No Man's Sky

I was going to leave it at No Man's Diary, but after a couple of weeks with this, I feel like I've digested it enough to talk about in a more review-y kind of way. No Man's Sky is too big, too different, too weird for any initial gut reaction to be properly accurate.

It struggled to live up to the hype - but then, how could it not? Pitched as the biggest, most ambitious game you've ever heard of, never mind played, No Man's Sky is a functionally infinite universe of planets to explore, mine, trade, and fight among. Gameplay is relatively simple - it's essentially resource and inventory management, with simple combat layered on top - but the "I'll just go over here and..." factor means there's always something on the horizon: an alien outpost, an ancient monolith, another upgrade you're just a few more minerals short of...

At first, it would be easy to become overwhelmed, especially if you start on a hazardous planet, meaning you immediately need to work out how to take shelter from a passive, omnipresent threat. Basic resources are easy to come by, though, and it didn't take long to be able to identify Plutonium from a significant distance, or learn which plants I could harvest for other minerals.

On that subject: it's a design decision I understand, but realising that the plants that provide zinc, Thamium-9, and other resources all look the same regardless of what planet you're on was an early disappointment. It quickly becomes helpful - not having to re-investigate every flower when you're short on Platinum for an upgrade, for example, helps speed up the process - but it also removes some variety from the universe. I can't help but wonder if these, too, could have been procedurally-generated, their uses indicated by their already-vibrant colours.

For all the enormity of its universe, No Man's Sky never quite captures the promised "frontier" feeling, especially after you get your first ship spaceworthy - points of interest are a little too densely-clustered to ever really feel like you're truly alone, and having already-established outposts on every world means I often feel like a colonial interloper coming to stake my claim, rather than an explorer truly discovering the place.

I was also frustrated that every outpost and space station seemed to share a model; regardless of whether the system is populated by Korvax, Gek, or Vy'keen, the architecture is identical. I'd have loved it if the races had their own palette of buildings and doodads, so you could tell from the air who was waiting on the ground.  It robs these pockets of civilization of personality when the only variation is the lone lifeform sitting behind the desk, waiting for the player to interact with them (or, more often, ignore them in favour of the Galactic Trade Terminal on the wall).

So yeah, I have reservations, frustrations, and disappointments. I've also stood on vibrant, flourishing moons, staring into the sky at dead worlds above me; I've befriended towering, terrifying-looking vegeterian insect-creatures, battled animals and Sentinels and starships.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

It works best at a slower pace - an hour or two a day, rather than marathon weekend-long binge sessions - but if you can stand that more chilled-out approach (and the occasional bout of frustration if you're looking for a specific, elusive resource), No Man's Sky could very well last you for the rest of your life.