No Man's Sky 24 Hour of Game Play Review

[Veritable]

Probably going to go over 24 hours of in-game playtime, after the patches for Phenom's happened and I no longer had to use the experimental client to play the game, I was in. Though I originally asked for a refund, since I was only able to play it at 20 minute intervals before my system would conk out from video card running out of memory... that whole bag of crack.


Apparently I had over 4 hours played in the game already, even though most of it was probably staring at the Star-field Simulator 2016 screen for 5 minutes at a time while it loaded. So because I was over the 2 hour mark for the game, they said they would be unable to give me a refund.


So the first few moments in the game were pretty crazy. I had seen in the video on this page that there was a cool space battle system, where giant fleets would warp in, look pretty rad to come across even if you were just a lowly trader. So while playing the game and finally leaving my first planet, I came across an alert, combat was coming my way. Hostile ships incoming! Bring it boys... well, one ship. I have even come across a freighter since then, and max 5 ships total around, and I have no idea who is who. Who is the pirate and who is the victim in the battles? Take a guess, because it's as good as anyone else's.


After you get past that, the game turns into basically a suped up version of Minecraft, but you really don't make anything you want. You will spend more time organizing your inventory, managing how much Plutonium you have in order to keep your weapons powered on so you can harvest that Heridium or Titanium field.


I don't mind the mining, in fact I find it rather satisfying to not have to _DO_ anything. But there is a side of me that wants to do something with all of the wealth I have acquired. All of these ores do me no good if I can't build a base of operations and defend it, or buy better weapons and take down entire fleets. You can't do any of that. You can attack them sure, but there's no pros or cons against doing such a task. If you kill them, you kill them and you get some goods that you would probably find on the planet anyway. Your standing with the 3 races in the game do not change from what I can tell.


The 3 races/factions in the game are a headache to manage. First there is no menu where it shows your standing with them. There is no way to view it until you encounter one in the open world. Which isn't hard to do since they're always in a space station or some operations center/colonial outpost on a planet. They will be there, they do nothing else.


At least there are traders. But the traders seem to ... clone themselves more often than not. Often in a space station or trading post, you will see 2 or more of the same pilot land and sit there waiting for you to discuss buying their ship. However the ships will all be different, but same pilot. I don't know how they do it, but maybe it's because Space and multi-dimensions or something.


The Soundtrack to this game is absolutely mind-blowing. I give it 10/10 for the background music and ambient music while playing. It really does put you in a state of mind, that standing out in the vastness of space, or in the wasteland of an unknown planet, that you are gazing at an amazingly beautiful and exotic world.


Ship Controls need some heavy work. I see there is a mod out that is called Low-Flight, which does what should already be possible in the game. Unless you fly sideways and try to force your ship to crash on the planet (Which is impossible by the way), you have no idea where you are landing, making it very very difficult to land on a platform at a trading post.


The space combat is horrid. It makes you want to just stay on a planet so that you don't have to mine in space anymore, but eventually you will have to go to a space station and risk encountering hostile forces. Then you will be force-fed a 'lead the shot' exercise in futility, as the ships seem to be able to turn much faster than you can. And even when they hit you and drop your shields, having to add more power to them by sacrificing that precious Plutonium or Thamium9 for the greater good, it can be quite tedious having to go through the menus WHILE in combat, to accomplish this.


So you stay on a planet, and attempt to upgrade things with packs, find crashed ships to upgrade your own ship for free, discover and upload new wildlife on planets, until you have explored 100% of the life on the planet. That's right, you 100% a planet by exploring the 12-20 species of life on it and sharing the knowledge. 12-20 people, and I might say, they are either flying or land based. I have yet to see random fish like creatures in the world. The 8 or 9 planets I have visited, I have never seen an aquatic animal. The waters are just dead to the world, or they have an abandoned building in it that you can't enter.


If this game goes to about $20 USD, then I would highly suggest buying it, however, I do not believe that the state of the game versus the video trailers on the store page are the same product. I think they shipped the wrong version, and have to figure a way to patch the old version to whatever version is in the video without breaking it.


Would not buy it again at $60, nor recommend anyone else do it for $60. Wait for steam sale 75%. I will recommend the game, but only if it drops in price, because it is not worth $60 in its current state.

[ron007]

just saved me some money .I will stick with Eve online for now thanks for review