Taking to the Sky

I've decided to give Geralt (and myself--all that clicking is making my wrist sore) a rest for awhile and started a new adventure.  Honestly, I'm still not completely sure that I made a great choice on this or not, but what's done is done--that's right, I'm playing the highly controversial No Man's Sky.  It was recently featured in the "midweek madness" sale on Steam for 50% off and sat atop the top sellers chart throughout the sale.  There seems to be a new wave of excitement about the added multiplayer functionality in the recent "Next" update--now, it's possible to explore the stars with friends!

No Man's Sky is probably best known for being one of the most notorious cases of overhype.  It was a game that featured so many amazing sounding features and it was marketed as being groundbreaking.  As it turned out, many of the features that were lauded pre-launch were missing, and people were understandably very upset.  The result was that the game got lambasted by reviewers on Steam and in professional reviews (the Steam reviews still fall in the "mostly negative" range due to the high volume of extremely negative reviews when NMS was originally released in 2016).  Personally, I had been keeping an eye on NMS but didn't fall for the hype train and could feel some sense of satisfaction that I hadn't laid down $60 on an impulsive pre-order.

Fast forward to two years later and things seem to finally be turning around for NMS.  It seems like Hello Games is serious about adding content and making efforts toward making NMS into the game that was being pitched in their original marketing campaigns.  There have been updates to add in features like base building, freighter management, and now, multiplayer.  With the most recent update, the Steam reviews have been erring toward the "very positive" rather than the "very negative" from the early days.  With this in mind, I decided that I would give one of the most hated games out there a try.

At the core of NMS is the idea of exploring a vast universe--travelling from galaxy to galaxy and mapping uncharted planets.  I've somewhat been doing that, but there's also a sort of space mystery story tucked away in there too.  When you start a new game, you find yourself plopped down on a random planet.  My random planet happened to be dangerously freezing and as I ran around trying to complete the tutorial and learn the basics of surviving in space, I got to experience my first death...from freezing.  Ugh...fortunately, when you die you can return to the place of your death and recover your lost inventory.  The tutorial is very basic and runs you through how to access the various menus and inventories and control schemes.  The opening set of missions help you craft items that are vital to your survival such as a scanner to analyze flora and fauna and help you locate points of interest on the surface of a planet.  Eventually you get to the point where you find the remains of your wrecked ship and set out to repair it.  Once the repairs have been made, it's off to space!  Piloting your ship takes a bit of getting used to, but it's fairly easy once you figure it out.

Once you've taken to space, the main storyline encourages you to find a suitable place to build your home base.  I decided to explore my home system and eventually found a paradise type planet--it has a temperate climate--so no dying to extreme exposure, like on the ice planet--and certain lifeforms produce a type of giant pearl that is a valuable trade commodity.  I landed my ship in a reasonably flat area and set down the groundwork for my base, which is literally a one-room hut with various machinery scattered about.  It's very unimpressive, but it offers shelter from the periodic superheated rain that occasionally falls.

Nighttime at Solan Base--featuring my one-room hut.

After my base was established, the game encouraged me to go back to space and locate a space station where I could trade and interact with some of the aliens who occupy my home system.  Each system is home to a different race of aliens--my home system is populated by the strange, lizard/bird hybrid Gek.  One interesting part of interacting with aliens is that you do not know their language.  There's no handy-dandy autotranslate, so some aliens absolutely can't or won't communicate with you, and others are able to convey their meaning...somehow.  One of the important exploration tasks is finding knowledge stones scattered around various planets and gradually learning words of alien language.  Some of the words you learn are highly useful...others, not so much--I learned the word "syrup," and I'm not really sure the context in which I would ever have to use that specific word.  Thus far, after learning about 50 words of Gek, I've seen at most two or three words actually translated in a sentence.

Probably the most exciting part of NMS is the exploration aspect.  The entire idea of searching the galaxy for new forms of life is kind of cool.  Part of the challenge is cataloguing your new discoveries of plants, minerals, and animals.  The animals that I've found so far range from the bizarre--a weird praying mantis/crab hybrid thing--to the oddly Deathclaw-like thing that I found on one of my paradise worlds.

At first glance, I thought it was a green Deathclaw.

There are numerous tasks that can occupy your time in NMS.  There's an entire storyline that you can pursue--something about a mysterious signal left by an even more mysterious figure--or you could simply focus on gathering materials and building an ultra-base or on the massive exploration-based task.  I will admit to clearly neglecting my base (look at my hut--it's pretty sad), doing a small amount of exploring, and also trying to follow the main storyline.

I've had some interesting things happen in my game--probably the most interesting thing had been my acquisition of a freighter.  As I flew into my home system I was prompted to help fight off some pirates that were attacking a freighter.  I decided to help, shot down the pirates, and then was directed to board the freighter to speak to the grateful captain.  It turned out that the the captain was so grateful that he decided to simply hand over the ship.  Me, space explorer and owner of the impressive one-room hut now owned a huge, capital ship and frigate!  The awesome thing about freighters is that you can send their auxiliary frigates our on different missions.  During these time-based missions your frigate will complete tasks that could gain you credits or gather various commodities or items.  All you have to do is send them out on a mission while you explore and then gather the fruits of their labor once they've completed their expedition.  The downside is that not every expedition is successful and your frigate will often get damaged and require repairs.  Repairs require gathering certain materials to fix damaged components and are another task that will suck up time.

My initial impression of NMS has been mostly positive.  I don't think it's the type of game that every gamer is going to enjoy--it's not action-packed or full of competition--but I think it is a game that people who enjoy sci-fi or the whole concept of exploration will like.  Getting accustomed to the early game can be a bit overwhelming--there's a lot to learn and not a lot that is explained--and I will admit that in the first two hours I did give some thought to refunding.  Once I found a niche, figured out some of the mechanics, and got myself established things got more interesting and I was able to pick a focus from the seemingly overwhelming buffet of choices.

For now I plan on continuing to explore the universe.  I'm not prepared to fully recommend the game yet, but I don't think it's as abysmal as many people have made it sound.