No Man's Sky

Soooo, I downloaded an ‘evaluation copy’ of No Man’s Sky when it just came out, but on the laptop that I then used, it was way too laggy to even judge whether or not I’d like it. So, I never purchased it.

After that, a sizeable backlash erupted, from players who felt cheated by Hello Games (the game studio), and when I got a new PC I had already almost forgotten about it.

But some weeks ago a friend prompted me to get into it; allegedly the latest great patch, “Next”, had made the game playable again and enjoyable even. So, I thought “Why Not?”, and got me a legal copy.

And, sofar I have indeed been enjoying myself! Although it is not ‘the next Freelancer’, it appeals to the same sentiments: a huge universe (incomparably bigger than Freelancer’s), and just hopping along, exploring, questing trading etc.

When we compare both games, it is significant that Freelancer has a major strength in one aspect: the planetary (star) systems, i.e. where you fly. That is what FL is all about of course. In NMS that is rather shallow: you can fly from one planet to another, and in most systems there is also one space station (sometimes none, and sometimes two where the second one is a special, mission-related on.) O, there can be combat in space as well in NMS, and it actually reminded me of FL, but in FL this is a much more immersing experience (btw the combat has never been my prime interest in FL, or any other space game to be honest. But the looks and feel in FL were more immersive than in NMS).

In other aspects, NMS is superior: the star map is 3D and when you’re in space you can jump to every star within your hyperdrive’s reach. (Btw, whether or not the stars and planetary systems are part of a grand persistent universe, is until now not really clear. (I just asked on the Steam forum). If you start a new game, chances are well over 99.9% that you will only visit places that no other player have ever seen. Afaik there seem to be ways to actively meet other people but I haven’t done that yet. So, it could be argued that the familiarity of FL’s map of Sirius is a pro.)

And now for the planets, which is really what NMS is about. These are awesome: you can land there and go explore them, scan minerals, flora and fauna, build bases (which really appeals to what I liked best about FL modding, with the large advantage that I can do it in-game and without crashes).

Oh, there is also a multitude of ships, of varying coolness, that you can buy. You can have 5 max (and you will always be able to exchange your active ship for another one). Additionally you can have a hge freighter which isn’t pilotable, but rather a base in space that follows you around; you can also hire military type vessels to protect it (although from what I’ve seen there aren’t any large-scale battles anyway).

Anyway, what would now be cool if StarCitizen would take the on-planet part from NMS, the in-space part from FL and it’s own star map. Then we’d finally have the ultimate game

Lol, today is exactly a month later than my review. I hardly play NMS anymore; it rapidly got tedious, plus the Dev team keeps releasing updates that are intended to fix things, but these seem to also randomly change how things work; besides they introduce new errors (or at least, issue-ish phenomenons). So, that is that.

I purchased both Empyrion: Galactic Survival and Space Engineers. These are both games where you find yourself having to build your own stuff (bases, vehicles). I haven’t much looked into Space Engineers sofar, but I am learning to get along in Empyrion (at least, with the building function in creative mode.)

Both of these games are in their alpha stages, and have been that for several years by now. Seems to be the trend.