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WILL YOU BE ABLE TO FINISH READING THIS REVIEW-IN-PROGRESS OF NO-MAN'S SKY (PS4)... OR WILL THE WINDOW-LICKING BABIES PUT YOU OFF?

10/8/2016

12 Comments

 
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No Man's Sky... it's out. I've played it. No time to mess around; here are my initial thoughts. Be warned: they're mostly pretty positive, so I've tried to temper any latent excitement by off-setting my comments using mocking images of babies with their faces pressed against windows.
So... I'm about four hours in. Those first dull couple of hours, which many seem to be talking about, haven't really been an issue for me. I was up and away from my starting planet (swiftly renamed "Bummo's World") within an hour. 

Maybe they were trying to find negative things to say, because they felt they had to.

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And then after leaving the atmosphere of Bummo's World... I flew right back down, because I wanted to keep exploring. I wanted to know more about the half-glimpsed caves and valleys, and those weird crab things, and the big mushrooms, and I wanted to know more about that abandoned outpost on top of the cliff...

Commendably, while there's no hand-holding in terms of what you're meant to do, what you're able to do, and what you should do... the interface, the menus, the crafting and inventory systems, aren't too overwhelming. They're easy enough to get.
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The thing which really gripped me was that this was my planet. Nobody else had been here. I was exploring somewhere completely, entirely new.

That, over the next few hours, provided the most palpable thrills for me; the feeling that wherever I went... I was leaving footprints in virgin snow. It made me feel like a pioneer. It made the game unique to me.

There is a possibility that this could wear off, that it could become repetitive and tiresome, that there isn't enough variety in terms of what there is to see... but right now, in these first four or so hours, there's no sign of that happening.
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I've read several reviews-in-progress which have described NMS as a survival game.

Yes, you need to find stuff to survive - to fuel your ship, to upgrade your mining tool/weapon, and keep you alive, and the environments and sentinels can be hostile... but it's overshadowed by the exploring.

Learning alien languages, and being the first to discover places. More than anything... it's an explore 'em up. It speaks to what I most love about video games. In that respect, it's exactly the game I hoped it'd be.
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Or maybe that's just how I'm playing it. I get the feeling that everyone is going to play No Man's Sky slightly differently. It's going to be tailored to the individual. It is, possibly, the biggest sandbox ever created.

I suspect that it could become a different sort of game going forwards, as I start to power up my ship and weapons. For now though... it lets me be an intergalactic Christopher Columbus.
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What I'm most surprised at so far is that I feel I'm progressing, and it doesn't feel overly incremental.

​The game is rationing out my momentum - it's making me search for items I need to make my ship powerful enough to jump to the next star system etc. - but it's not doing it so slowly as to become frustrating or dull.
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I've managed to upgrade my mining tool with a visor, so that I can scan alien flora and fauna - I've just encountered my first big alien lifeforms, bought a new gun, and built a hyperdrive.

Plus, I've done my fair share of trading, with two very different alien races. And much to my surprise... I don't hate the trading element.


I feared No Man's Sky would simply be a new version of Elite... but the whole thing feels much friendlier and more accessible than Elite has ever been.

The trading isn't tedious. The combat and flight feels more arcade-like. In fact, overall, it is an incredibly friendly game. Which is an odd thing to say about a game where most of what you encounter is in some way
deadly.
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Admittedly, the visuals are clearly hamstrung by the scale of what's at play here - it can't compete with games that have every scene carefully constructed by hand - but there are moments of real beauty. 

In the first system, I was worried that the planets might all be a little too same-y - that there wouldn't be enough variation. But in the second system the worlds started to show me more variety.

Yes, they're still quite jelly mould-ish, in terms of geology - but cosmetically they're just different enough to keep my interest. And thus far the exploring of those worlds is a long way from getting old.


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Something I'm finding surprisingly engrossing is the way you learn languages by interacting with alien artefacts and structures. "Collecting" words is a wholly new way to deal with video game collectables.

There's a nice feeling of there being a deeper lore and mythos to the universe that, so far, has stayed the right side of pretentious.

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As I come to the end of my first session, I've just discovered a crashed ship - one that's faster, bigger, and more powerful than the ship I started with.

Unfortunately, I need to repair the damaged ship before I can take off. This means more mining, more resource gathering - potentially more trading to gather what I need. 

