PC version reviewed.
I liked Spore. Yeah, I said it. No Man's Sky isn't bad either and seems to have suffered from its own hype. It would certainly be interesting to see how people would be treating it if the huge hype and expectations hadn't have been around. Sadly I think some people have misinterpreted what this game was supposed to be, although some vague statements from those behind it haven't helped. If you ignore the hype and the expectations, then this game should be more enjoyable, but it's certainly not perfect.
GAMEPLAY
Exploring can be a blast at times in this game, rushing up to an Earth like planet and then finding it's actually a toxic death trap can certainly lead to some interesting adventures. You can find cave systems with rich resources that sprawl from the land to the ocean on other planets, while some have sprawling forests with animals intent on attacking. All of these things can be going on while you're in the shadow of the other planets in the solar system, lurking far beyond the nearby mountains.
Some locations can just end up being dead end places you'll want to leave immediately, due to the whole thing just being large rocks and dust, or you can spend hours admiring the views some planets have to offer. Perhaps one complaint I'd have is how once you've been on a planet for a few minutes, in most cases you'll have seen it all, some planets do have enough variety and fascination about them to keep you there longer though.
The game is undoubtedly repetitive, with resources required to be collected to create new things for both you and your spaceship. While it can be quite fun scouring some planets for certain resources some people will certainly find it a bit dull, exploring is certainly where this game shines, and at least many resources push you to explore more interesting parts of worlds, rather than just the same old interiors in buildings.
Speaking of buildings, almost every building or space station in the game requires an Atlas V2 or V3 pass, which only seem to be available from rarer star systems, or simply by chance. When you consider how many buildings have doors locked by these seemingly rare items, why make them so hard to find? It only tainted the experience of exploration for me a bit.
I've heard complaints that the game is perhaps a little too forgiving, and I feel I largely agree. There isn't much of a penalty for dying, as long as you save often enough and the chance of dying seems somewhat more challenging than it should be, as crashing your ship either leads to a small amount of damage or just bouncing off whatever you hit. Most sentinels also take a large amount of time to take you down. I don't usually mind games being too easy, but even if you have basic equipment and stand still it takes them too long to bring you down.
Enemies can damage you when you're talking to NPC's or at monoliths too, which is a small but annoying thing. A bigger annoyance is when the achievement screen invades you screen for a good few seconds, disabling your ability to interact with anything, usually to read a single word.
Sadly you're always left alone to combat things, as nobody will help you battle pirates in space, or journey with you around the universe. The combat is nothing special either and the game becomes a simple shooter when fighting things like sentinels on planets. While better combat would be nice, I don't think this is a huge flaw as the focus is on exploration.
The game has a real lack of space things for a game set in that big place. Gas giants, worm holes and binary stars are all things missing from the game. I understand that some parts weren't implemented into the game because they could have ruined the gameplay, however that excuse doesn't sit right with me as, for an example, you can't travel to any solar systems' sun in the game, if you go too close the game simply keeps them at a fixed distance, while that's annoying, couldn't the same feature at least be implemented for gas giants?
Black holes are used as worm holes for some reason, why they couldn't have them act as different things I'm not sure, but they could have had so many exciting mechanics and ideas for them. Imagine jumping into a new solar system only to find everything being consumed by a black hole and finding yourself needing to escape quickly, perhaps even finding a worm hole to escape into. Instead solar systems feel rather samey, no planet even has more than one moon.
Any of the places you can encounter aliens strangely only ever has one such life form there. Vast space stations that can be decorated as stock exchanges or cafes only ever have someone at the desk, as no one ever gets out their ship. Even just sitting another alien down at a chair or something would have been a nice touch, instead of leaving everywhere feeling almost abandoned. I understand the universe is a big place, but surely everywhere wouldn't really be so empty.
There are three advanced alien races in the game (four if you count humans) and none of them have a permanent home in the universe, as apparently everyone just zooms around in ships now, as it must be deemed classes to be spotted with someone else. There are no cities, towns, villages, or any form of real settlements of planets, only their small research labs. Outside of these labs, trading posts and space stations you won't find any other aliens out of their ships exploring. It seems, at least at launch, that you can't encounter other players either, hopefully that mechanic will be implemented in the future, because it sure does feel a bit lonely at times.
The lack of a real map for planets, solar systems, or galaxy's is annoying, as navigating the universe is really hard because of it. Going back to places you've already been seems like a task that's far too difficult, instead you'll just end up lost in other star systems with the path to the centre, or atlas way points, as your only real guide or sense of direction.
STORY
The game is very immersive and at times easy to get lost in, at least on some planets and hovering in space, such as watching ships or frigates fly by or warp in. It can be ruined a bit by the lack of other intelligent life forms around though, which I mentioned earlier. The lack of any real story or even direction is probably off putting for some though. For people who found games like Skyrim to be too open ended this game would be a nightmare. Obviously a big story wasn't the main focus here though.
GRAPHICS
The game looks beautiful at so many different times with planets aligning in orbit, moons being gazed upon by worlds dominating the sky and islands sprawling beyond the horizon as you gaze down from space. The bright colours of many worlds only enhance some of the incredible, often alien feeling views you can get. Everything feels huge too, which is great for a game set in space.
While I personally didn't suffer from many issues on the PC version, there isn't much of an excuse for how poorly the game runs on some PC's, with some people not even being able to launch it. The main issue for me was textures popping in too late, leading to some planets looking rather messy, textures only loading in seconds before I flew over them in my ship, which even hindered exploration at times, as potential locations of interest didn't always load in before I'd already missed them.
SOUND
65daysofstatics' soundtrack for No Man's Sky was released a few days before the actual game and listening to it certainly furthered my excitement for the incoming release, however as the music for No Man's Sky is, like its planets, procedurally generated, you often don't actually hear the full songs from the soundtrack. I remember hearing around one or two songs from the soundtrack in full, as I first took off from the starter planet and another when fighting some space pirates, apart from those I've only heard a few snippets.
The fact that the soundtrack seems to have been chopped up is a shame because I was really looking forward to swooping down and zooming across planets with the fast paced, action packed sound I'd heard off the soundtrack release, but instead you hardly get to hear the songs in full. If some of the songs had been around longer, rather than cutting back to soundscapes, I really think it would help improve the game.
VALUE FOR MONEY
The game is probably a bit on the expensive side at launch, but if you enjoy the game and its simple premise it'll most likely give you numerous hours of content before you get bored, as it is essentially endless.
Due to its open ended nature it certainly feels like a game you can pick up at any time, whether you want to go and explore for a few minutes or go on a journey across the universe lasting hours. If Hello Games keep their word and add plenty of content in the future, especially for free like they've teased, then this game could potentially become a certain investment.
OVERALL
To put it one way, calling No Man's Sky boring would be like calling a trek up a mountain boring, if you like exploring, you'll like this game. If you're looking for more than just visiting interesting planets, such as a cutting edge space simulator then that is not what this game is. Even with its sometimes beautiful and intriguing worlds, the game feels like it could use a bit more depth to it.
I came in expecting a game where I could go around and explore space. If you're expecting something similar I'd recommend the game. If you're someone who's expecting the potential to do anything in the universe then I'd advise to either wait for the game to go on sale, or at least hold off and see what may yet be added to the game, as in its current form it's bound to disappoint some.
Thanks for reading about my opinion on one of 2016's biggest releases.
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