No Man's Sky
Released in August of 2016, after creating massive hype in the gaming community - Hello Games created one of the most controversial game titles of the year. No Man's Sky. After eagerly awaiting the release of what fans thought was going to be a massive online gaming experience set in a wonderful futuristic setting with loads of great sci-fi elements, fans felt lied to, cheated, and disappointed.
At it's core - No Man's Sky is a basic but atmospheric space exploration game where the player travels from planet to planet set in a procedurally generated world; mining materials to create new forms of self-defence against robotic sentinels, upgrading the ship, and excavation tools. With multiple different species to encounter, each with their own lore and language to learn, and a very basic story line of either reaching the centre of the universe - or following the strange Atlas.
Unfortunately for the game - despite the massive hype it really didn't sail well. With some sites even offering full refunds on the PC version because of the mass disappointment. The main issue, however, is that a lot of the stuff fans feel like they were lied to about - they were never promised. The Developers were notorious at just not answering questions or letting any real information out about it while it was in development. Fans decided that it was going to be an amazing role playing game, then felt lied to when it wasn't. But still, Hello Games is still under investigation for false marketing, after it's trailers displayed massive space fight scenes that weren't in the main game - along with other material such as massively diverse worlds.
With all that aside, No Man's Sky is still a game where you can just zone out and spend hours playing it. It's a game that has a great and calming atmosphere, and nice open-world gameplay that's perfect for just a bit of relaxation. A game for when you don't really want to put massive amounts of effort in - but still want a bit of escapism.
The graphics are brilliant in No Man's Sky and the worlds really come to life, with the Water based planets seeming almost life like. The option to name planets you discover is great, but let down somewhat by the fact that there's practically no chance of any other player getting to see the planet you named. The open world is nice, but nothing more. It really convey's the sense of loneliness in such an expansive world that it was trying to. And does a great job of giving you the motive to explore this world. Whether you're the kind of player that decides to go on a massive quest to find as many valuable objects to trade, or the kind of player that goes in search of knowledge, trying to get on good terms with all species and learn their languages. There's a lot to offer every kind of player, even those who aren't too fond of open worlds.
When you scratch the surface of the game however, there really isn't anything to do. Yes it's fun for a while, and like said; nice to zone out to. But ultimately you don't actually do anything in the game. The more minerals you excavate, the more upgrades you can build - yes. But the upgrades don't do anything. You can upgrade your warp, but you only really need to do that once and your fine. You can upgrade your suit - but that takes up precious inventory that you need to hold the minerals. You can walk around and take in the lush scenery... but that novelty wears off quite quickly. It's a game that offers no sense of purpose, and no reward for it's gameplay. Even getting a new ship becomes more annoying than fun as you can't transfer any fuel that you spend precious credits on creating; with the better ships costing ridiculous amounts in the millions.
The actual space exploration of the game is just a nuisance, with the ship constantly at a slow speed that you're better off simply leaving the atmosphere just to drop yourself a tiny bit further on the planets surface because otherwise the journey from A to B would take 2 hours. The space battles, when they do happen, are nothing but a bother as the controllers don't permit keeping an eye on your target long enough to hit them - and if you don't get a lock on mining beam you'll basically have no chance of actually beating a space pirate. The enemies of the game are dull and just provide frustration, with each sentinel looking basically the same and not really offering any actual form of threat - especially when you upgrade to what's basically a shotgun. Still, one nice feature with the enemies is the gravitron orbs. Rare and valuable items that, whenever a player picks one up, triggers a dangerous enemy that resembles some sort of robotic lionesque thing; hunting the player down with a dangerously powerful laser beam. Of course, this aspect of No Man's Sky is also let down. It's very easy to just pick the gravitron orb up, jet back to your ship, and get in. Sentinels apparently can't tell that you've just climbed into your ship, and will instantly leave you alone.
Now I haven't played the game since it's release in august after spending a solid week on it. So I can't say whether or not the updates have changed any of this - or possibly manage to salvage the wreck that is No Man's Sky. But even if they are and they did - games shouldn't be released if they're not finished. I'd rather wait the extra amount of time and get an actual finished product, than get it early and have to wait for updates for it to be worth playing - something that most game developers these days need to realise.
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