No Man's Sky

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mikeleddy83
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by mikeleddy83 »

I actually meant to say earlier today that nothing has got me as intrigued with this game as much as that earlier post but now we've got a follow up I'll be reading it the second I wake. Thanks for posting, the isolation part really struck a compelling chord. I guess you got the gig as my personal reviewer for the game :)
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Flabyo
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Flabyo »

Ok, played a few hours and here's my initial impressions.

I'll stick it in a spoiler in case you want to go in completely fresh. Not saying anything here that reviews won't though:
Spoiler: show
This is an exploration game. At heart it's about wandering around a planet and finding things, then using those things to move to another planet to wander about on. Eventually it's about using more things to change to another solar system to start wandering about in.

The basic gameplay loop involves finding resources to craft components that you then combine to make things like upgrades, weapons and eventually parts for your ship to increase how far you can go. That core loop is not that dissimilar to the one in Minecraft, so if you find that tedious you won't enjoy this.

There's a light narrative in there, I won't spoil any of it (mainly cause it's not shoved itself forward much so far so I don't have much to spoil) but it sets destination goals, and the implication is that there will be choices later that may well lead to different stories.

It's not an empty universe, there are all sorts of alien species, and you slowly learn words of their language which will allow you to gauge their intentions in the various little scripted dialogue interactions you can find.

Controls wise, the ships aren't complete freedom of movement machines like you see in Elite. To get off the ground you need fuel in your 'launch thrusters', these lift you off the ground into planetary flight mode. I've not managed to manually crash into the ground yet, the game seems to forcibly prevent that (you manually press a button to land the ship). If you thrust up far enough you leave the planet and can use a sublight engine to rapidly zip about within the current system. This has its own fuel requirement. Once you have a hyperdrive you can leap to another system, this uses another MUCH rarer resource.

I'm finding it pretty fun so far, but I quite like this kind of aimless wandering with light narrative. I play a LOT of Elite: Dangerous and that is just as undirected and aimless as this is. Parts of this actually remind me of the old EA game 'Starflight' (I think it's the thing with learning the alien language more than anything).

If you're expecting Wing Commander. It isn't. If you're expecting a deep combat simulation, it isn't that either. There is some shooting, but the game really isn't about that.
It's very much its own thing, I can't see many people being in the middle ground with it. You'll either love it, or hate it. And you'll know within a couple of hours which camp you're in.
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Stanshall
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Stanshall »

mikeleddy83 wrote:I actually meant to say earlier today that nothing has got me as intrigued with this game as much as that earlier post but now we've got a follow up I'll be reading it the second I wake. Thanks for posting, the isolation part really struck a compelling chord. I guess you got the gig as my personal reviewer for the game :)
Cheers, Mike. I'm feeling the pressure now! :)

I've definitely gotten into this pretty deep. I'd say the last thing which hooked me as much was MGSV. Another full day to myself (I'm a teacher, rainy summer hols are made for this) and I've put in about eight hours. Without spoiling anything, I've now 'seen some shit'. I'm being pulled into the lore and the mystery of it all now. Some awe inspiring moments.

And, yep, totally agree with that, Flabyo. There will be a lot of people who do this justice and put a good few hours into it and still not like it. For me, GOTY so far, ahead of Uncharted 4, Hyper Light Drifter and Dirt Rally.
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Flabyo
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Flabyo »

Jim Sterling's review puts the boot in, gives it 5/10.

And I don't disagree with anything he says in it.

It's just the flaws don't bring it down much for me (yet).
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Alex79
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Alex79 »

Stanshall is totally selling this to me too. Wish I had the time/money to get on it right now! I'll definitely be picking this up ASAP though.
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chase210
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by chase210 »

Can't be doing with No Man's Sky, making me ill it is, motion sickness and all.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by ratsoalbion »

Oh, that sucks. I'm so pleased I don't get that.
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Alex79
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Alex79 »

Yeah that's rubbish, only game I've ever had that with is Half Life 2. Can you adjust the field of view? I've heard that can help in some cases.
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chase210
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by chase210 »

Not on PS4 unfortunately. It's a shame, I quite enjoyed what I played, only an hour or so. It really is massive isn't it, I was a little blown away by the scale of it.
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Stanshall
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Stanshall »

Not on PS4, no. I heard there will be more options on PC. Bad luck, Chase. That's a bummer.

My summative thought for the day is how much I am buzzing off the mood. It's got that 70s goofiness, the flora and fauna are fantastical rather than fearsome, and there's an Asimov type retro futurist charm, a little bit Lost In Space even at times, mixed with some seriously epic Space Odyssey stuff. It's a proper love letter and whether it's RNG or not, it does seem to be getting more fantastical as I go along. Also a special mention for the soundtrack, which is subtle but accentuates the key moments so well. I thought Abzu was my OST of the year, but it's definitely this.

