It's hard to review a game like No Man's Sky. On one hand, I can write about how it is a bad game from most standpoints, but on the other, I could write about it is one of the most awe-inspiring games I've experienced since the original Mass Effect. Every player who interacts with this game will have an experience unique to them. With that being said, No Man's Sky is a really bad game with some huge upsides that make it one of the most unique experiences in the medium.
As a game, No Man's Sky may be one of the most irritating experiences I've ever had. At it core, this game struggles to find its identity as either an exploration game or a survival game. It has too many invasive mechanics to be an exploration game like Proteus, but its survival mechanics aren't engaging in a way a game like Minecraft's are. It instead sits somewhere in the middle and this leads to the exploration aspects being horribly undercut by the survival mechanics. In survival games like the aforementioned Minecraft and similar games, things like hunger will pop up every once in a while to remind the player to fulfill the characters basic needs. In No Man's Sky, you will constantly be bombarded with alerts that you suit's environmental protection levels are low, that you need to recharge the life support systems, that you need to recharge the mining laser, and that is just outside of the ship. These constant alerts detract from the high points of exploration in such a way that almost turned me off of exploring altogether. Even worse is when you've gotten your fill of a planet and get in your ship only to find that it needs to be refilled. So now instead of exploring to find interesting creatures, you must now grind resources until you have enough to finally take off. This leads to my biggest criticism. Even though the procedural generation randomizes every planet, it also makes sure that each planet has enough resources so that you will never be stranded. This makes every planet feel homogenized because there is no danger. No danger of not being able to return from the planet (although I do completely understand why this is), no danger of finding an oppressive planet where the hostile environment will kill you long before you find any refuge other than escape, nothing of risk. In fact, the only real danger comes from seemingly random space pirate attacks. These aren't even dangerous because you can just make a quick corpse run back to where you died, and because they're bad pirates, they leave without taking anything meaning there is no danger even in death. In Minecraft, I can recall many situations where I died far away from my house and all of my stuff was at the bottom of a ravine. That game forced me to consider whether it was worth the effort to retrieve what I lost. No Man's Sky never even attempts to ask this question, meaning even if there was the danger of dying to anything other than pirates or the occasional T-Rex, it wouldn't matter. The flawed survival mechanics, undercutting the exploration aspects leaves this game in a position where it tries to be both but ends up instead being a shallow mixture that manages to not really capture the experience of either of those genres.
There is one smaller criticism that I would like to touch on because it leads to a major thematic shortcoming. No Man's Sky's massive universe fully intends to give the player a sense of loneliness and isolation. However, in every single star system, there is a major trading hub populated by a merchant from one of the three alien races and other ships. That would be okay because the planets themselves are so massive they should feel plenty isolating on their own, but quite frequently multiple ships will fly overhead. On top of this, each system also has at least one planet with an outpost that houses a merchant. This not only further homogenizes the game, but completely cuts the legs out from one of its only major themes. But unlike most major releases, No Man's Sky at least attempts to explore themes ludically so I do have to give it some credit. I actually have to give it a lot of credit. Despite being a bad game, No Man's Sky was a rather unique, and dare I say enjoyable, experience.
The next few paragraphs are me pretentiously detailing my personal experiences with this game. If you don't feel like reading through 1500 words of rambling nonsense feel free to skip ahead (ctrl+F NMS for a quick jump ahead)
Despite my criticisms, No Man's Sky does do some incredible things. For the first few hours, No Man's Sky appears to fulfill the promises open world games have been making for years, by not only giving you a fully explorable planet but 18 quintillion of them. All of the massive planets and moons are fully explorable, some teeming with plant and animal life and some barren expanses with nothing but thousands of equally empty lakes. My first planet, named Armbar, was a somewhat hostile mass of rock, located in what I named the Puroresu system. It's hundreds of natural arches and deep canyons meant careful traversal was necessary, while the constant acid rain meant I needed to hurry along on a journey that took me 20 minutes in real time. Along this journey to gather resources for ship repairs, I discovered a few small animals running around but nothing of too much interest. After I left Armbar, the planets of Arm Drag and Hip Toss delivered a similar experience. Then I landed on a planet that contained nothing but vast expanses of rock and empty oceans. Even though it was completely devoid of life, the planet Boma Ye was my first unique experience in No Man's Sky. After I had enough of the Puroresu system, it was time to move on. I finished the warp cell and pushed forward to a system, Kitty Cats, where I named the planets after previous pets of mine. The planets themselves weren't much different from what I found in Puroresu, but it was hard to leave the planet Nelson because naming it after my favorite pet brought back some good memories of an old friend. This is where No Man's Sky really gets hard to talk about. The experiences of each person playing are so unique. Nobody else will probably ever find this planet, and if so they will most likely leave soon after, but for me, it was a personal experience that I won't soon forget. Feeling a relatively strong emotional connection to a place I later discovered was a frozen rock with very little life, was an experience that I don't think I will have in another game anytime soon. But I had to move on.
