you can stumble around without worrying about screwing things up.

Starfield is a Skyrim/Fallout chassis with space exploration and ship combat bolted on. You fly around in your spaceship, encountering other ships, then land on planets for on-foot adventures.

The on-foot parts will look most familiar, presented with a ‘realistic sci-fi’ aesthetic that must be pushing Bethesda’s broken engine in new and painful ways. You explore planets, collecting, conversating, and combating, sometimes with a companion. Planets will have a combination of bespoke and proc-gen locations. Todd Howard loves to come up with new metrics to express the overall bigness of his games, and he promised over 1000 planets.

For the first time in a Bethesda game, the shooting is exclusively real-time. In Fallout, shooting outside of VATS was always suboptimal, but it looks much-improved in Starfield. Your raw twitch ability will be augmented by gear-modding, stealth, and character skills, and from what I saw in a bunch of preview videos, combat seems satisfying enough to keep the gameplay loop compelling: explore, fight, loot, upgrade, repeat.

This part of Starfield looks like the original promise of Mass Effect: Andromeda, before it was compromised by a throttled development schedule. When you visit a system to decide which planet to land on, the system map has a heavy Mass Effect vibe. When exploring on foot, your jetpack is very reminiscent of Andromeda and, if you upgrade it enough, Anthem.

But Mass Effect never had ship combat, which looks like a mix of X-Wing and FTL. The X-Wing part is that you have engines, weapons, and shields, and choices about what to power up and when. The FTL part is about deciding which sections of enemy ships to target, with a VATS-lite, pause and aim system. Target a ship’s engines and you can disable it, board it, and fight the occupants for its booty, or commandeer the ship. Or you can just blindfire and blow the ship up.

Starfield’s ship combat invites comparison to No Man’s Sky or Elite. But those games don’t have the fleshed-out NPCs and quirky questlines that provide a narrative pull, countering the analysis paralysis that sets in when you open a huge galactic map and wonder what to do next. Voice acting and quest breadcrumbs go a long way.

So, while Starfield has many elements you can find better executed in other space games, none of them package them all up as accessibly as Starfield does. While I’ll be munching happily on BG3, Starfield is the clear GOTW. Happy travels to all of you heading to infinity and beyond.

Here's the list, in release-date AND alphabetical order!

PC

• 09-04

• Agriculture Tractor Sim
• Delineation
• Fall Of The Son
• FlappyParrot
• Geko: In Search Of The Big Fly
• Good fruit
• Gulf Echoes: Tent of Treason
• I Am Full of Identity Codes
• Kobold Castle
• Meet Her There
• Naturpark Lillebaelt VR
• Resident Fear : Redistribution
• Spicier Than Sugar!
• Yujiro's Mansion

• 09-05

• Bright Day
• Chants of Sennaar
• Costume Clash
• Crossroad of Worlds: Star Riddle
• Duct Tape Simulator
• EGG DROP
• Enchanted Portals
• Malicious ReloadII
• Orbital Cargo Division
• Raiding.Zone
• Rune Factory 3 Special
• RUSSIAN FIGHT SIMULATOR
• Shalnor Legends 2: Trials of Thunder
• Shine of Fullmoon
• SNAKE FARM
• Taxi Simulator in City
• Wastelander

• 09-06

• Chillquarium
• DanceDouDoou
• Destroy Korcity
• HoneyCome come come party
• Hunteroids
• Logic Colors
• Molly Medusa: Queen of Spit
• Plunder Islands
• Springtime Hike
• Square Word: Back to Work
• Starfield
• Sweet Neighbors
• The Encounter
• The Last Hero: Journey to the Unknown
• The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo
• The Mythical City
• Wildstrive

