I held out on buying this game because of the scandal surrounding its release, but after a critic whose opinion I really respect admitted that the updates have made it worth playing, I finally decided to give it a try.
I awoke on an alien planet with enough radiation to fry me inside my space suit. After about an hour of scouring the landscape for resources to repair my ship, I finally blasted off and took to the stars! Almost immediately I discovered an ocean planet and decided to land and explore it.
The moment I landed, I was told my ship doesn't have enough fuel to take off again. Okay, fine, I'll just scavenge the materials I need to make more. Except, my scanner says there aren't any of those materials nearby. That's all right. This planet is literally planet sized. If I explore, eventually I'll find--oh, I died. Now I have to go find my corpse to get all my gear and resources back so that I can...I'm dead again, and my first corpse with all my gear is gone. Now I'm marooned on a water planet with no fuel to leave, no machine to create the fuel even if I found the resources, and no oxygen to recharge my life support, so I can only explore about fifty feet away from my ship before suffocating. Add to that, my scanner decided to break down and I don't have the materials to fix it, which means that even if I happen across the resources I need to make fuel, I won't know it.
Is this supposed to be fun? I didn't buy a game whose main draw was exploring space to be stuck on a single planet!
No Man's Sky (PS4)
- BlasteroidAli
- Posts: 1591
- Joined: April 9th, 2015, 7:50 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
I bought this game a couple of years back, expecting Star Trek. What I got was an update of Rare's Jet Pack. Although it is 2d and set on one screen it essentially has all the elements of NMS. Fly to a planet, repair the ship, get raw materials, blast off and do it again.
Your summation of the game is right. I could not get off the first planet and in the end, binned the game. It is sitting in my pile of games to play. I am disappointed to learn that it has not gotten any better.
I see the critic has not reviewed it. Perhaps it is time you gave him a new review of it.
Your summation of the game is right. I could not get off the first planet and in the end, binned the game. It is sitting in my pile of games to play. I am disappointed to learn that it has not gotten any better.
I see the critic has not reviewed it. Perhaps it is time you gave him a new review of it.
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- Posts: 1419
- Joined: November 25th, 2015, 6:11 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
I was super hyped about this game for months before it's released. I mean how cool does that premise sound? Once I played it I was like what the heck, work and no play. One of the biggest disappointments in games I have experienced.
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- Posts: 1997
- Joined: April 9th, 2015, 1:41 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
Same here. It sucked me in with its promise of a life sized galaxy to explore and discover. Luckily, it occured to me a little before release that just because a game world is big doesn't mean that there's anything worth doing in it. To quote Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation, the purpose of exploration is to find something. It doesn't matter if you have fifteen quintillion planets if exploring one of them feels like exploring every single other one.
- C64_Critic
- Posts: 440
- Joined: April 11th, 2015, 11:51 am
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
I've played this on the PC, and for a while I actually rather enjoyed it (*checking Steam - it looks like I've clocked 113 hours in total). I didn't encounter the issue you did, in fact I think I've only died a couple of times if even that and had a good time jumping from planet to planet, discovering and collecting new resources, discovering new species of critters, seeing new planets and their various topographies and environments, etc.
I did finally stop playing when they came out with some kind of update or I got to a point in the game where you basically had to encounter and deal with other players. I was enjoying exploring space on my own and dealing with the NPC characters and races, but once other real humans entered the mix my enjoyment plummeted and I simply moved on to other games. Also, it started to feel like a pure grind with no real 'end game' to shoot for.
I did finally stop playing when they came out with some kind of update or I got to a point in the game where you basically had to encounter and deal with other players. I was enjoying exploring space on my own and dealing with the NPC characters and races, but once other real humans entered the mix my enjoyment plummeted and I simply moved on to other games. Also, it started to feel like a pure grind with no real 'end game' to shoot for.
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- Posts: 1555
- Joined: April 14th, 2015, 8:08 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
I have an odd desire to give this a shot. I do like the whole “comeback” storyline, how it went from utter disaster to a respectable game.
Or maybe I just need to jump into Skyrim again….
Or maybe I just need to jump into Skyrim again….
- BlasteroidAli
- Posts: 1591
- Joined: April 9th, 2015, 7:50 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
Voor wrote:I have an odd desire to give this a shot. I do like the whole “comeback” storyline, how it went from utter disaster to a respectable game.
Or maybe I just need to jump into Skyrim again….
I
I watched the trailer which allows you a great deal of freedom. All the things you hated about it Voor can be changed in the menu. I think it is time to give it another shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMR3sCqAlSo
- noah98
- Posts: 511
- Joined: June 27th, 2015, 6:59 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
I'm thinking about giving this game a try as well.
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- Posts: 1997
- Joined: April 9th, 2015, 1:41 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
If you do, get it on the new gen consoles. I downloaded it on my Xbox One from Game Pass to give it another try, and it ran like crap. Single digit frame rate, stuttering, glitches everywhere. Apparently the last update ended up making the game file so big that last gen consoles (you know, the consoles they were made for) can't handle them anymore. I haven't tried it, but apparently it still works well on PS5 and the new Xbox.
- VideoGameCritic
- Site Admin
- Posts: 18102
- Joined: April 1st, 2015, 7:23 pm
Re: No Man's Sky (PS4)
I noticed this is also available for the Switch now. I was kind of surprised because I considered this a "cutting edge" game, but then it dawned on me this is about five years old!