No Man's Sky

Lets start with the scale. The game promised huge scale and we got it. You have enormous landscapes to explore and planets of many sizes. Primarily you will be searching for materials to repair your ship and equipment. But what they don't tell you is you will stumble across upgrades, new parts and other bits (no spoilers). My first two days of playing and I'm still finding new things on my very first planet. I almost didn't want to leave. However, once you do leave, there is space and it is by no means bare and empty. You can mine asteroids and hunt for giant ones with rare materials. Above your starting planet (and I assume in each star system) there is a station where you can interact with other aliens, trade with other ships docked in the station. Buy other ships and of course access the galactic market. So far, the game has been all about exploration and material gathering with some trading elements. Some people may find this a bit repetitive but I fully expected this from long before release. In the end the game is what you make of it. If you want to simply sit around and gather material and trade, then go for it. If you just want to travel between stars without visiting plants, off with you. If you want a bit more adventure you can fight other ships or drones and be a pirate. The only limit is you (and your hardware). The only negatives I can point out are: * When you first start the game it goes right into play mode. No menus to configure your graphics etc before starting the game. * You have to goto settings menu to exit the game. * You have to click and hold for a few seconds to active certain menus. * No scrolling options for mouse users (a lay over from console ports) * Some of the elements are a bit simplistic. e.g. no interacting with other ships outside of planets and stations (at least as far as I can tell). * Inventory space...can never have enough in this game I'm sure most or all of these can be ironed out over time.

I know this game has been hyped as a game was never hyped before, but I will set that aside and focus on my experience with this game. I think it's a good game as it is now, but can definitely be improved. I have full trust in the developers that they will iron out some of the shortcomings. In some areas the game can feel like a late-stage early-access game. I was really looking forward to playing this, and while I had some hiccups starting the game (I had to open a settings file in the instal dir to change the resolution before being able to start the game), I am having a lot of fun. Other than one crash, I have not had other technical difficulties. It's a very chill game, and different from anything else I've played. I play this to unwind and relax, not to fight for survival or try a boss multiple times. I like those challenges too, but for this, I just sit back and enjoy the eye-candy colours. I've played this game for about 30+ hours now I think, and while some elements are becoming repetitive, I'm still finding new things, learning more about the in-game lore and races, and discovering new mechanics. I can see how this game is not for everyone, but every time I get to a new star system, land on a new planet or learn a new word I get pretty excited. In my eyes, this game is about exploration and finding beautiful and crazy things. The interesting thing about this game is that everybody will have a different experience. Some people find a lot of barren planets, while others just find lush forest planets. I've had a mix of those, and I just left a water-world with blue water and red grass and super-hostile space-police, and landed on this beautiful planet with grassy plains and hills, where everybody is friendly and chill. I even made a friend with a tortoise-dog that when fed, pooped out some super rare materials. If you're a skeptic, maybe wait for a sale. If you want a chill game and support (maybe overly?) ambitious projects, just get it, sit back and relax. It's not a bad game.

Despite all the hype, I managed to avoid getting my hopes up. My expectations were relatively average, hoping for a lightish experience built around exploration and perhaps blowing things up once in a great while. I'm a huge fan of games without set objectives, so this appeared to be right up my alley. I managed to play for around 5 hours, and during that time I saw enough to get the gist of what Hello Games was trying to accomplish. Sure, it's relatively shallow and repetitive, but these are things I actually enjoy in a game where I'm untethered from a linear path. It's nice to plop down on my couch, boot up a game, and mindlessly wander. I can tell that my experience will be average; not great, but certainly a different opinion from what appears to be the vocal majority that seemed to expect something more. The biggest issue at this point is how incredibly painful it is to enjoy that average experience. My rig is quite capable of running most games at High to Ultra Settings and struggles to run "No Man's Sky" with any sort of consistency. Here are my specs for reference: i5 4690k (OC'd to 4.2 GHz) 8 GB RAM GTX 980 Sure, it's not the newest or most powerful build, but it's nothing to sneeze at. I've experienced the following in-game: - FPS dips and stuttering from 80 FPS down to nearly nothing - Intermittent crashing to desktop I've adjusted everything I can think of, including giving the process more priority, changing graphics settings, disabling G-sync manually (why is it default "on" anyway with no option in the menu to turn off?) etc. Nothing has improved the experience. On top of that, the graphics menu appears to be some sort of joke, with the AA settings still causing the game to look blurry and muddy. I really want to enjoy this game on its terms, but it won't let me, so I cannot possibly recommend this game for anyone at this point. Perhaps when Hello Games patches these issues I can change that, but for now, it should be avoided at all costs.

