No Man's Sky

Dan O'Bannon always told me space travel would be tedious and uninteresting, and this game lives up to his vision admirably. Although, this game is FAR more colourful than anything ole Danny-Boy ever put together... It's pretty, but vapid. A pool of water an inch deep with a pretty oil slick making a rainbow on the top. But that rainbow is illusory, and hides the shallow and unsatisfying gameplay underneath. The game is hardly one I would call a smooth-runner, but I haven't had any real problems on my machine. I got a solid 50-60 FPS without dumbing down the graphics too much, but the problem is that there's just nothing going on to hold my interest in this game. Oh god the tedium of doing anything in this game... I land on a planet and have to spend a few minutes mining plutonium so I can use my engines again. Oh, but then I'll need to spend a few minutes mining some other element that starts with a T so I can use the fast engines, but then I also need more Pu so I can recharge the mining tool and my suit so I don't die. So then I fly off to sell more lettered blocks (C, Fe, ect.) so I can buy some random sphere and mine even more lettered blocks to get to the next system. There's no reason to upgrade your ship, since they all (or at least the 4 I've used) feel identical to pilot. There's no story I've found, besides this ATLAS feller telling me to follow its lead, but I can't actually figure out where to go to follow that lead, so... Watching the early dev videos I can hardly believe this is the same game. In one they talk about how they don't want people do just mine stuff because that's no fun and want people to explore this vast galaxy and make discoveries. Well, holding down M1 and aiming at different coloured things is what you'll be doing the most of in this game. What's worst about this M1-holding game is that there's no compelling reason to do any of it. Why bother learning the alien's language(s?) when you can just pick one of the three responses and do it over, and then over again, until you get it right. Why bother going through the hassle of repairing a derelict ship when it's functionally identical to the one you have, simply enjoying a different exterior (which I can't see when I'm inside) and maybe an additional inventory slot. Why bother playing this game when I can play something that takes skill and is more interesting that holding down M1 until my inventory is filled with lettered blocks, then needing to acquire more lettered blocks to replace the energy I used to get those other lettered blocks... It's a grind, and I wish I had waited for reviews and watched gameplay videos that weren't from the developer. My impression was of a neon-soaked Freelancer with a vast and ever changing universe to discover combined with SPORE-esq multiplayer integration, but what I got was Minecraft in space, without the crafting. I wish I could get a refund, but I'm not having technical issues with the game. I'm only having this-is-boring-as-hell-and-I-don't-want-to-play-this issues with the game. Live and learn: don't pre-order just because it *looks* cool. (Dan O'Bannon wrote Alien, Dark Star, a few of the scenes from Heavy Metal. He also wrote Blue Thunder. Ugh. But still... Alien, dude, ALIEN...)

Like a lot of people. I followed NMS from the beginning. I was excited for the prospect of playing Starfleet, exploring new worlds, naming creatures I discover, fighting enemies in my ship, etc. etc. I very nearly bought a PS4 for this game, but I didn't. I never pre-ordered it either. Something kept me from doing it, maybe it was my experience in the fact that there was no way a tiny indie company could make such a huge scoped game in such a short period of time. Certainly the subtle warnings came rolling in shortly before release didn't help. So I didn't get the game, and I watched from day one as it went down in flames. Now it's a year later and here I am buying it. And I'm happy with my purchase. Was it a flawed game? Yes, and it still is in some ways. But it's clear they are making attempts to fix it with the new patches and content. Will it ever be the game they promised? No. Not even close. But it's still a decent game. Pros: - Gorgeous graphics. Clearly the highpoint of the game. - It's engaging and fun. Trying to balance resources to get to the next planet to see what you can find is just fun. - I can run 1920x1080 at Ultra on my Razer Blade (2017) without a hiccup, so earlier complaints about it being "unoptimized" seem to have been addressed. Cons: - Despite everything being procedurally generated, it really tends to look the same everywhere you go. That's not to say there aren't surprises, but after awhile there's not much differentiation from one planet to the next. - While it's nice that the game doesn't absolutely hold your hand, there is a bit of a learning curve and a lot of features are left up to you to find. - It's built upon a foundation of lies Did Sean Murray intentionally scam millions of dollars from people and bail? Maybe, but at least someone at Hello Games is stil working on the game trying to improve it. As I said earlier, it's never going to be what they promised. But at least it's fun.

