I'm nearly ten hours into the game. I've been playing almost nonstop, but not as crazy as those twenty-four hour runners. I started off on a random planet, as the game does, it spawns you on a proceedirally-generated world, and sometimes this holds up, and sometimes, it doesn't. Sometimes, the world doesn't fully-form, but even if it doesn't, there are little modules around the world, and say your ship gets stuck in a precarious position,of you walk around enough, you will find one,mand can transport the ship there, no matter the damage. I've saved myself a great deal of heartache by just finding a homing beacon, and transporting my ship to me. I want to get a better ship, but most ships are beyond the pay rate I've accumulate in the game thus-far, but that's part of the experience.
Anyhow, you get a randomly-generated ship at the beginning, but it is rather easy to upgrade the shop. You have to fix this ship to escape the first planet, and my luck! I get a very desolate winters planet, like Hoth, and it is fun to then name the planet. You can then travel freely throughout the galaxy. I've already FTL traveled four times, and discovered several galaxies. The point of the game is to get to the center of the galaxy, or the galaxy core. You can also travel the far edges of the galaxy, and this is doable with FTL, or if you're absolutely insane, pulse traveling. If you don't use FTL, you can get to the center in 16 years! Yes, 16 years in real time. This is the biggest game ever made, and gives no excuse to "fitting a game on disc."
So from the first planet, which I believe I named Hades, and he's you can name planets...stones, animals, and just about anything that is in view can be named. You can even rename mountains,caves, and valleys. I believe you can even rename outposts. Naming isn't just for you to comemip with euphemism for fuck, it is cold-hard cash made easy. Even if you don't want to name the place, you can just upload the prerecorded name, and it will still give you money. You get more for naming a planet, but the fauna, flora, and minerals go for a pretty penny as well. The game is so massive, I literally had to go into free mode to get a glimpse of the entire galaxy. It's huge, and it's something of awe. Every star is a solar system, and every solar system has enough planets on it (with very rare exceptions of less than three, to equal at least three games. It doesn't feel thwt repetitive either, as there we always new material, new minerals, and always new fauna and flora to come across. I've barely scratched the surface, and I cannot believe what I've seen already!
As I've stated in the preview, this game is even more grander than I've could've imagine, and I'll be completely frank, It pisses you off at times, because a gained the key is saving. Still, I like that resources are costly, I actually like the ship I started with, and I'm not sure if you can name your ship, but it would be interesting to see When new updates come out. I am playing offline,mand I do not,mreoeat,mso not have any patches, but I'm sure I have a good idea what those patches are for, particularly when things aren't connection in the procedural regeneration process.
From what I can tell the game has very limitations, I've been trying my best to see what the lit is of the game are, currently I'm flying towards a sun in a solar system I've named The Green a Jellyfish System. So now, I'm trying to see if I can reach the sun, of course, I've not even broken out of the solar system, but I'm intrigued to see just where this goes from here. My first rule to a large game is: if you don't break it at least once you're doing it wrong.
If I were to turn around, it would take me months in real time to turn back to where I originally started. However, I'm hoping to find an outpost or an actual moon or planet somewhere out there so I ca save my progress. I've not found out how to save my progress while still inside the shop, perhaps a component you can earn,mbut I did rebuild an old ship thwt crashed landed, and I much more prefer it, it is faster, more slots, and looks better by the interior of my starting ship. I find it strange that you just leave your old ship behind, it make me wonder if the online community is going to be leaving millions of ships behind , and ayone can just pick them up. Regardless, there's still a ton to this game that will evolve in the upcoming months. I'd hate to say it, but this game is the sort of thing that will be played for years and never ever seem to get old, as it will be always infinite, or at the very least seem far from finite. And if you play offline, like I am....it is infinite, it is completely and utterly without end. The scale of this game is almost terrifying to think of, and yes of course, the game is merely repeating said pattern, but if you dive in, and submerse yourself in the game, it is nearly impossible to think that this is anything else but a mad science experiment gone wrong...and I absolutely love it!
I'm starting to think that this game is going to be something that is talked about for generations, and it fear what this will do for future games...imagine even twenty years from now that graphics beyond the typical PS4 game will be to this scale, in VR or AR, and be so subversive, we pretty much live in them... Like Ready Player One, I don't ning that it is a utopia, but a scary, terrifyingieea that the universes we create in games may soon well supersede our own. The future is frightfully awesome, and horrifyingly beautiful.
Enough about the philosophical aspects of the whole thing: the Euclid Galaxy (I like that name, not sure anyone can change it, but I'm sure that's what happens when you reach the middle. The game is well-developed, it's pratical, but challenging. You can get stuck, but there's always a way out. For example, I fell into a cavern, it nearly destroyed my shield, (your exosuit has a shield, as does your shift, and thrusters, and everything you'd expect a Sci-Fi ship to have.) and I had my multi-tool, which has a plasma thrower, so I blew holes in the sides of the cavern, and flew up to the pockets, then proceeded to escape what would be an impossible situation to overcome. So if your ship crashes, or needs full-on repair, then you can usually walk around,mand gather the majority of the resources, or find a trading outpost to buy the resources needed. The game rewards you more for exploring than completing any given task. I've been able to play for a huge bulk of time, and just started my ascension to the galaxy core, which apparently is the point of the game.
