(I assume you already know what No Mans’s Sky is about)
No Man's Sky had one of the most disastrous launches in gaming history. It failed to achieve almost everything it promised. The developers did one thing right – they made the game they promised, and after 7 years at the time of this review, it has a lot of content that I will mostly gloss over in this review. However, this does not make the game automatically better – indeed, its massive number of things to do is its biggest downside. I would recommend it if you want a simple space exploration game where you can do most things without needing to go in depth learning about it.
Story
The main goal and what the story revolves around is getting to the centre of the universe. Honestly, I have barely any memory of what the story was about. Its main problem I believe was that there is no incentive to actually do it. You have a hundred other activities to do, most of which feel more rewarding than advancing the main quest line, and the fact that I can’t remember a single character tells you enough about the quality of the writing.
Mechanics and gameplay
I won’t be able to go into detail about everything there is to do in No Man’s Sky, so I will briefly go over them. You can explore a vast universe filled with planets, each of which has different fauna, creatures, landscape and weather. Don’t expect any realism from this game. If you find a planet you like, you can set up a base there. From there you can start producing various materials to us for crafting or selling. With the money you get you can buy new spaceships, tools, upgrades and more. You can also buy a fleet that you can send to expeditions or as a movable base. Bases can be used to recruit various NPCs that barely do anything. Also, you can dogfight, set up a town, explore abandoned outposts. Don’t get me started on the multiplayer. The non-cohesive list I described above paint a picture of limitless entertainment, or if you are more experienced, a very shallow game. Take for instance mining for resources to sell. If you simply spend a few hours you can get to the most exotic planets, and after setting up a few extractors there you’ve pretty much trivialized money. Every 12 hours, you can log on and get an absorbent amount of currency. Even thought I spend more than 30 hour in-game, I felt like I only did meaningless tasks to pass the time. However, if you just want to unwind after a day at work, then No Man’s Sky is a good choice. You can rotate between the above-described activities and have a new adventure waiting every day.
Graphics and artstyle
Graphics are alright. Due to the constantly shifting landscape, it can’t really build a specific colour palette, but it uses mostly bright colours. This helps with give an alien feel to the aliens. Since randomness determines the design of mostly everything, the game flips between ugly and beautiful.
Atmosphere
Due to the shallow nature of the activities, you never get invested enough for No Mans Sky to build an effective atmosphere.
Soundtrack and sound effects
Sound effects are alright. Nothing made an impression on me. The same goes for the soundtrack, although it is 6 hour long.
Final Thoughts
7 trillion planets that look the same.
No Man's Sky had one of the most disastrous launches in gaming history. It failed to achieve almost everything it promised. The developers did one thing right – they made the game they promised, and after 7 years at the time of this review, it has a lot of content that I will mostly gloss over in this review. However, this does not make the game automatically better – indeed, its massive number of things to do is its biggest downside. I would recommend it if you want a simple space exploration game where you can do most things without needing to go in depth learning about it.
Story
The main goal and what the story revolves around is getting to the centre of the universe. Honestly, I have barely any memory of what the story was about. Its main problem I believe was that there is no incentive to actually do it. You have a hundred other activities to do, most of which feel more rewarding than advancing the main quest line, and the fact that I can’t remember a single character tells you enough about the quality of the writing.
Mechanics and gameplay
I won’t be able to go into detail about everything there is to do in No Man’s Sky, so I will briefly go over them. You can explore a vast universe filled with planets, each of which has different fauna, creatures, landscape and weather. Don’t expect any realism from this game. If you find a planet you like, you can set up a base there. From there you can start producing various materials to us for crafting or selling. With the money you get you can buy new spaceships, tools, upgrades and more. You can also buy a fleet that you can send to expeditions or as a movable base. Bases can be used to recruit various NPCs that barely do anything. Also, you can dogfight, set up a town, explore abandoned outposts. Don’t get me started on the multiplayer. The non-cohesive list I described above paint a picture of limitless entertainment, or if you are more experienced, a very shallow game. Take for instance mining for resources to sell. If you simply spend a few hours you can get to the most exotic planets, and after setting up a few extractors there you’ve pretty much trivialized money. Every 12 hours, you can log on and get an absorbent amount of currency. Even thought I spend more than 30 hour in-game, I felt like I only did meaningless tasks to pass the time. However, if you just want to unwind after a day at work, then No Man’s Sky is a good choice. You can rotate between the above-described activities and have a new adventure waiting every day.
Graphics and artstyle
Graphics are alright. Due to the constantly shifting landscape, it can’t really build a specific colour palette, but it uses mostly bright colours. This helps with give an alien feel to the aliens. Since randomness determines the design of mostly everything, the game flips between ugly and beautiful.
Atmosphere
Due to the shallow nature of the activities, you never get invested enough for No Mans Sky to build an effective atmosphere.
Soundtrack and sound effects
Sound effects are alright. Nothing made an impression on me. The same goes for the soundtrack, although it is 6 hour long.
Final Thoughts
7 trillion planets that look the same.