No Man's Sky is widely considered to be a disappointment of epic proportions, but
in this video game court, it's Innocent Until Proven Guilty!
Court is now in session for a spacetacular episode of Innocent Until Proven Guilty!
We've reached the end of 2017 & the critics are busy putting together their lists of the
worst offenders to plague the console & PC market over the last 300+ days, so there's
no better time to finally bring one of last year's most notorious culprits to trial.
From the small British studio Hello Games, here's the notorious & despised...
No Man's Sky.
Released in August 2016 for the PC & PS4, No Man's Sky, for better or worse, is an
anomaly that's very hard to categorize.
To boil it down to a basic summary, No Man's Sky is a sci-fi themed space exploration simulator
that brings a whole new meaning to the term open world as it boasts an immense universe
comprised of over a trillion planets.
As such, it would literally be impossible to cover everything that No Man's Sky has
to offer, especially since the already gargantuan amount of content grew even larger recently
with the release of the Atlas Rises update, but I played it long enough to get a proper
feel & I can now answer the burning question...is this infamous Hello Game as bad as it's
made out to be & does the highly anticipated expansion correct all of the issues that led
to its aforementioned negative reputation?
Let's take a closer look to find out!
Much to my surprise, No Man's Sky begins with very little fanfare.
On the first of two separate recording sessions I conducted to replicate the pre & post-patch
experience, the company logo segued into a lengthy title screen and then immediately
dropped me onto a random planet with nary a listed objective in sight.
The environment & weather patterns vary from one planet to the next, and we're equipped
with an assortment of supplies to deal with the hazardous terrain, but the majority of
them need to be repaired to working order before we can get a grasp of our surroundings.
The first & most important step of the journey is to fix the scanner, which is accomplished
by collecting minerals.
The minerals are extracted from the plants, rocks & other structures via the use of weaponry
such as the mining laser.
Before the scanner is restored to a fully operational state, our unnamed, unseen avatar
has no way of knowing where to find the required elements until he's pretty much directly
on top of them, so the only option available for gathering the necessary materials is to
wander aimlessly across the nearly endless procedurally generated landscapes.
Fortunately, the essential tools for survival are fueled by Carbon, Iron & other common
substances, so it shouldn't take that long for the intergalactic traveler to be brought
back to optimal status & given free reign as to which task to pursue next.
We can remain on the starting planet & mine it for all its worth, visiting all of the
green dot indicated waypoints in the process, or we can branch out & live up to the aforementioned
title, requiring...you guessed it...mineral collecting to recharge the ship's navigation systems.
These precious elements are the pivotal key for making progress in No Man's Sky & I
spent countless hours grinding away on a joyless scavenger hunt as the minimal musical accompaniment
in the background exaggerated the tediousness.
I'll give Hello Games props for taking what I'm assuming would be the realistic route
in this hypothetical situation, but it didn't stop me from listening to podcasts in order
to stave off complete & utter boredom.
In spite of the audio department's insistence on lulling me to sleep, I prevailed in my
quest & was successful in blasting off into alien territory, but I hit a few road bumps
in the form of the many enemies & obstacles encountered along the way.
The wildlife roaming about the landscape will occasionally rear their ugly head...
The sentinelbots can be accidentally triggered to unleash waves of destruction & even the environment
itself can send the anonymous protagonist into an early grave if we don't sustain
the hazard protection & life support meters.
These vital gauges are located in the lower left hand corner of the screen & serve as
a ticking time bomb, requiring constant mineral feedings to avoid the disastrous consequences,
so our hero's fate lies in his or her ability to speedily fly & sprint through the vast
surroundings to gather the healing elements.
The run & flight mechanics can be utilized at the click of a button, but only for a short
duration before their respective bars bottom out, causing our nameless character to either
plummet to the ground, receiving damage if they dropped from a significant height, or
return to a regular panting walking pace.
Luckily, there are extra items that will permanently increase the stamina of both techniques & the
meters will automatically refill over time even when depleted, but it's still best
to practice restraint by not overusing these very helpful tools.
