No Man's Sky Review

Played on PC.

I'm not a huge fan of procedurally generated survival games in the first place, but this one seemed to be too good to be true.  I didn't fully buy into the hype, buuuut I wanted at least SOME of it to be true.  I routinely made the "didn't Spore make promises it couldn't possibly fulfill?" observations with the caveat that I wanted this game to be good.  I didn't want to smugly say this is Spore 2 after release but goddamnit this is Spore 2.  

Since this seems to be the most controversial game of 2016 (at least so far), it's likely you've seen other reviews and I don't want to rehash the same points in detail here.  So, here's a few notes before I go on to the meat of what I want to talk about.

1. The PC port, as of launch, is poorly optimized.  Frame rate drops are frequent though it seems to stabilize after you play for a bit.  Also, if you Alt-Tab out of the game, you can't get back in.  The game continues to run, but it won't re-open.  
2. Texture pop-in is wonky on both PC and what I've seen on PS4 as well.  Not a huge gripe with me as most of it is when you are entering a planets atmosphere but it sometimes happens on the ground too, which is less forgivable.  
3. The game is oppressively survival.  I know fans say "this game is about the exploration and its chill atmosphere.  Just take your time and enjoy the pretty nature."  Yeah, hard to chill out to this game when you are constantly bombarded with "Life Support Systems Low", "Radiation Protection Low", "Life Support Systems Critical", "Life Support Systems recharged.", "JOURNEY MILESTONE ACHIEVED".  Why are the achievements so bombastic?  
4. The UI is horrendous.  Why do I need an empty inventory slot to craft something?  Why can't I stack items other than raw ingredients?  Why do upgrades take an inventory slot when it's an upgrade to something already taking an inventory slot?  Why do I have to open the inventory to restore my shields in the middle of combat?
5. Combat is dull.  Nothing on the ground seems like much of a threat.  Shoot, jetpack around to dodge fire while you reload, shoot, repeat forever.  In space, it's the opposite.  It's really hard to track ships (why can't I look around the cockpit?), it seems impossible to get behind anybody, and it's hard to tell who is shooting me.  Most dogfights turn into a war of attrition as the enemy ship turns right at me, I turn right at it kamikaze style, and we shoot at each other while hoping in vain I don't have to open the inventory to restore my shields.  
6. The good stuff includes the soundtrack, which is really good, and for a while the planets are really pretty and interesting.  Unfortunately, the planets start to seem very "samey" after a while like every planet is Moab, Utah.  The scale of the game is outstanding but is a prime example of how quality over quantity is better.   
7. Finally, there is a litany of features advertised that didn't make it into the game despite early demos showing some of them (many of you may have already seen this comprehensive list on Reddit of everything missing).  That means, these features were removed for whatever reason, or they were fabricated for the demos.  Neither looks good on the part of the developer.  

All of these notes drag the game down for me, but one thing I haven't seen other reviews talk about in detail is.....the lore.

The fuck is this stone?

This game is an existential crisis right from the start.  Who am I?  I get that I'm a human (...I think?!?) who crash landed on a planet, apparently in another galaxy, for reasons that I'm sure are never explained, but why am I here?  Was I sent on some suicidal, lone wolf, explorer mission?  Why was I sent toward this galaxy in the first place?*

*I know a lot of people don't give a shit about this. I barely give a shit about it myself.  But, it is the beginning of this games atrocious "story".

There are 3 alien factions in the game, along with an AI race called Sentinels, and generic "space pirates".  The alien factions are a warrior one, a mercantile one, and a scientific one, ALL OF WHICH have no other defining characteristic.  I don't even care about they're names.  Let's see....one is the Gek*, one is the T'for'reals, and the other is Daft Punk.  They all have colonial outposts, abandoned buildings, factories, and some fucking how, actual ruins on every, and I mean EVERY, planet.  Fucking how do they have "colonial outposts"...you know, as in those temporary structures all sci-fi uses to colonize a new planet, AND have ruins...you know, as in a permanent structure on an already established colony, on the same fucking planet?

Thrift store Daft Punk.

*The Gek?  Really?  Who named these aliens?  Nickelodeon?