• 09-07

• Alien Investigator
• Apothecary
• Autobahn Police Simulator 3: Off-Road
• Billy Bumbum: A Cheeky Puzzler
• Budget Cuts Ultimate
• Cellosseum
• Clarent Saga: Mana Chapter 0
• Cube Jump
• Dokapon Kingdom: Connect
• DON'T LOOK DOWN!
• Escape Simulator: Portal Escape Chamber
• Goblin Adventurer Hunting
• Lempo
• Little Wing
• March of Tulpas:Xanadu
• Mojin Returns
• Monster Path
• Pool Cleaning Simulator
• Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX
• Revenge of ILCOIN
• Slime Volley
• Space Maze
• Super Gorilla Quest
• SYNCED
• TapTap Princess
• The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Episode 4
• The Secrets Of Hope
• the white chamber
• Through time the girl puzzle
• TOSS!
• Twyla
• Vacation Adventures: Park Ranger 15
• Yupitergrad 2: The Lost Station

• 09-08

• Anonymous;Code
• Beast Slayer
• Bonfire and Tail
• Bunny Battle
• Cold Verdict 2
• Conquistadorio: Prologue
• Devil Peach Soda
• Fae Farm
• Guidelicious
• Increment
• Into The Sky
• Lost & Found Agency
• Mage of the Olekta Desert
• MICROVOLTS: Recharged
• Mother Ghoul - The Curse of Unborns
• NBA 2K24
• Osseous And Swordy
• Petrol Station Sim
• Planet of War: The Legend of Fu
• Platform Game Maker
• Something's In The Air Redux
• Sprout Valley
• Star Farmer: Prologue
• SwarmsurgE
• The Book Of Hiro
• The Territory of Egg
• Tiny Touring Cars
• Undercroft warriors
• Winter Valley Hike
• ZomWick

• 09-09

• Deserted "Firefly Islands": Chronicles
• Shut Up, Rabbit!

• 09-10

• Bananarang: The Scattered Shards
• Portals: Escape the Infinity
• Revelation

Xbox Series X

• 09-06

• Enchanted Portals
• Escape from Terror City
• Starfield

• 09-07

• Alchemy Garden
• Autobahn Police Simulator 3: Off-Road
• The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Episode 4
• The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo
• Warstride Challenges

• 09-08

• NBA 2K24

Xbox One

• 09-05

• Chants of Sennaar

• 09-06

• Bloons TD 6
• Escape from Terror City

• 09-07

• Alchemy Garden
• Autobahn Police Simulator 3: Off-Road
• The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Episode 4
• The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo

• 09-08

• Into The Sky
• NBA 2K24

PlayStation 5

• 09-05

• Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten

• 09-06

• Baldur's Gate 3
• Enchanted Portals
• Escape from Terror City

• 09-07

• Autobahn Police Simulator 3: Off-Road
• Lempo
• The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Episode 4
• The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo
• Warstride Challenges

• 09-08

• NBA 2K24
• RUNNER HEROES: Enhanced Edition

PlayStation 4

• 09-05

• Chants of Sennaar
• Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten
• Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

• 09-06

• Escape from Terror City

• 09-07

• Autobahn Police Simulator 3: Off-Road
• The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Episode 4
• The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo

• 09-08

• Anonymous;Code
• NBA 2K24

Switch

• 09-05

• Chants of Sennaar
• Kovox Pitch
• Rune Factory 3 Special
• True Virus

• 09-06

• Enchanted Portals
• Escape from Terror City
• No Son Of Mine

• 09-07

• Alchemy Garden
• Color Sense Challenge
• Colorful Boi
• Into The Sky
• Pipe Line Puzzle
• Redeemer's Run
• Shepherd's Crossing
• Strike Force 3
• The Dragoness: Command of the Flame
• The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo

• 09-08

• Anonymous;Code
• Crowd City
• Crowd City: Pirate Island DLC
• Crowd City: Zombie Apocalypse DLC
• Fae Farm
• NBA 2K24
• Night at the Gates of Hell
• Seduce Me: The Complete Story
• Sprout Valley
• Troopers
• Whitestone