As we dive deeper into the endless depths of Hello Games' passion project, we'll
interact with a variety of alien creatures, some of them friendly, others...not so much.
I never was able to break the language barrier that existed between these species to the
extent that I was able to proceed for this review, but there was a noticeable improvement
upon learning new words that were found among the various statues & pillars that lined each
location & my standing with these E.T.s grew as I continued to barter with them, obtaining
necessary materials & pieces for the ship.
The spaceship, not surprisingly, is fueled by an element, Plutonium in this case, so
the distance that we can travel is limited by how much of that substance is available
on our person.
Not only that, but we can't gain full access to the infinite sea of space until the Hyperdrive
is activated, and that is...complicated.
The blueprint for the Hyperdrive is acquired from the alien at the initial offworld base,
but the device itself is brought online through the combination of the Dynamic Resonator & a
surplus of Heridium.
The former can be most easily attained by trading in any unwanted junk at the local
merchants, but the latter is amassed from specifically marked blue tinged mountainous
crags which are undetected by the scanner, so it may take quite a while to discover them.
Once this arduous chore is finished, all that's needed to enable galactic travel is to concoct
the Warp Cell power source.
The Warp Cell is crafted from a mixture of Antimatter & Thamium9, and luckily for us,
the first Antimatter sample is received as a gift from another alien friend & the Thamium
is common as dirt, so we'll be ready to blast off to the wild blue yonder in no time...
or so I thought.
As it turns out, a stock Hyperdrive isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Instead of the entire No Man's Sky-niverse opening up to my beck & call, only a tiny
fraction of the map became in bounds & to add insult to injury, I ran out of warp fuel
after finishing my first trip.
It was at this point when I threw in the towel on my pre-updated playthrough.
I had a very different picture in mind of the experience provided by No Man's Sky.
The Metacritic rating assured me that it wouldn't be anywhere near the caliber of Mass Effect
in regards to style & story, but I didn't expect to be bored to tears from the lack
of structure & a cohesive narrative, not to mention the endless aimless exploration that
crushed my soul into bits.
However, I wasn't done with Hello Games' trashed brainchild quite yet, as the Atlas
Rises update promised to deliver on the shortcomings that made my original recording session so dull.
The whopping seven gigabyte patch made me cautiously optimistic, but did the humongous
file size result in an equally impressive quality boost?
Yes and no.
Atlus Rises produces the virtual equivalent of a face lift to the primitive aesthetic
appearance at launch, with motion blur, depth of field, & upgraded texture effects implemented
for added polish.
There are fresh play modes which raise the variables to the extreme or remove all barriers
for free expression, as well as an interwoven plot that involves "learning the history
of the Atlas & the meaning of your existence."
All of the above & more give a strong impression that the team at Hello was firing on all cylinders
& was on a mission to prove the critics wrong, but they ultimately did very little to change
my pre-conceived notions.
The core gameplay is pretty much unaltered...we still have to farm for minerals, barter with
traders, & explore alien terrain, and the supposed story enhancements are nothing but
a quaint novelty.
As far as I'm concerned, Atlas Rises is a waste of hard drive space & it doesn't
save No Man's Sky from being a bland tedious mess, which is why I rule that the verdict
is Guilty!
The Hello crew certainly had lofty goals for their flagship property and I respect them
for developing one of the most unique titles I've ever played, but this completely failed
to connect with me.
I'm sure there is an audience out there that this type of gameplay is specifically
tailored to & I genuinely hope they adore it, but I don't see myself ever returning to it again.
It's just not worth the aggravation.
Anyway, now that I've condemned this oddity among the usual suspects in the IUPG court,
I've got another trial to prepare for, but before I go, I want to plug my buddy Miketendo's
show Dude, You Haven't Played This Game?!
He recently reviewed the amazing fan game, Mega Man Unlimited, & he asked me to make
a cameo since I inspired him to give it a try.
I'll put a link in the description and in the little circle icon in the upper right
corner of the screen, so be sure to check that out & return for the exciting final video
of 2017, but until then, court is now adjourned!
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