All NPC interaction is done in an old school adventure game style because they are all static.  They have a little animation when you greet them but they don't walk anywhere.  If animals can walk around, why can't the aliens walk to and from their ships landing at posts, space stations, etc.?  How in the hell does a game with this many spaceships moving around (unless it's a giant one which just sits there) feel this underpopulated and lonely?  

Everything has already been discovered by these aliens.  Visiting any colonial outpost, manufacturing site, abandoned site, or monolith just amounts to a crafting blueprint vending machine.  Solve this puzzle, get a blueprint.  At least with the monoliths and other ruins, it FELT like some actual lore was taking place....but it only complicated things.  

Any time you interact with ruins or Atlas (more on that in a second), you have an inner monologue that.....okay.  You know that guy in college who was really, REALLY, into his Intro to Philosophy 101 class?  All that inner monologue stuff was written by that guy.  It's all vague, pseudo-intellectual crap that doesn't actually mean anything but sounds like it could be deep and just over your head man.  It's fucking garbage.

The writer gave up on this one.

While discovering these ruins, I thought I'd get some sort of story of how the aliens (all 3 for some reason) had vast empires across the galaxy that some cataclysm have left in ruins and they are re-colonizing now because it is literally the only thing I can think of WHY ARE THEY COLONIZING PLANETS THEY HAVE RUINS ON? 

The Sentinels destroyed their empires right?  Uh...I...maybe?  

Spoiler section:  The Sentinels work for Atlus and act as a police force of ecosystems.  Though why some are passive and some aggressive, I have no idea.  But then you work for Atlus, but they keep attacking you........uuuuuuugh.  End spoilers.

The endings suck.  I already had them spoiled for me but both reaching the center of the galaxy and the Atlus endings are horrendously dumb.  Spoiler Section:  The prize you get at the center of the galaxy is....getting to go to another galaxy!  Yay?  The Atlus ending basically has god tell you life is meaningless, you are a defeated husk of a human, be depressed and I hope everybody you love dies.  No grand reason behind the Atlus.  It used you and now it wants you to know how much of a piece of shit you are.  End Spoilers.

This giant universe with endless amounts of life feels dead.  How does this happen?  I've complained about open world games filling their worlds with way too many cookie cutter side quests but this is the total opposite.  No Mans Sky mostly left them out, except for the Atlus missions which are everybody's favorite TYPE of side quest....fetch quests.  There's nothing to do except, what, go hiking?  The Sentinels only exist to give this game, something, ANYTHING, resembling an active universe with things happening and those never get a resolution as far as I can see.

Thrilling

Procedurally generated survival games usually have a purpose, that being surviving zombies in the vast majority of them (or defending yourself from the real threat, other people), so why is the purpose in No Mans Sky not here.  You mine resources, to upgrade your gear, which usually need to be powered, so requires more mining, to eventually get gear good enough to do Atlus missions and reach the center of the galaxy for NO REASON.  You are compelled to do these things?  Why?!?!  I wake up next to a crashed spaceship then suddenly want to travel to the center of the galaxy because some kind of demi-god red orb tells me too?  Christ.  When I wake up mid day (I work nights), I don't immediately alter my entire life to do whatever my phone tells me.

This game is a confused mess.  It's story is almost non-existent and what little you do get is utter nonsense.  It's space sections feel underdeveloped and seem to have most of the missing content shown in previous demos.  It's barely a relaxing exploration game with the robot voice constantly telling you what your levels are.  Mining and crafting is boring without any sort of real purpose.  You can't be creative in this game.  You can't be a space pirate.  You can't really be a merchant unless you just want to mess with menus all day.  You can't even be an explorer....because everything has already been explored by the aliens before you.

Sporecraft is a disappointment even without the hype.  Who knows if future DLC will make the universe exciting but I will not care for I am a broken husk of a human.  One, who only experiences the shadows of the true nature of reality, and unto that reality, I am a mere ghost.  But now, I must leave this realm, for the metaphysical beckons.  For honor.  For Love.  For Pizza.  For Mei Bae.  I now bid you, an existential, farewell.  May the force be with you.

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No Mans Sky might be, low key, the most pretentious game I've ever played and I "played" Proteus.