It's been a few months since I started playing [b]No Man's Sky[/b], and now I think I've experienced enough of the game to leave a review.
No Man's Sky is a very unique, vast and ambitious game; I'll go over some of the main core aspects, to explain what I like and what I don't.
[h3] Exploration [/h3]
The bread and butter of No Man's Sky is exploration; unfortunatly, this is where I think the game is too ambitious for its own good. At first, exploring planets, space stations and ships is pretty fun, but soon it becomes quite repetitive; the game simply doesn't have enough "templates" for the procedural generation:
- most planets feel too similar to each other;
- every space station is pretty much the same;
- there's a lack of places of interest.
The ability to name pretty much everything you come across is an interesting and cool system; exploring is also quite rewarding in terms of resources. Every now and then it is possible to find a memorable planet that feels like no other.
[h3] Travelling [/h3]
What I personally feel like the game does very well is travelling: space truly feels huge; land vehicles are slow and kind of weird to use, but the spaceships are amazing in pretty much every way: driving them, their design, the ability to create and customize a ship from scratch (especially corvettes!).
My biggest gripe with ships, apart from certain weird restrictions while building them, is the combat. While the ship weapons feel pretty fun, fighting other ships is pretty much always the same thing: press the lock button and shoot. It's not too bad, but it does become repetitive and it feels too simple.
[h3] Survival [/h3]
Another important aspect of No Man's Sky is surviving in the often extreme conditions you find yourself in: toxic, radioactive, extreme temperature planets are everywhere; the mechanics of survival are, actually, very simple and basic. It often just involves collecting a resource to recharge your equipment (for example, oxygen for life support). Depending on the chosen gamemode, this can be a mild inconvenience or something to look out for constantly.
Personally, I feel indifferent to these systems: on one hand, they feel necessary for the game, on the other they aren't particularly fun/exciting; I guess they're fine.
[h3] Technology and Multi-tool [/h3]
To help you survive, your equipment, exosuit and vehicles can be upgraded through tech; and there is a lot of different tech that can be found/bought. Some simply improve the efficiency of your multi-tool (your main way to gather resources and to fight on land), others can even unlock travel to more complex systems.
The multi-tool is pretty reliable, and even if land combat is pretty boring, the amount of tech and weapons that can be used is great.
These mechanics make the overall progression of the game far more interesting and fun.
[h3] Story [/h3]
The story in No Man's Sky is not the center piece, and as such, it tries to move out the way pretty quickly. Despite this, I enjoyed it; one thing which I also didn't mind but many people may find weird is the way dialogue is done; I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's very descriptive. It tries to "tell more than show".
[h3] Other stuff [/h3]
One of the most unique aspects of No Man's Sky is the way multiplayer works: it's not really an MMO, but there is a main hub, and everytime you enter a new system, you could meet another player there. Of course, due to the scale of the game, this is very rare, and everything multiplayer-related can be turned off in the settings.
Now, while trying to play with friends, I came across a few bugs causing some of us to getting disconnected; this is part of a bigger problem: there are quite a lot of bugs and glitches. I haven't met any game-breaking bugs, but most of them were related to the terrain and base building.
So, what is my opinion on No Man's Sky? While the game suffers from a lot of problems, and many mechanics just don't feel complete, it is still an entertaining game that is unlike anything else I have ever played; I also appreciate all the work the developers have been doing in the past years, pretty much for free.
I am very happy of my experience, and had quite a lot of fun, so I recommend it.
