NO MANS SKY (First impressions)
NO MANS SKY (PS4)
It's been a while since I blogged about anything game related, and I think when it comes to No Mans Sky taking about it in a format that isn't the 140 characters of twitter of the rapid fire multimedia of Facebook is actually for the best. A chance for me to stop debating with people and to actually explain what is and what my thoughts on No Mans Sky actually are.
First of all what type of game is No Mans Sky is no mans sky? Well what I can say is that it's NOT a game in the style of ELITE Dangerous, there is system to system travel, a big universe, and trading however unlike ED it's not the focus. In fact a majority of what you are doing in NMS is more on par with Minecraft, Terraria or Starbound with a bit of State of Decay, rust or Day Z into the mix.
Yep it's a resource gathering survival sim, swap the retro inspired environments and zombies for Aliens and space pirates and you have NMS.
It isn't what was advertised or what people where expecting, but it is such a nice take on such stuff that I am a bit passed caring TBH, and for the most part it pulls it off.
However do note that I said 'For the most part', there are things that do tick me off about No Mans sky. After all I hate having to gush praise, and for the most part I would rather moan about the few things that I do take issue with.
-Firstly that dammed inventory system.... IT FUCKING SUCKS... Yeah I get it, it's supposed to be a survival game. However early on things just aren't fun because of how little space you have between you and your ship. A resource (or an amount of a resource) takes up 1, inventory slot. A ship component? That's one slot. A bit of loot that's one slot, some sort of survival power up, again that's one slot. Granted this is hard to explain, but you FAST run out of inventory room when you are trying to find all the raw components to make all the things required to advance. In fact most of your early hours will be spent inventory juggling to find room for the required crafting materials.
Now personally I haven't really played other games like Minecraft, Star bound or Terraria but don't they have fairly big inventory systems just to prevent such pointless busywork?
-Secondly your character is kinda sluggish. Oh you get a lot of freedom of movement thanks to a jetpack. But otherwise you are set a speed of 'mosey'. Oh you can sprint, but you've eaten a sausage roll too many and your stamina runs out really fast. Again this isn't the worst complaint in the book, but again it means that the pace early on feels like it's dragging a bit.
-What the hell is it with the measurement of distance? I mean give me a measurement please! Not this time to arrival nonsense that the game uses. By dog it gets confusing and it never really tells you the distance to something, and it's made worse in space when speeding up and slowing down, dramatically lengthen and shorten the timer.
[EDIT: I am wrong, there IS a measurement of distance between your ship and space objects (namely planets). However, once planet side that weird time to arrival system is all you have to go on.]
However overall don't me wrong, despite the slow start No Mans Sky is a great game. The scale is amazing, the graphics are vibrant an pretty, and there is a feeling that you always have new things to see and find. It also plays well (sluggish foot speed no withstanding) with a Wing Comander/Xwing type of space combat that is well done even if 6th degree of freedom combat was perfected by Elite Dangerous.
At times it can feel tense as health can deplete fast, death is punishing, and the requirement to find resources to patch up your ship and suit only add to that.
So do I recommend it? Well yes, provided that you go in with the right mind set that it's a survival/minecraft type game and not the ELITE clone that it looked like when it was first revealed.
Oh and did I forget that the sound track by 65 days of static is really dammed good....
[EDIT: Done two evenings with the game now and I've got to a third system, and I've got an upgraded tool, not to mention the ability to craft warp cores to fuel my warp drive. Honestly it's at this point where the game 'clicks' and becomes really enjoyable.
I'm putting No Mans Sky in to a category of games that I call 'Slow Burners', rare titles that have early sections that are dull, hard, tiresome or slow, but if you can get over the early hump they end up becoming really good games.
I'm not afraid to say that the first few hours (maybe up to 5 to 6) are a slog, a fight with a unfriendly inventory system, but once, and by that I mean once you get to your third system and can make fuel for your hyperdrive, the game opens up and becomes fun. You will have a few upgrades by then and the game becomes fun as some of the restrictions are removed.
In my view the inventory system is the games weakest point. It's too small, fills too quick and upgrades to your suit and ship sharing the slots. Having to constantly, almost from right away, manage your inventory, slows the game down a fair but as you have to constantly go through your shit and having to decide what is important or not.
Personally I would have decoupled ship systems upgrades and the xeno suit from the inventory. Then I would have given the player a stash of some kind that is accessible from only some locations. It's a small thing that a lot of other games have done because, and frankly, it's a good idea, more so when you get a game like this with a lot of crafting mechanics.
It's maybe just me but Hello games have done well with NMS, but in small places like that the team shows a little bit of game design inexperience when it comes to 'quality of life' aspects of gameplay.]
