"No Man's Sky" is procedural sci-fi exploration, and *purdy*. - by Shadowcat
Thor on 5/3/2016 at 09:51
It looks good in a whole lot of ways, especially in how much of a technical marvel it is.
Besides exploring endless vast space with endless amount of planets there doesn't seem to be much to do. And from the videos I've seen up to this point the planets are all starting to look kinda samey. In part it is due to hyper-saturated colors, in part it is due to not having seen any lifeless planets like Mars/Venus/Jupiter/Pluto etc. (indeed, planets you perhaps cannot land on without disintegrating). Maybe they just haven't shown those (or I missed it somehow), but I would've liked those to be part of the universe as well. Maybe all this (planets and more gameplay) is in the game, though.
However it turns out, this game looks like a solid step forward in gaming.
nicked on 5/3/2016 at 10:26
I think I remember an interview where they said there'll be plenty of lifeless rocks, they just aren't showing them in promo videos because they're not as trailer-exciting.
If the game had literally no functionality beyond "Explore space and name aliens", I'd still be well on board. But there's also trading, resource mining, piracy and space battles, alien races to learn the language of and communicate with, and an overarching fiction with a goal to get to the centre of the galaxy. However I do think if the idea of discovering never-before-seen worlds isn't appealing, you might not get as much out of it. But just that concept alone makes me giddy as a school girl.
EvaUnit02 on 5/3/2016 at 14:48
Quote Posted by nicked
Is anyone else as excited for this as I am? I never usually get hyped for videogames before release, but this one has got me frothing.
Nah, it looks like a giant procedurally-generated sandbox game where you have no clear goals. I can see it getting old really fast.
faetal on 5/3/2016 at 15:07
That's definitely a possibility - I'm cautiously excited - will hold off until I see what the verdict is.
WingedKagouti on 5/3/2016 at 15:16
With the price tag (€60) and the vagueness of the gameplay in general, I'm not actually interested in this game any more.
Sulphur on 5/3/2016 at 15:24
I'm not a fan of anything procedural. Having said that, this one does have a goal: get to the centre of the galaxy. Hopefully there's something worthwhile there apart from, you know, supermassive black holes that rip you apart and feed your particle stream slowly through the event horizon, at which point time freezes for whatever's left of your cosmically clusterfucked particles - and the game - forever.
nicked on 5/3/2016 at 15:25
That would be quite a downer ending...
Sulphur on 5/3/2016 at 15:37
Oh, I don't know, it could be worse. I mean, what if you spent 15 hours working your way to the galactic centre, only to find the game ends with a recorded message from Peter Molyneux.
Thor on 5/3/2016 at 16:40
Quote Posted by nicked
[..]and an overarching fiction with a goal to get to the centre of the galaxy.[..]
I thought they said the center of the universe. If it's only the center of a galaxy then there's indeed a supermassive black hole waiting for you (if it follows basic physics, which it looks like it might).
Checked the article again - indeed, it speaks in the context of the universe. Maybe it'll be the birth of the universe itself and you're gonna have to go back billions of years to get to it.