The next system I found myself in was where one of my biggest disappointments in this game appeared. This system had already been discovered and partially explored. I rushed through this system to build a new warp drive and moved on. Along the marked Atlus path (one of the games few "story" paths) were multiple systems that had already been discovered. At this point I was giving up hope of finding anything worthwhile, so I just went off in a random direction to a new system I named Mass Effect. Much like the last few systems this one didn't contain anything interesting, but I did get to name an icy planet Noveria, so there's that. It wasn't until my FIFTH star system (so about 15 hours in) that I found anything worth mentioning, but in the "Also Mass Effect" system, I finally found just how great this game could have been.
Virmire, a gorgeous world consisting of large bodies of water interspersed with sizable patches of lush land, was where I made not only the best discoveries but also most of my enjoyment with No Man's Sky came from his one planet. As I exited my starship, the sky filled with dozens of dragon-like creatures from the Space Whale species (because I had to memorialize the best character from MGSV somehow). As I explored this idyllic world, I discovered another dragon-like flying creature, which I named "Other Space Whale". With the Space Whales and the Other Space Whales peacefully watching over me I decided to stay on this planet as long as possible, determined to attain 100% exploration of Virmire. Later, I discovered a pond filled with horrible nightmare creatures straight out of a Souls game. I could describe these horrifying things but, if you watched the video above, I don't need to. After about 3 hours on this planet, I decided it was time to see what else "Also Mass Effect" had in store, but Virmire had one final surprise waiting for me. As I returned to my ship, I came across a massive dinosaur-like creature which I named Gekko because it reminded me of the creatures from Metal Gear Solid 4. I befriended this creature, he found me some materials, and I stayed a little while longer, but I needed to see what else was waiting for me in this system.
The second planet in Also Mass Effect was a terrifying hellscape filled with creatures out of my worst nightmares. Within seconds of landing on Khar'shan, I laid eyes on what looked like a sack of potatoes hopping around. As I observed these different variations of potato sacks, I noticed a massive blue blob over a nearby hill. What I found was something that could only be described as a horribly disfigured hamburger helper glove. At this point in the game I was so done with the base mechanics I started messing around and said to myself, "Fuck it, let's see what happens if I shoot this thing". The sheer speed and ferocity with which this giant nightmare attacked sent me into a panic that tops even the most terrifying horror games. After running away in a panic, I took my ship to the other side of the planet and found a ton of miniature versions of the aforementioned creature, but not much else. I left to explore the third and final planet of Also Mass Effect, but when I arrived I found yet another barren wasteland. After exploring this planet for a few minutes I hopped in my ship and headed back to Virmire and came to a crossroad. I could either just explore this planet for a little while longer then ship the game back to Gamefly, or move on and see what else the universe had in store for me. It was a tough choice, but I had to move on. I warped to one last system aptly named, "Last System".
This choice proved wrong immediately as the first planet in my next system was yet another empty mass of rock. The next planet named "Wings", because almost every creature I initially saw had wings, provided me with my last bit of enjoyment with No Man's Sky. I discovered an actual T-Rex that I named "Actual T-Rex" and went to check if it was hostile. Of course it was, as I found out the hard way, but I stayed and observed this creature for a few minutes. In one of the best emergent moments of the year, the T-Rex soon became aware of a much smaller creature, chased it down and made quick work of its prey. After running across a different T-Rex but with reindeer antlers, I hastily left this hostile planet. Much to my dismay, but not my surprise, the next two planets were the same vast expanse of nothingness that so many worlds along my journey had been. This was my last experience with the game, as I mailed it back shortly after landing on the final planet in this system.
(NMS)
If you've somehow made it this far (or skipped ahead), I'll leave you with this. No Man's Sky can simply be summed up as such; out of the dozens of planets I discovered, 3 contained anything worthwhile. It took FOUR system jumps, or the equivalent to around 10-15 hours of gameplay, just to find anything interesting. Granted some of that stuff was downright amazing, but messing with the god awful mechanics of this game took so much away from what this game could have been. Even though I would call No Man's Sky a bad game, I'm not disappointed with it. I am excited. I am excited by the possibilities that No Man's Sky presents. Imagine a mass effect game that gives you a handful of fully explorable star systems densely packed with the things that make the Mass Effect universe so special. No Man's Sky may have missed the mark for what it was trying to achieve, but I believe it opened up a galaxy of possibilities that I would absolutely love to other games take and run with.
No Man's Sky is a game with many good ideas, but many, many bad ones. Not every person who plays this game will have the same experience I did, and the fact that it took me 15 hours to have that experience may mean many players bounce off before finding anything interesting. That being said, I feel it is a game worth at least a rental. The high points of this game may be marred by the flawed mechanics, but there is still some cool stuff to be found. If by chance anyone reading this stumbles into the "Also Mass Effect" star system, head over to Virmire and enjoy one of the most majestic game worlds ever procedurally generated. Thanks for reading.
Likes: Massive Scale is truly overwhelming, game has some amazing emergent moments,
Dislikes: lacks danger that makes survival games work, the entire game loop feels like busy work and it detracts from the good parts of the game, game fails at evoking the emotions it's going for,