Edited on: October 16, 2025

Posted on: March 28, 2025

alwbsok

Games: 553 Reviews: 23

Tough to score

No Man's Sky brings up some difficult questions about how I score my reviews. Do I inflate the score to reward ambition, or do I score based only on what is presented to me? Do I punish the game for not really rising above a pleasant hum of addictive serotonin rushes, or do I reward it for giving me 40 hours (and counting) of low-impact gaming that I don't regret in the slightest? Do I praise its breadth, or criticise its shallowness? NMS is nothing if not ambitious. The concept is simple: just one person and their spaceship, exploring an enormous universe. What do you do? It's more a question of, what do you want to do? Most of the time, you'll be exploring and crafting. However, you'll soon find that you're juggling a few different past-times. Do you start building a base? Do some ranching/farming? Do you look for a crashed ship to adopt and fix up? Do you want to start managing a fleet of freighters, or manage a settlement? Perhaps you want to start learning an alien language? Or increase your standing with alien factions? Do you want to be a bounty hunter? Or perhaps a trader? Or a pirate? You could also simply follow the game's story. Whenever I feel like I have a handle on the breadth of what the game offers, I tend to get blind-sided by some other feature, some other passtime that I could be trying. The problem is that it doesn't do any of the above particularly well. The planets have that raw, procedurally-generated feel (but are done quite well considering). The space combat is too simple. The colony management is a series of binary decisions (edit: not any more, since the Beacon update). The languages are just word substitutions for English. No activity is nourishing enough to focus on; instead you need to enjoy sampling everything. All in all, I wavered between 2 or 3 out of 4 (plus the 1 that GoG gives every game for free), but ultimately settled upon 3. The simple fact of the matter is, regardless of any flaws, I really enjoyed my time with NMS, so I'll round up.

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Posted on: September 6, 2021

satyrsangre

Verified owner

Games: 164 Reviews: 3

The Comeback Kid

if you remember the desolate isolation of the first game, this is not the same game. there are still opportunities to be the lonely traveller. but this game, this universe is wonderfully populated. this game is the epitome of emergent gameplay. it is worth your time, i promise.

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Posted on: August 13, 2016

dexterward

Verified owner

Games: 223 Reviews: 2

Retro-flavored must-have procgen classic

First, the tech. I`m on 2600K + 780Ti + GSync and an OCD when it comes to visuals. Medium rig, but the game runs very well, with fps constantly over 80. Occasional slowdowns and churnings are not too bad, do not break the flow and are to be expected with this world size and early version of the game. Had no crashes and saw no particular bugs so far. Only issue: gamepad control gets "floaty" sometime. Gameplay: it`s an indie - exploration - crafting - upgrades- survival - procedural - heavy title. Consider that carefully. It`s neither Mass Effect style linear adventure nor Elite: Dangerous-like serious sim. If you expect this kind of gameplay you might be disappointed because NMS is different. Overall: It`s mindblowing. The hate-hysteria seems to be stemming from people`s misguided expectations, despite the fact everything about this game was explained in detail during last year and this release is just that. A wonderful universe full of unexpected, amazing moments where you can simply live in. Especially, if your imagination is up for it and you have a procedural mindset. For me, it`s like old design ideas from Elite, Pirates, Midwinter, Hunter and so on were mixed with procedural, survival and roguelike vibes and then visualized as a Sixties Sci-Fi B-rate gem. Well worth waiting for. The game is bit rough around the edges and sure as hell could use some optimisation, especially regarding draw distances, also improving the interface and adding more options. But this is their first public release! A tiny studio builds a universe, let`s cut them some slack, eh. And the DLC-less, old school game update promise seems extremely exciting too. Just imagine what can become of this game in a year or so. Buy it, to support the small team that dared to bring back true good old gaming, and also support the vision for the future of such releases which don`t do things by the (boring) design book

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Posted on: August 17, 2016

TheSyn

Games: 2 Reviews: 1

Procedurally Gen (Interactive) Video

To me NMS has a bit of an identity problem and I feel that the developers had an excellent idea for a technology(the procedural generation algorithms) but not much experience on how to build a game out of it. EVERYTHING you find is interesting in the first few hour but everything is more of the same: All - aliens, animals, plants, rocks, space stations, planets, asteroids, ships, omni-tools, buildings - everything is functionally the same. The only way the game can surprise you is visually but not functionally so exploration is reduced to sightseeing. Another huge problem for an exploration game where the ship is your main tool is the fact that the ship controls– while on a planet at low altitude the ship is basically on autopilot giving you control only over thrust. The game always takes control of the ship away from you so that you dont crash it into mountains or other terrain. This hurts and is in direct contrast with the core feeling of freedom that the game want to promote and makes feel much more like I am on a rail where my only options is to stop or fly on and if I fail to listen to the game it just yanks control away from me and puts be back on my rail. This "gameplay" dose not require anything from you as a player except to pres W and wait - that is similar to watching a video while having to keep the play button pressed the whole time. My conclusions would be that Hello Games knows their technical stuff and their engine for creating procedurally generated worlds is good as a tech demo. NMS is a demo of how an infinite world could be made and I am confident that the tech could be put to better use in the future. As it stands now NMS is a very limited game that offers very little in terms of gameplay, it is at its finest within the first few hours but it shallowness kills the joy very fast given the fact that no matter how much you travel you will always be in the same place.

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Posted on: September 25, 2020

halldojo

Verified owner

Games: Reviews: 5

Rocky start

Even though this game had a rocky start I have to admit for me I have always liked it, I have not encountered any bugs throughout the years and I remember the backlash that I it got, personally I felt it to be unwarranted except maybe the part where they might have over promised on what they would deliver however that never bugged me. This is not a fast pace action game, this is a explorer builder with combat included, you can spend hours/days/weeks on a single planet and just enjoy the scenery and mine and build or you can head to space and visit an incredible amount of other planets. I have to give Hello Games props for all the additions they have added to game, VR addition was a nice touch even though the controls are a bit off for combat flying, it is still loads of fun. I see myself coming back to this game regularly after updates and I always have fun. It might seem like a small thing but hopping into a spaceship and flying to space seamlessly but I just love it.

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