No Man's Sky is a good game for what it is; which is an planetary exploration / adventure game. Pros: I really enjoyed my first few solar systems, discovering new planets and wildlife. The ability to warp to any system and go anywhere you want was also very appealing to me. Then when you finally find that perfect planet it feels incredible- blue skies, lush flora and beautiful scenery. No Man's Sky created a peaceful, calming ambience and those were my favorite moments. Cons: Quantity over quality. No Man's Sky lost it's charm after a few dozen landings. I started recognizing wildlife on new worlds. The wildlife generator was showing similar plants and animals over and over and over again. (SPOILERS) The protagonist, Atlas, was intriguing until I completed it's mission. I get a wall of text stating I created a new star system.....the end. No cutscene showing me the newly created worlds, no waypoint on my galaxy map and no evidence this ever even happened. Needless to say after 10 hours of non stop warping, it was a massive letdown. Arriving at the center of the galaxy was similarly disappointing.(SPOILERS) -On the technical side, the game runs poorly and crashes often (even after recent patches). -Every planetary base and space station is literally copy and paste with one single alien creature to interact with. There is never more than one alien in the same room at a time thus making the game feel sterile. -No way of tracking rare materials by placing waypoints on planets because of a lack of basic minimap (only galaxy map). -This is my own experience; this games difficulty is virtually non existent. Died once to space pirates, and quickly learned to upgrade my ship for easy mode. -Very grindy if you go for max slot ship. My thirty slot ship held more than enough upgrades to carry me easily to the endgame. Conclusion: AAA premium priced $60 exploration game. Imagine a galaxy sized ocean, only 2 feet deep. I would not buy it again nor pay for DLC.

Foundation review. "Tens of thousands of worlds" is a huge achievement, by any standard. Procedurally-generated planets, just as much of one. The issue seems to be that Hello Games took a factory approach to the production: Make it all the same. This is Ireverend Opinions in No Man's Sky: Foundation - TL;DR - 2.5/5 stars. Amazing technology, poor game. - The Short - No Man's Sky is a space adventure/exploration survival game that starts you stranded, crashed on a hostile world and needing to not only battle the elements but the local inhabitants to survive and repair your ship. Boasting more planets and planetary systems than can be explored in a human lifetime, and methods of generating alien species and entirely destructible terrain, even the ability to establish your own base for personal building. - The Good - There literally are thousands of stars and even more planets. All manner of exploratory goodness* at your fingertips, with seamless* transition and the ability to make a living by trade* or piracy*. Base building is as described*, with hundreds of building options* to choose from. - The Bad - * Technically. The exploration is present, but with low scripting options and few planetary design choices, the procedural generation is almost identical per world, with the only differences being a different coat of paint, and a different coloured "environmental bar"; red for hot planets, blue/white for cold, green for toxic, etc. The design team could have spent time increasing the range of worlds, to include gas giants, barren rocky craters, barren ice balls, you name it, and increased the variability of planet generation. Transitional elements are blended in to make it seem 'seamless', but phasing in graphics tends to stand out. Trade and piracy lacking. Base building is pretty much one type of building with decorations unlockable. - The Ugly - The plot is either slow as hell or doesn't exist. Once you leave a star, you can't go back.