He launches into a long story about his estranged partner but he’s facing the wrong way.
Restarting the conversation helps a little.
Sam is looking at me now, but his mouth and eyebrows are operating on different wavelengths.
All the while he stands stock-still and completely upright, like a toy soldier stuck in his plastic packaging.
Like all of Starfield’s characters, he does not touch anything, or anyone.
He does not eat.
He does not use the bathroom.
Sam Coe is a horrible, distorted facsimile of a human being.
Starfield’s stilted performances have broken the game for me.
They can be surprising, sometimes.
Small things make a huge difference, like cross-talk between characters.
In the same gig you meet a pair of bickering cops and escort them from their besieged police station.
Well-directed voice work, expressive faces, and strong motion capture deliver a comedy bit that actually works.
It’s a sequence that could happily sit in a Tarantino gangster flick.
In a year or two, these are the moments I will actually remember.
Even the endless misery ofDiablo 4’s NPCs is preferable to a galaxy populated by witless mannequins.
Not so long ago Starfield’s lacklustre performances would seem quite ordinary.
God of War’s Mimir tells stories that break off and resume naturally as you fight through the realms.
Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies weave elaborate narratives using the classic choose-your-own-adventure framework.
All of these have a quality that Starfield lacks.
They understand that when it comes to telling stories, people matter more than planets.
