No Man's Sky Review

Ok here we go.

I bought this game because I was bored and 2 friends had recommended it. I followed none of the rumours or hype beforehand so I only expected what I'd seen on a livestream I watched AFTER the game was released. Based on the recommendation and the gameplay I'd seen it, it seemed like something I'd enjoy. Plus most of the negative steam reviews were only complaining about performance.

After playing a bit and having time to reflect, here are my thoughts.

Let me just talk about the graphics briefly. The game looks pretty good and my performance has been pretty good. Everything maxed out was running around the mid 40s, and I'm running a rig that cost less than $500 in total. The issue as with many people was the hitching I had all the time. But as of a small patch this is gone. I can't speak for how it will run for you.

The game is inherently bad. If you went into it blind you'd say it was a pretty decent chilled out exploration/survival game. I don't think I'd class this as a survival game and I think people complaining about survival meters are being a bit petty. You can pay zero attention to gathering resources for your equipment and you will almost always have enough by default. If not, just break down a single plant or crystal and that'll do you. No complaints there.

From what I understand there were meant to be a few distinct playstyles for this game, and while the game doesn't necessarily support you in them, they still mostly exist. If you want to explore and catalog everything then you can, if you want to make some serious bank then go ahead, if you want to gun it for the ending then all power to you. Being more combat focused isn't really viable though.

If you absolutely can't stand the resource gathering then this game is just not for you. Whatever way you want to play it, you'll be doing quite a bit even if it's just to warp to another system. Personally I knew this was a massive chunk of the gameplay and was totally fine with that because I find it therapeutic. As for the execution of this element, it's average. The chunks of mineral flying towards you is very satisfying and there is *some* skill in keeping your tool from overheating. However it is dragged down by the inventory management and UI, which is a running theme we'll get back to.

Turning towards the exploration elements, I found them pretty engaging and well executed. Though the procedural generation has it's limits, it's not hard to find interesting planets. Yes I'll get bored eventually, but there's still wonderment in experiencing these worlds. The plant and animal life can be boring and repetitive but it can also be beautiful and sometimes funny. I'm sure I'll keep coming back to this game for an hour at a time just to wander around and relax. The actual bases and things on the planets are a bit overabundant in my opinion. Less really can be more and I think that goes for all the life in the game. By adding gameplay they've removed interest. Finding more 'barren' planets makes the inhabited one more special. And how about a system with no life at all? You'll never see one but that would be great. The fact that you see the same bases over and over just makes them a box to tick and not a adventure to be had. The ruins were more interesting but still lacking.

Unlike many others I wasn't that disappointed by the alien interactions. People want to know why they don't move around or why there aren't more of them. But what would that actually add? I'm not defending the game for being lazy (which it clearly is), but I wouldn't get too annoyed about that when there are much bigger issues. Learning more of the languages makes these encounters more meaningful as you're not just guessing what they want from you. I thought the species were pretty cool looking, but without lore there's no reason to care about them. They may as well be one of the automated terminals you can use. Speaking of which, this was the main goal I set myself. To become a wealthy trader and buy a massive ship. The game lets you do this and honestly the trading is one of the more developed parts of the game.

Now I haven't even talked about flying around or space combat yet. That's because it's a bit toss. Now the feel of flying to planets and landing and your different speeds is great. The first time you leave the planet and go to another is a great experience, it has real weight to it. This may not be the case if you try to play with a keyboard and mouse, god help you. Totalbiscuit said it best when he said the controls were merely a suggestion. It wasn't so bad on the planet but once in your ship you better be plugging in your Xbox controller if you want to actually play the game.

Moving onto combat, don't. Don't anger any sentinels and run away from pirate ships if you can. The combat on land comes down to taking shield damage and recharging your multitool. No challenge and just an annoyance. In space you can couple the poor controls with this resource expenditure. Once again, it's adding gameplay for gameplay's sake and it detracts from the experience. And never shoot one of the pointless cargo ships in space, what were they thinking leaving these in.

There are so many things in this game that feel leftover from a better game that wasn't made (which I am informed is exactly what happened). I won't judge the game on what it was promised to be, but my god they make it hard not to.

Finally I'll talk about what really lets this game down, and that's the UI and inventory overall design choices. Limiting your inventory is fine in most games, and works different depending on the game. What I will compare No Man's Sky's inventory to is the game the game I feel it is overall most similar to, and strangely enough that is Minecraft. I'm not sure, but I think NMS starts you with 13 suit inventory and 15 ship inventory. This is upgradable by getting a new ship or exosuit upgrades. Personally I found quite a few suit upgrades pretty fast, but you won't be getting much more ship storage for anything short of a million units. Minecraft gives you 36 inventory spaces. So looking at this you might think that's not too bad, 28 vs 36 is pretty close. But here's where it goes wrong. Upgrades to your suit and ship, (which I completely forgot existed until just now) as well as vital components, take up inventory slots. This takes away 9 of your inventory slots PERMANENTLY, so you have 19. Seems a lot right? Wrong. You'll be constantly pestered 'No free slots in suit inventory' (by a voice you can't change the volume of) and there's some weird stuff going on with what systems treat the 2 inventories as separate and what don't. This game should have had a weight limit for an inventory size (or none at all) and a list of stuff you had. Oh and a separate menu for crafting so you don't need a free inventory slot to craft something. Oh and while you're at it get rid of the god damn holding the button to select stuff. The game looks like it's designed with a mouse in mind but it's actually worse with one because you have to switch tabs so much. Don't even get me started on the warp menu, I'm pretty sure I could have coded a better system in BASIC on an 80s home computer with my barely existent coding knowledge. There is absolutely no excuse for the piss poor UI in this game, say what you will about missing features and awful gameplay. Whatever. That's all opinion and hype culture. This UI is unforgivable and I don't know how any fan, no matter how diehard, could defend it.

But that's not even why I have given it a thumbs down. I could get past the ghostly remains of missing features and the godawful UI and still enjoy this game for what it is now. Heck I'll probably play it quite a bit over time. But Steam poses the question 'Do you recommend this game?'. And today as everything stands no I do not. This is a $15 indie game. That is what it should have always been. I don't know what the fuck Sean Murray thinks he was doing showing all those features and I don't think we'll ever know how big this game would have been with another year or 2 in development. But that would be a different game. For the gameplay present and the execution of its features, this is nothing more that a £15 good value indie game. Even if it was £30 I'd be more forgiving, at a stretch it could be worth that much maybe. If they fixed up everything and revamped the UI this COULD be a £30 game AT BEST. This game is not worth £40 and it never will be. I can't recommend anyone buy the game in its current state at its current price.

It's not a bad game but it's not worth the money. Give it a few months to be (hopefully) patched a bit and put heavily on sale. Then I'm sure you'll enjoy it.