Just one final word of warning since I've bigged this up quite a lot, and I don't want anyone to be misled when parting with fifty quid: It is repetitive. It does require some grinding. The first few hours can be frustrating until you upgrade your suit and ship size a bit. Mining can be slow until you upgrade your beam a bit. Running and jetting around can be a bit slow until you upgrade. It can take a good few hours to get gear to really cover distance and before the loop of remaining on one planet changes a bit. It can take ten hours before space combat seems viable. There are inventory systems I've only figured out after twenty hours. For me, it's more and more engaging because the loop has broadened and I have more stuff I can do along the four pillars of survive, explore, trade, combat. I can totally understand how many people wouldn't get ten percent as far and give up. And as I said above, I can also see people putting the time in and still not enjoying it. I'm not a grinder by nature, and I love walking simulators. That's basically where I'm coming from.
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Lego Solo »

Played a few hours last night. Was really taken with it. Kinda like the fact you have to figure things out for yourself. I got lost in a cave system for two hours, which was a little frustrating but once I found my way out I had all the raw materials I needed to get my ship running and headed of into the big black or orange as it were. Docked at a space station, sold some stuff and then looked through the map.

Oh boy that's a big star map!

It's there I decided to call it a night. I think I'll leave it for a time I can sit down, relax and dedicate a huge number of hours to.

Really liked what I saw though.
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by gallo_pinto »

Generally speaking, I really like reviews. I never pre-order games and I usually wait for price drops, so reviews are a really nice way for me to decide which games are worth picking up and which were just empty hype. Watching coverage of No Man's Sky these last couple days feels like living in a parallel universe without reviews. All of the websites I usually go to have NMS diaries, impressions, opinion pieces, letters and conversations, but no reviews. I haven't found flame wars in comments sections or screams of bias (I'm sure that's happening in some corners of the internet, but at least not in areas I've been frequenting). It's a much more peaceful way of getting a feel for the game before buying it and I have to admit that I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Alex79 »

I understand how large this universe is, and that there are 18 billion whatever planets, and for a solo player to find them all it would take however many million years - but given the fact there will be millions of people playing this game, is there a chance that any latecomers - say a couple of years down the line - will be unable to find unexplored and unnamed planets? I mean there has to be a finite amount of time that it would take say 10 million players to explore and discover the entire universe?
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chase210
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Re: No Man's Sky

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I kinda like the fact for example, without using the boost on the ship, the time from the first planet to the second planet, or even to the space station thing, would be you know, 2 hours odd. I mean thats with the basic ship, and its not fast, but it makes the universe feel as huge as it is, and I really dig it.
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by ratsoalbion »

I'd say that even if the game sells 10m, the average player will probably only name a relatively tiny handful of things.

Most people will drift away from this within a few weeks leaving a hardcore of people who love the game to carry on exploring and pioneering.

No matter how many hundreds of hours those hardy explorers put in, there will still be (if my quck mental arithmetic is to be believed), many billions of uncharted systems.

Of course, Hello will probably continue to expand on the game as well, and periodically wipe names that they deem inappropriate but which have evaded their profanity filter!
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by ratsoalbion »

Controversy over the (non) inclusion of online continues:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016- ... er-sticker

Two early press reviews are now live, one 5/10 and one 7/10:
http://www.gamerankings.com/ps4/739857- ... index.html
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Flabyo
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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by Flabyo »

I'll tell you one thing, they need to get the stability sorted. It's very crash happy.
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Re: RE: Re: No Man's Sky

Post by countstex »

Alex79uk wrote:I understand how large this universe is, and that there are 18 billion whatever planets, and for a solo player to find them all it would take however many million years - but given the fact there will be millions of people playing this game, is there a chance that any latecomers - say a couple of years down the line - will be unable to find unexplored and unnamed planets? I mean there has to be a finite amount of time that it would take say 10 million players to explore and discover the entire universe?
I read a quote that if they flashed a 1 second shot of each planet in the game on a screen for you to watch it would take 45 times longer than the time from the big bang until now to see them all. I think it's safe to say there will be some left to find!

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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by countstex »

I've spent a good few hours with Nms now, and also watched Linda (my wife) play on the other TV beside me. The way each world can be so very different, even though technically they are all the same nodes underneath, is amazing.
Interestingly the extreme vastness of the play area kind of tempers my desire to explore everything since it's a totally impossibility, so I find my main draw being finding the words that allow you to better understand what the various alien races you encounter are asking of you. I was just starting to get somewhere with The Convergence, and one warp later I'm meeting up with Va 'keen and it's back to square one.

I love it.

I can imagine this being a game I'll sink a hundred hours or so into in the first year and then fire up for a night every couple of months for years. Better hope Sony go for backwards compatability when the PS5 comes along!


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Re: No Man's Sky

Post by ratsoalbion »

There are some nice galleries going around showing a good variety of flora and fauna, rather making a mockery of the 'hot take' reviews from people who played 5-10 hours before deciding that there wasn't enough variety to be found.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that a game that asks so much time and effort from the player for occasional rewards is not going to be for a lot of people, but however hazy the marketing might have been, I think it made Hello and Sony pretty clear that this was a huge game and as such, would need a significant investment of time to see what it truly has to offer.

NB: I haven't played it yet - my Steam version is purchased but I'm not sure when it will unlock. It may be that I find the game terribly tedious, but I doubt it. I just might not have time to give it the attention it deserves (see also Elite: Dangerous - another game which rewards you the more you put in, and also requires a predilection for the atmosphere and possibility of the vastness of space).
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