No Man's Sky

From the start I had a hunch this game would end up suffering from its overhype, but I had not idea how bad the game would end up being. One paper this is an incredibly good idea: exploring literally thousands of planets with unique flora and fauna and interacting with aliens all with a Minecraft-type interface. Unfortunately the game is so buggy it makes an initial launch Bethesda game look bug free. The amount of crashes was inexcusable and the framerate dragged to a crawl multiple times and this was all on a powerful over clocked computer. The good news is the PS4 port isn't buggy at all, the bad news is bugs are the least of No Man's Sky's problems... If it were just bugs I could forgive this game, Armikrog for example was terribly buggy but now that it is ironed out it is a splendid game. But No Man's Sky's reward for getting past the bugs is an incredibly tedious experience. The amount of resource grinding is insane and is made all the more unbearable with your tiny inventory. Also the nearly unlimited number of planets you can explore? They start repeating after a while and even the life on them ends up repeating! The aliens have no personality and are just there to be vendors and exposition for a forgettable story Eventually the game did get better with an increased inventory and new types of planets... After about 22 hours of drudging through all the aforementioned problems. Even then the game remained tedious and boring. This is game is very much like Spore, an overhyped sic-fi game with incredible but ultimately unrealistic open-ended game ideas that ended up disappointing. The difference is Spore is an excellent game when you get past the fact it wasn't the Sim Universe we thought it would be, No Man's Sky is just a mess of bugs, boring gameplay, and broken promises.

No Man's Sky is exactly the game I've been waiting patiently for, and it does not disappoint. I have 21+ hours of gameplay out of it already (two days after release). Survive on a random planet, fix your ship, and get off the planet to explore a literal universe of discoveries. Great graphics, high-yet-smooth frame rates, and excellent controls. I have not seen any performance issues, and I have a mid-range system with a GeForce 780 Ti graphics card. The only bug I have noticed was a clipping issue. People who claim that repetitiveness is an issue might be in the wrong hobby, as video games may not be the best thing for their attention spans. Four out of five stars for pure fun alone, and I cannot wait to see what add-ons or DLC awaits us in the future!

This game is beyond what I was expecting. This game is definitely for the people who love to explore and don't mind working for it. So far two planets fully explored and just landed on a moon. Adventures galore swimming in the deep ocean was attacked by a giant shark. Traversing a field and a raptor like creature attacked out of the deep chest high grass. Whether you are shooting through asteroid fields or exploring a wonderful assortment of creatures and wildlife planet side. You will find yourself lost for hours on end. This game has quickly become one of my all time favorites.

You know what this game is: it's the Universe, and you can flit about seeing weird life forms, meet aliens, and even blow stuff up. What's not to like? I'm pretty happy with this game. I'm not having the problems that others are seeing. There are some things I'd like to see done, but Hello Games is going to add features, so that's good enough for me.

I will try to honestly describe what this game really is, not what developers/game press told about it. So you may set your expectations accordingly and not be disappointed. There are many “1 star” ratings and angry reviews. While I agree with some points, I still think extremely low rating not deserved. Certainly, this game, being “quick and dirty” console port, has a large amount of problems. Especially in terms of PC-specific features such as custom controls, display options and monitor resolution. It has extremely poor hardware optimization as well. It also suffers from “we want to make all the cool features despite the low budget and small team” approach. Sadly, it is nothing new for indie development. However, there are many games with similar problems, which still received much better ratings. I think main problem (aside of inability to launch the game at all, which happened to some people) is that NMS just not met expectations of almost EVERYONE, no matter what they expected. It was positioned as “space flight/exploration game”, frequently compared to Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous and Egosoft’s X series. In fact, there is nothing similar. NMS is a game of completely different genre, not even related to “space flight” games. Certainly, player has starship and ability to fly between planets, but it only serves as means of transportation, nothing more. Controls are extremely limited, flight physics very simple and combat is nothing to look out for. Survival elements are limited too. They are over-simplified and tedious at the same time. It is very easy to keep your temperature/radiation/toxin/energy at safe levels. In fact, it is too easy for survival to become important gameplay element. On the other hand, it requires a lot of repetitive actions. Nothing difficult, but extremely annoying. What NMS really provides (more or less) is an “exploration” part. You walk on a surface, scan local flora and fauna (yes, it becomes boring as well after 10 planets with exactly the same creatures/plants, but still), find alien artifacts and aliens themselves. The game really manages to provide sense and feeling of retro-styled sci-fi adventure. What is more important (and gives this game a chance) is the fact it not takes itself very seriously. It is not scientifically correct, deadly serious representation of lifeless rock and ice with temperature around 0k. There is a game that already does it, and in much better quality. NMS is silly, colorful and reminds of B-rated movies from 70’s. With strange creatures (like turtle/goat with parrot’s beak), brick-shaped spaceships and spaceman’s best friend - old trusted blaster able to solve any problem.