The game doesn't tell you much, but in some ways it gives you little tutorial shout-outs here-and-there. It's a fun game to play, and has something for everyone. I also learned that you can get new multi tools, which allow you even more versatility, and it seems the customization for the gun and mining tool is as diverse as the ships, suits and so-forth. You can upgrade your suit, which I did once, and had the unfortunate luck to die before retaining the exrtra slot. The suit is versatile, and requires materials to protect the player from the harsh environment, and isotopes to keep you fed, or to maintain life support.
In mentioning the mining tool, you can blast the ground, and burrow, I'm not sure you can get to a planet core,mbut if you can I've yet to do it, but I've burrowed quite a ways inside a planet, before it hit a snag. Then again, I might just need something stronger. You can walk an entire planet, and that could take days, months even. With the huge planets, forget it,it's impossible to explore the entire thing pole-to-pole. I suppose you could, but it's not necessarily a good use of time, as everything cost resources, and that disallows you free exploration without getting a fuel source, and eventually you will out-mine the necessary, and you'll die. I've yet to die from loss of materials.
I've died from space ship battles, about 90% of the time! I think that it's one of the best times I had in the game though....dogfighting, not dying; dying is a bitch. The ship battles are what you'd expect, you target the hostile ships, which will loot most of your stuff, and they will make you hurt if you don't know what you're doing. You can attack cargo barges, and become a pirate as well, but it's not without its consequences as well. Sentinels, which are bots that patrol the Euclid Galaxy, like the police force, a third-party standing, and come in a variety of different forms, some of which are almost impossible to kill, and are as varied as the multiple specimens found throughout the universe. They aren't always hostile, and on some planets, are hostile from the start. I've yet of land on a flourishing city, which I don't think exists, but it would be intriguing to find a world where it was flourishing, but it's a survival game, and maybe at the center, there will be societies as such, because it seems everything is an outpost, rather than a home world. I've also not yet found a black hole, or wormhole, but the game does encourage you to seek one out and fly through it, but it's not as though they're just everywhere.
So-far, I've warped eight times, and now that I'm on my way towards the center,mi could have a thousand more wraps to go for all-I -know, because I've started in a random place in the galaxy, so I'm not sure if you always start equal, but with a near-infinite amount of planets, and in-my-case, an infinite amount of planets. I have to remind people, I'm playing the game offline, and it's one of those things that makes the game seem not just endless,mbut impossible to complete, and impossible to complete at 100%. It would take nearly forth generations of my family playing this game as though it's a damn heirloom to compel err the whole game. It'll be closer to the year 3000 before someone's linage will ever be close to finishing the game. But the game is designed as just that! This is a game I could pick up from a complete stranger, and make it my own, an incredible feat. So let's say in 500 years, and if I reproduce, my lineage takes the game over, dusts off the old PC (in-my-case I got it on console) and picks it up where their parents left off, and they could essentially get the game going with just an hour-or so of tutorial, which never stops showing up on the screen from what it seems.
Indirectly, or directly, Hello Games, has created a family heirloom to pass down, and a social experiment that will either die out, and be some obscure trend, or become a game that has a lasting legacy that may very-well supersede the likes of Mario, Sonic, and even video games themselves....because to me, this isn't a game,it's self-building art form, that may never be replicated (at least to this extent, or in this precise form, ever again.) this makes me think Hello Games is going to grow into something bigger than its current form.
Let's get back to the "game" itself: there are factions, several alien species, whom you meet, and learn their language, so you can communicate and receive new technology, or sometimes you'll get a new weapon. However, if you upest them, this will hurt your alliances with the rep acted species, and that could spell trouble for you later on, when they come at you in their ships. You can also find random fights going on withing a solar system, and depending on which side you help fight, it can increase, or decrease the same standings. Despite this game seeming focused on exploration, there is indeed a tight, and even exciting combat system. The game seems to evolve, as you do, and that keeps it entertaining as well.
The best thing about this game is, that if you focus on something, and you develop a process, like of you just want to wrap and you focus mainly on warp cells, they're not that hard to build, and if you get a large enough ship, you can fill them up with plenty of warp cells, and just keep essentials on your person at all times. You can do things relatively faster than your supposed to, but there seem to be some limitations. I was heading towards a sun, and the game started to fritz, but regardless with how you do it, you won't be bored.
If I have any serious complaints, I'd say that this game is not nearly as versatile as I wanted, there see too many games it compes with, and daresay, may make a case that less is more. Granted, I didn't get the patch...yet, but I'm curious to see of all those free updates, as long as Hello Games supports it, of course, remember that games like Team Fortress 2 are still updated still today. However, No Man's Sky may get updates like vehicles, or moe aliens, or interaction outside of the ships, but it will be curious to see if this game changes, or progresses to something that is almost unrecognizable from the original game.
In-the-end, this game is going to never end, it may have new missions added, new POIs, and new weapons/multi tools. The game is going to continuously grow, it will be art imitating life, to the most altruistic example. I hope to see more come from this game, I hope it grows, and the hype behind it dies down, and it can be enjoyed. I truly love this game, and I recommend it, especially as someone who really didn't want this game at first, but with the leak, and with luck of a couple of extra bucks, and a lack of games that have it rested me this year, I bit ther overview bullet, and it literally blew my mind, this game is good, and even if a planet doesn't fully form, you question if thwt is just the way it happens, or if it was all intelligent design.
Thank you so very much for reading the Malacwst a editorial! I've been very busy this week, and finished this post in record time. I'll be writing my Short Story Weekly post over the week, and I'll be exasperated over how many I've written, because I've really not missed a week, granted, I did a poem one week, but it was more by choice, and I found if was a long while since I wrote a short story, and added two the week after. Still, thank you for the avid support, and have a great week!
