Let’s start this review with a disclaimer: this review is still in progress and I am still early into the game. I have only six hours logged in the game according to Steam. No Man’s Sky is a good game but there is no way to could have lived up to the hype generated around the game. No Man’s Sky was announced when there were no other games offering the same universe exploring game play the game promised. Since then other games have come out including Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous which have do some things promised by No Man’s Sky and sometimes even better.
At first, the game could have been more optimized for PC. Even with a decent computer the game suffers from frame rate. Hello Games has released a fix improving performance and may continue to release patches improving performance.
The game begins with the player standing next to a crashed ship and the tutorial is fixing the ship up to begin your travels across the universe. Often the tutorial was vague and the goal was unclear. I would have gotten off the planet sooner but I spent 20 minutes walking to a mineral I needed that I later realized was right next to my ship, but the scan detected ore 15 minutes away and could not detect the ore within eye shot.
The flying mechanics are fine, the only disappointment is that the ship will not fly closer to the ground but a mod fixed that. The flying in space and in atmosphere are not too different and the controls are relatively simple. Taking off can be a pain because every time my ship takes off it I lose 25% of the take off thruster fuel which is a pain to keep track off. Hopefully a better ship will fix that.
I set my goal in the game as becoming a space pirate. The space combat is pretty typical and the aim assist for targeting space ships is pretty handy. However, I can’t use my super boost when other ships are around which makes escape impossible sometimes and usually ends in death and that can be frustrating.
The market system is pretty simple. Going from one system to another the price of items can change. Two or three items usually sell for 100+ percent more and that is how I have most of my money. Grinding ores on planets that feel pretty cookie cutter has not been the most exciting game ever. The game feels too repetitive and slow paced. Often I get bored and leave the game without an urge to pick it back up.
Overall rating: 6/10
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