It's been a while since I blogged about anything game related, and I think when it comes to No Mans Sky taking about it in a format that isn't the 140 characters of twitter of the rapid fire multimedia of Facebook is actually for the best. A chance for me to stop debating with people and to actually explain what is and what my thoughts on No Mans Sky actually are.
First of all what type of game is No Mans Sky is no mans sky? Well what I can say is that it's NOT a game in the style of ELITE Dangerous, there is system to system travel, a big universe, and trading however unlike ED it's not the focus. In fact a majority of what you are doing in NMS is more on par with Minecraft, Terraria or Starbound with a bit of State of Decay, rust or Day Z into the mix.
Yep it's a resource gathering survival sim, swap the retro inspired environments and zombies for Aliens and space pirates and you have NMS.
It isn't what was advertised or what people where expecting, but it is such a nice take on such stuff that I am a bit passed caring TBH, and for the most part it pulls it off.
However do note that I said 'For the most part', there are things that do tick me off about No Mans sky. After all I hate having to gush praise, and for the most part I would rather moan about the few things that I do take issue with.
-Firstly that dammed inventory system.... IT FUCKING SUCKS... Yeah I get it, it's supposed to be a survival game. However early on things just aren't fun because of how little space you have between you and your ship. A resource (or an amount of a resource) takes up 1, inventory slot. A ship component? That's one slot. A bit of loot that's one slot, some sort of survival power up, again that's one slot. Granted this is hard to explain, but you FAST run out of inventory room when you are trying to find all the raw components to make all the things required to advance. In fact most of your early hours will be spent inventory juggling to find room for the required crafting materials.
Now personally I haven't really played other games like Minecraft, Star bound or Terraria but don't they have fairly big inventory systems just to prevent such pointless busywork?
-Secondly your character is kinda sluggish. Oh you get a lot of freedom of movement thanks to a jetpack. But otherwise you are set a speed of 'mosey'. Oh you can sprint, but you've eaten a sausage roll too many and your stamina runs out really fast. Again this isn't the worst complaint in the book, but again it means that the pace early on feels like it's dragging a bit.
-What the hell is it with the measurement of distance? I mean give me a measurement please! Not this time to arrival nonsense that the game uses. By dog it gets confusing and it never really tells you the distance to something, and it's made worse in space when speeding up and slowing down, dramatically lengthen and shorten the timer.
[EDIT: I am wrong, there IS a measurement of distance between your ship and space objects (namely planets). However, once planet side that weird time to arrival system is all you have to go on.]
However overall don't me wrong, despite the slow start No Mans Sky is a great game. The scale is amazing, the graphics are vibrant an pretty, and there is a feeling that you always have new things to see and find. It also plays well (sluggish foot speed no withstanding) with a Wing Comander/Xwing type of space combat that is well done even if 6th degree of freedom combat was perfected by Elite Dangerous.
At times it can feel tense as health can deplete fast, death is punishing, and the requirement to find resources to patch up your ship and suit only add to that.
So do I recommend it? Well yes, provided that you go in with the right mind set that it's a survival/minecraft type game and not the ELITE clone that it looked like when it was first revealed.
Oh and did I forget that the sound track by 65 days of static is really dammed good....
Click to view[EDIT: Done two evenings with the game now and I've got to a third system, and I've got an upgraded tool, not to mention the ability to craft warp cores to fuel my warp drive. Honestly it's at this point where the game 'clicks' and becomes really enjoyable.
I'm putting No Mans Sky in to a category of games that I call 'Slow Burners', rare titles that have early sections that are dull, hard, tiresome or slow, but if you can get over the early hump they end up becoming really good games.
I'm not afraid to say that the first few hours (maybe up to 5 to 6) are a slog, a fight with a unfriendly inventory system, but once, and by that I mean once you get to your third system and can make fuel for your hyperdrive, the game opens up and becomes fun. You will have a few upgrades by then and the game becomes fun as some of the restrictions are removed.
In my view the inventory system is the games weakest point. It's too small, fills too quick and upgrades to your suit and ship sharing the slots. Having to constantly, almost from right away, manage your inventory, slows the game down a fair but as you have to constantly go through your shit and having to decide what is important or not.
Personally I would have decoupled ship systems upgrades and the xeno suit from the inventory. Then I would have given the player a stash of some kind that is accessible from only some locations. It's a small thing that a lot of other games have done because, and frankly, it's a good idea, more so when you get a game like this with a lot of crafting mechanics.
It's maybe just me but Hello games have done well with NMS, but in small places like that the team shows a little bit of game design inexperience when it comes to 'quality of life' aspects of gameplay.]