A Casual (Carebear) Gamer: No Man's Sky....

There has been so much anticipation for the game. It's had a lot of conflicting and confusing "official" comments on what the game "is". Now it seems like the big talk is about the varying pc gamer experience in running the game. I wasn't hyped for the game but I was expecting a more polished game.

In writing this blog post I've been getting bogged down in how much detail there is in the game and what to talk about, one thing leading onto another etc. Even with people talking about how "little" gameplay there is. There is a lot to this game.

It's different.

I decided to buy the game one day before the extended launch date. So in doing so I got the "better" spaceship. But I didn't upgrade to it until I left the first planet and docked at a space station.

Other than the alt-tab crashing I've had no problems with running the game. Unlike a lot of other pc players.

For the most part I'm liking the game. I've played about 14 Hours as I write this.
The unknown nature of the procedural generation is good in regard to the exploration and the wonder of discovery. The vastness of the game's environments and the need created by the procedural generation drives that need to explore. To see whats over the next hill or valley is echoed going from moon to planet and from system to system.
Ship and suit inventory management integrates storage space with upgrade slots. If you upgrade your suit with a new enhancement it will us a slot and that slot wont' be usable for anything else until you free that slot if ever that happens. crafting can be tricky as you need a few empty slots for created items to be held and then combined when creating something. Inventory management can be very tricky.
It's not a game with fast gameplay, it is slow for the most part in almost a serene way.
On planets you do gather materials, scan plants and animals to upload and get credits for. You also interact with aliens, buy and sell items to them as well as interact with computer terminals and wreckage as a means to both gather and upgrade items for your ship, suit and multitool. Traders come and go to outposts and space stations and even if your not seeing any there are terminals that allow you to interact with a galactic trade network.

Trading

I do foresee a point where I may not upgrade much more, ignore most exploration unless I need more fuel's and start off a big push to get to the main objective of the game. Get to the centre of the galaxy.
I've not had a hard time to get the minerals needed to fuel the ship, suit and multitool. At least from what I've experienced.
I was envious of a trader I meet with a ship that had 31 inventory slots but it cost 25 times the credits I had. Maybe someday I'll have a better bigger capacity ship that is good in combat as well.
It didn't take too long after getting a few low fuel messages that made me look into what I needed and gather a stockpile.

I now have so much of what I need to keep myself going that I was scanned by NPC's while on my way to a planet and they tried to take it from me. Combat wasn't complicated and was over soon enough. A jolt of excitement for combat and fear of loosing my items.

I've liked looking for a new multitool after I passed on one and regretted it. So I went with the Hello Kitty version until I upgraded again to a more badass looking gun/tool.

I passed on it.

Hello Multitool

Oh Hello!

Upgrade! upgrade!

Exploring the 8 or so planets so far I've come across a lot of plants and animals and all have looked plausible. Until I came across the funny flying fairy cow that "moo"ned me.

Mooooooooo'ning

Exploring ancient ruins much like other settlements or outposts can be rewarding. The least part of which is your character learning new words for the alien language.

One problem I've had is the ship on the planets is very inaccurate to land. Trying to judge how far you are over/near something that you want to land at is tricky. When you do start the autoland and your view starts to become clearer on where you are landing it can be surprising where you end up. Too far away, right on to of your target or near it but down a large valley dip. It can be awkward.

Auto landing needs more skills....

I wont' waffle on too much more about my explorations and harp on in an attempt at describing it.

Below are some interesting video's discussing the game and a few (lot) of my own screenshots.

has a video about the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRkHPsZak08