No Man's Sky review

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ashmie
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No Man's Sky review

Post by ashmie » Sat Sep 17, 2016 11:19 am

As requested by MiJ here's my first impression review.

Slept really really well last night, unusually so, after a full day and evening of No Man's Sky. My impression at this stage some 12 hours or so into the game is that it's very repetitive and simple in what you can do. The game has a fantastic learning curve for crafting and options for exploration. Like the classic games of old it's very simple and that's what makes it so addictive. Once I had grasped that I wasn't going to discover anything that new in the game after several playthroughs I thought I would tire of it. No, I spent a good hour or so last night desperately trying to find plutonium for my ship in extreme weather conditions, ice storms, frozen seas trapped under ice while discovering sunken monoliths and picking up distress signals from crashed ship sites. I do like my survival games having been a fan of resident evil all those years ago. If you are after story and an exciting narrative it's probably not the best of games but if you are a fan of 2001 Space Odyssey and just getting away from it all for a few hours this game is very relaxing and simplistic. It's really a game you play for the stunning visuals and colour.
My biggest criticism at this stage is that it's not an infinite boundless universe and you can't travel far manually like you could in say an MMO like Star Trek Online for example. I tried to test this by flying to the sun. The game gives the illusion you are getting closer but when you turn the ship around you can see you haven't moved at all and the actual room for each star system is really rather small. There was a lot of expectation for this game and the developers made promises which haven't been kept. For example there is no multiplayer option or community whatsoever. We were promised that we could interact with other players. So far in my 12 hours of space travel I've only discovered one other username floating around, the same one seems to be one step ahead of me and there is no clue whether this is another human player or an NPC.
Overall I've found it a very impressive world, the language learning and alien monolith discoveries are what will keep me playing. I really think the game needs additions though which in my opinion should be fan based with free patches and upgrades. As the game was full price I don't think it's fair to charge for DLC this time.
I give it 4/5 stars for originality and simplicity but mainly for the visuals and atmosphere. There is room for the player to think and exist in this game.
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me_in_japan
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Re: No Man's Sky review

Post by me_in_japan » Sun Sep 18, 2016 8:39 am

good to know, and largely echoes what I've read elsewhere. Pretty as all heck, but not so much in the way of depth. However, not every game needs depth. Ta for the review :)
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