Yes, it could be repetitive, but No Man's Sky seems brilliantly balanced, in terms of what it gives you early on, and what it holds back. It feels generous, without giving away all its secrets. The pacing is - I feel - close to perfect.

Overall then... I've genuinely loved my first four-and-a-bit hours.

I do have some reservations, but even having just scratched the surface of what's on offer, it's clear what an astonishing achievement this is.

If it continues in this vein, I suspect it's going to be one of those games which develops a life of its own in ways that its creators could never have predicted. So far... I'm willing to tentatively suggest that the hype was justified.
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FROM THE ARCHIVE:
  • ​WILL THIS REVIEW-IN-PROGRESS OF DOOM (PS4) BE ENOUGH TO WAKE THESE SLEEPING PEOPLE FROM THEIR ETERNAL SLUMBER?
  • REVIEW-IN-PROGRESS: HAVE A LOOK AT THESE SHITTING BABIES WHILE I TELL YOU WHAT I THINK OF THE PS4 VERSION OF 'TOM CLANCY'S THE DIVISION' THUS FAR
  • CAN YOU MAKE IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THIS REVIEW-IN-PROGRESS OF UNCHARTED 4 WHILE THESE MONKEYS SHOUT THE C-WORD AT YOU?


12 Comments
timmypoos
10/8/2016 09:02:29 pm

Where in the world? Bummo's World!

Reply
timmypoos
10/8/2016 09:06:28 pm

Nice and positive write up. The penultimate image is just too wrong to be real.

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Chris Wyatt
10/8/2016 09:32:33 pm

I'm imagining Bummo's world as some kind of twin planet, formed by two planets colliding in to each other.

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timmypoos
10/8/2016 09:40:02 pm

Haha with a strange central cavern to explore, if your into that sort of thing.

Chris Wyatt
10/8/2016 09:59:10 pm

Nice idea! A central cavern; home to an ancient turtle (Tortus the third) that has lived inside the cave for nameless aeons. Sadly, due to eruptions, the turtle has been forced to flee his home. It's up to you to find him a new place to live!

If this side quest isn't possible right now, perhaps in a future update.

Chris Wyatt
10/8/2016 09:26:12 pm

I miss my Animal Crossing village, Bonerville. I taught my villagers rude catchphrases (obviously) and drew huge penis star constellations. Essentially, there were phalluses everywhere.

The random friend codes I added all turned out to be kids, seeing as most grown adults have better things to do with their lives, and my foul-mouthed villagers ended up moving into their villages, and the boner constellations ended up appearing in their skies, much to my amusement.

Sadly Bonerville is no more, but the memories will last a lifetime.

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Jonastinyface
10/8/2016 09:31:09 pm

I am loving it as a sort of zen like experience. Explore this cave, mine some ore, build a better gun to improve your ship to explore a new planet. Yes. This is what I wanted.

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Dr Kank
10/8/2016 10:02:12 pm

I was going to buy it but now I'm worried about being trapped on the planet of the Window Licking Babies.

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Seam
10/8/2016 10:33:40 pm

I am also enjoying it for many of the same reasons already mentioned. I had a genuine panic earlier when playing as I had wandered so deep into a cave system that I got lost and couldn't find my way out. There doesn't seem to be any local map/waypoint system that I could figure, which makes sense given that everything is unexplored.

I did eventually find my way out but I was on the point of restoring from last save point...

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Euphemia
10/8/2016 11:03:03 pm

Yep, feels about the same for me. Waiting for the hype-rug to be yanked violently out from under me, so taking it slow and it's been genuinely intriguing with a steady learning curve.

Shat it and got chased up a hill by a big crab. That's probably what real planetary exploration would be like.

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Clockwork Fool
11/8/2016 05:43:15 am

Was a bit of a tough start on my end, started out on a poisonous planet with frequent bursts of Acid rain. Probably wasn't in huge danger, but I didn't even understand the interface enough for the first half hour or more so the danger felt very immediate.

Second proper planet I got to had giant mushrooms with multiple eyes hopping around, which was nice.

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Darren link
11/8/2016 12:39:30 pm

Yup - that's very much what I was saying in my review. Linky to that included for those who might be interested.

Reply



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