Temperate or Mediterranean climates in most of southern Australia. We won’t usually see quite as many days (or nights) under 0 as we have this year. Our power infrastructure doesn’t tend to collapse every time it’s chilly though.

In Australia the checkout person does the bagging themselves, no second person required.

We’re not talking about whether the game is “fun”, though, which is largely what people are complaining about. Cyberpunk was a fucken mess at launch and was missing plenty of promised features. In comparison Starfield is in significantly better shape performance and stability-wise, even if a lot of people are disappointed in it as a game.

Assuming this hate boner for Starfield dies down (once the next game comes along that the internet decides deserves its wrath) and assuming Bethesda stick to their promise of new content etc in 2024, I think we will indeed see it turn those reviews around.

Edit to add: I think Cyberpunk today is a much better game than Starfield today. If you only played it at launch you missed out on a LOT of improvements.

StarUI Inventory on Nexus. Makes a big difference.

Yes I know what you said, peanut. So either you’re an idiot who decided to drop their meaningless comment in or you’re not an idiot and you know very well that we are talking about the relative states at launch of Starfield, Cyberpunk and No Mans Sky. Just because you finished the game doesn’t mean the game was anywhere near finished, to the extent that it took a further two years of development for them to get it into reasonable shape.

Good for you for finishing the game but that wasn’t the point I was making and I think you know that. Finishing an unfinished game does not mean the game was finished.

The game was absolutely not finished, not even close.

Cyberpunk 1.5 came out two years and two months after the game launched (yeah I didn’t realise it was that long either until I just looked it up).

I disagree that Bethesda did the things you say they did but I understand your point.

Agreed the inventory is ass. The mod to improve it made a world of difference. I assume Beth were trying to keep it simple but man it is just a turd.

I don’t mind the empty planets but really wish they let you take off and land seamlessly like NMS. That really felt clunky.

Sure you did.

I wouldn’t say I liked it but I certainly didn’t hate it. It was OK. I’m hopeful they’ll fix it.

The PR has been fine. The reaction from people online, and the click bait headlines some gaming news sites have used, speaks more to their desire to shit on Bethesda because …. Well I don’t know, but I’d say it’s partly because Bethesda deserves a bit of shit, and partly because Microsoft own them and a good percentage of vocal gamers have a massive hate boner for MS.

The fact that Cyberpunk is being compared to Starfield is utterly laughable. That game was in a league of its own at launch. It’s not even close.

They didn’t meant it “isn’t boring” in the sense that apparently the entire anti-Starfield bandwagoners have taken it. The quote they’re referring to is this:

“when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren’t bored”

The point being, whether you agree with them or not, whether you think they succeeded or not, is that the emptiness and scale is supposed to make you feel small in the vast ocean of space.

And an individual feeling butt hurt about negative reviews of the game they have worked on for many many years is hardly surprising. Unprofessional sure but again he wasn’t saying that people’s opinions were wrong, just that the armchair generals were out in force pretending they had any inkling as to what went on during the games development, how much effort went into certain aspects (eg the ever-popular “it isn’t optimized” claim by brainless dorks who just parrot what other brainless dorks have said).

The game is fine. It’s not their best but it is not their worst either. It launched in way way way better shape than FO4, ESO and FO76 at launch. It is playable by most people on PC and consoles, unlike Cyberpunk at launch, and actually has a relatively complete story and endgame, unlike No Mans Sky at launch.

I put in about 70 hours so far but moved on because there were so many other games I wanted to play. I will likely revisit it if they improve things in 2024.

It took them literally years to make Cyberpunk anywhere near to properly finished and it still doesn’t have a lot of features they promised pre launch. Similarly with No Mans Sky.

Starfield came out 3.5 months ago. It wasn’t great at launch but it was fucken light years better than Cyberpunk. Bethesda have released a coupe of small-ish bugfix updates and have announced plans to release new content from February. So far they’re no worse than the two examples you listed.

I’d start by not taking the advice of a country that hasn’t won a war in 80 years.

So long as you’re happy potentially getting the wrong answer over and over again.

Anyone spending money on a game to play on a deck is spending money in the “PC” games market.

I said it was a joke.

I also specified PC games, which is the only market Valve cares about, and in which Australia spends more money than Japan. Add in localisation and other impediments to getting into the Japanese market and no, it’s not obvious at all.

Valve were fined $3M a few years back for lying to consumers about their rights to refunds per Australian law so it is an ongoing joke that Gabe now hates Australia and refuses to sell the Deck here as punishment.

That said it isn’t an entirely business-led decision to not sell here. Australians spend more on PC gaming than Japan.

Pro consumer behaviour like refusing to sell the Deck in Australia because of our Consumer protection laws?

It’s been 3 hours. OP has definitely fallen into the toilet while checking if there is enough light.

As an Australian, I’m not expecting a Steam Deck at all.