An unending grind loaded with vague, misleading or entirely absent instructions on how to do things through an interface that frequently makes little to no sense. Combat is stacked against the player and is only not fatal when you successfully escape your attackers. Even normally docile creatures like deer are homicidal maniacs who will even kill you through the walls of your base or spacecraft. Expect to die literally dozens of times before you begin to get the hang of it. Bugs that prevent weapons from working at all, opponents too superhumanly fast to hit with an attack, and long periods of utter boredom while you seek out and harvest the massive quantities of materials needed just to keep your spacecraft running are the major features of the game. The biggest chunk of the experience is exploring planetary surfaces, but there is no mapping system except in space and no way to mark or record locations of useful materials or facilities. The HUD will repeatedly show you sites whose usefulness you exhausted long ago, but fail to show you trading locations or loot you weren't able to cart away in one go. Even the space map, which is only "useful" for interstellar travel, is poorly designed and expects you to pick dots (nearby stars) from a dense cluster with no visible mouse cursor. The death penalty, which you will experience frequently, is losing everything in your inventory on a planet surface, and losing that expensive starship you spent weeks grinding for if killed in space. Only the most recent save is retained, which means the autosave that was made immediately after you revived. An interactive "gravestone" icon that's supposed to restore your lost items rarely does so. Everything is simply lost, and you have to start all over again. Endless grinding isn't my idea of fun, and when "combat" always means "flee at the first sign of trouble" there is nothing to alleviate the feeling that you are never really in control of your character's fate. Depressing.

Its pretty decent now. I got it at GOG at $16 bucks, and i am enjoying it quite a bit. I wouldnt pay full price for it, as it still has some issues and deficiencies, but anything less than $30, is well worth it in my opinion. Just so you know what to expect, The things that annoy me most are: - I sometimes fall thru the floor and need to load a save (serious bug) but it doesnt happen too often. - It has atrocious object popping (things "materialize" near you) - No planetary map to log your in-planet discoveries (and get back to them). - Too much juggling with the inventory - For an exploration game, the "exploration" instrumentation you get is lacking. No planet maps, the galaxy map is too simple & crappy, and you get a poor excuse for a compass without heading indicator (in degrees) or even the 4 cardinal points. Just an "S" and a "N" - No joystick support! (but there is a way arround it). - Somehow clumsy UI - The devs are apparently mute, or cant type. they never communicate with the players. Not even to give news on upcoming improvements, nothing. But then again, i dont think anyone expects too much from these particular devs*cough* Sean Murray* *cough* liar *cough* hehe On the other hand, what i like most is... - Tons of fun to explore the planets, they do feel different and diverse (for me at least) - Simple, but still fun space combat (specially if you have a joystick) - Good, sometimes beautiful visuals. - Nice and fun base building. Not lego block based like empyrion or minecraft, you build whole rooms, corridors, etc. - Awesome feeling of freedom, to go wherever you want, nothing is out of your reach (except the suns i guess hehe) - Quite a lot of things to do. missions, building, farming, exploring, gathering tech, combat, etc. - Its immersive, allways being 1st person, with nice enviroments, etc. - Music is nice IMPORTANT: this is all from a single player perspective. I have no idea how good or bad multiplayer is.

For All People that like Games like Satisfactory, Factorio, co. It takes a while until you get your good stuff, Automisation, Building your own Base. I Just don't want to spoil anything so i end it here. About the Performance anyone is talking about at this time of the game Beyond Update it is quiet good i can play at all ultra settings with 2 GPU's (1080ti) so i dont know what ppl are complaining about.