Shaggy's Space Jam
I like No Man's Sky despite its flaws. It's a space game and it's mostly about exploration and it has totally become my own personal Space Jam. If you like Starbound, this game is very similar, but from a first person view. A multi-tool allows you to shoot things and mine elements and minerals, you fly around to different planets in a space ship that has lasers on it, sometimes you shoot robots or pirate ships. The game is pretty light on combat and mostly about the thrill of looking to an unknown planet or solar system and then going there. It's a feeling that most of us human beings will never know since our planet is completely mapped out, most of us never travel very far, and most of us will never become astronauts. Even if all of us were astronauts, NASA has pretty much determined that the closest habitable planet is too far for a manned mission with our current technology. None of us will ever set foot on an alien planet, our race might not ever discover intelligent alien life, but I'll be damned if it isn't fun to imagine what it might be like!
So, you can play No Man's Sky however you like, maybe you want to be a space pirate or maybe just a homebody, not venturing far from where you start the game? Totally valid! I prefer to be a bit of a nomad that warps around the universe. I've visited various planets with different plants and animals, and I've gone through 3 black holes at this point, so I'm completely lost in space from where I began!
I like the feeling of being the first person to set foot on a planet and walk around and get the lay of the land. I appreciate the pace, it rewards being methodical and playing smart. You can potentially get marooned on a planet if you don't consider your fuel, where you land, how often you land. I found a toxic planet that was full of things that wanted to eat me, but it had rare resources, so I strapped up and tackled it. I think these considerations are cool, and the game doesn't get enough credit for having its own rules that are sim-y without being a full on astrophysics simulator. If you really want to boil it down, No Man's Sky streamlines the physics behind space travel down to about 4 different speeds: fast, faster, pulse drive and warp drive. I think it works! I can explore a solar system of 4-5 planets/moons in about 30 min if I just touch down, do a quick survey and blast off to the next.
60 hours into this game, I'm still finding new upgrades. I've been playing with the different warp drive upgrades in order to access different classes of solar systems, I'm still shopping for bigger and better ships, and at least one big mystery looms that still hasn't been solved when it comes to Stargates (I just found one last night). No-one can figure out how to open them even though we've seen an open Stargate in a trailer. I think there could potentially be more mysteries like this if they continue to trickle content like this into the game. A lot of people are wanting to see whats next, and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how this game changes over time.
My only complaint outside of some performance issues is that the loot and inventory system could use some improvement. The interface seems slick at first, and I have to say with all the different elements you are picking up, it's pretty cool that your inventories end up looking like a big periodic table. There are still some clunky things in the interface that could use some work but its mostly just small changes between using a controller and a mouse. The game lets you hotswap between them at any time though, which i appreciate because i like to use the controller when I'm flying, and the mouse and keyboard when I'm walking around. I think most of these things will probably get ironed out. The developers at Hello Games have said they are committed to patching the game for free and they want to make the game bigger and better. The mod community for No Man's Sky is already putting out content too, so if the devs don't fix it, I'm pretty sure someone else will.
A lot of people are upset that No Man's Sky doesn't have multiplayer. At one point I thought No Man's Sky might be a good fit for multiplayer, but after playing it, I can see why it isn't, and I've settled on being really happy that the game is single player. I like that I can play it for a couple hours, save my game and walk away. When I come back, I don't have to worry that a griefer I encounter is a higher level than me or that the economy of the game is being altered by scam artists.
I think there will probably be a "No Man's Sky Online" at some point, and I look forward to seeing how Hello Games might leverage this universe generator into a slightly different format.
