The Video Game thread

[blakestree]

My wife and I are considering No Man's Sky. It looks great and seems like it can be really interesting and fun. However, I'm not feeling all the inventory management, mining, trading, and building. Is it possible advance with minimal involvement in those activities? Or, are they essential to all progress? Is it true the goal is to reach the center of the universe?

[LOCOPELAND]

No Mans Sky is really neat. I haven't had much time with it yet, but I'm definitely enjoying it

[GAS KING]

My wife and I are considering No Man's Sky. It looks great and seems like it can be really interesting and fun. However, I'm not feeling all the inventory management, mining, trading, and building. Is it possible advance with minimal involvement in those activities? Or, are they essential to all progress? Is it true the goal is to reach the center of the universe?

I finally got to play last night for the first time. Optimization for PC is pretty bad, but I can get it to run well on mine.

Disclaimer: I really like the game. It's not perfect, but I really like it.

In regards to your questions:

You have to collect materials to survive. Your exosuit requires fuel to protect you from planetary environments. Your multitool requires fuel to use. Your ship requires fuel to fly.

It's not a ton, but you have to be mindful of certain items as you come across them.

The initial goal (first tutorial mission) is to collect materials to repair your ship and leave. From there you're collecting more materials to make more advanced gear/ships (or make money to buy it) and advance through the universe.

It is a bit grindy, but after 4 hours of playtime.........I was never bored. Not once, and I just want to play more and explore more. It's one of those games (at least for me) where you look at the clock and it's 5 o'clock. next time you look and it's 2 o'clock. wtf!?!
It's got a minecraft feel in regards to the materials. If you need 6 of something, you have to harvest the materials. Some items have a blueprint, so you need 6 of this, 3 of that and 1 of the other.

I would say the inventory space management is the most tedious part of the game. In most games you store as much as you can in the event you need it. In this game, you sort of take what you need, and move on. You don't have a ton of inventory space to store excessive amounts of materials. Your exosuit and ship have inventory space. You can transfer materials from your exosuit to and from your ship. (if you're close enough)
That's some of the reason you want to upgrade to a better exosuit or ship. More inventory space. (plus better ships, warp drives, stronger weapons for easier/quicker to harvest materials or destroy sentinels.)

The final goal is to reach the center of the universe, but you could easily spend 4+ hours on your starter planet (if it's a decent one) exploring. You don't even need to get to the center if you don't want. If you just like looking at shit and flying around, you can do that. Hello Games was correct in saying that the game is super chill.

There's lots to do besides collecting materials to leave. Exploring the planet itself. The mountains, deserts, water bodies, caves, etc......, Discovering alien ruins/monoliths to learn alien language (there are multiple). Discovering beacons. Finding crashed ships. Scanning local plants and animals for the archive. Feeding animals and having them lead you to rare materials. Fighting the sentinels. Exploring new planets and moons. Trading/selling at the space stations. Blowing up asteroids for materials in space. Just taking in the view even.

It's extremely open ended in regards to what you actually do and how much enjoyment you get out of it. (which is why I think some people won't like it.)

I hope that helps.

[rustywire]

No Man's Sky is the kind of game I find more appealing on paper than when I'm actually playing. I have not played it for this reason, but watched an hour long stream off & on in the background while doing other stuff. It strikes me as another open-world game which never ends due to endless *maintenance play* as I call it. Grinding filler with myopic focus on resources, but gameplay and/or storyline that doesn't deliver. It's like...you're playing the game while constantly waiting to play the game. Personally, currently, such games do not interest me. They can be fun escape for a while but the replay value just isn't there for me. Type of game I may binge play for 3 weeks and then never touch again. Even when I should totally be into the concept, such as galactic exploration

[frodog]

I've been watching Skilled Apple's streams of NMS a lot lately, and while it looks like a game I'd play the shit out of, I think I'm more into watching other people play.

Besides, I don't have anything to play it on. Got a PS3 that I'll bust out now and then, no way I'd throw down money 4 a PS4.

[Andrew]

Not one to complain about the price of Games. But No Man's Sky is way over budget for me right now, $79au on PS4 or about $61 on GOG. I didn't have any hype or expectations but it does seem like a simple fun game to chew through after work. I'm totally a sucker for Space Exploration and general cosmic Sci-Fi aesthetics, so it looks pretty ideal for my tastes. $30 really seems like the ideal price point to pick it up. It looks like a perfect game to play while waiting for Deus Ex.

I didn't know that 65daysofstatic did the soundtrack which is pretty rad.

[Willem]

I was wondering if I put the 55€ for this game right now or just waiting a couple or months until it's in the 30/40€ range....

[UglyCasanova]

NMS gets boring after an hour. Cool concept, shit gameplay, sooo repetative. My 2 cents.

[blakestree]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Pretty much confirmed my fears.

[oscillateur]

As a game developer, people not wanting to pay full price for a full game experience kind of worries me...

[D.o.S.]

You know that thing that you want the money for?

I want to give you half the money.

[UglyCasanova]

As a game developer, people not wanting to pay full price for a full game experience kind of worries me...

I don't care if one person or a team of 300 people made a game as long as the experience is worth the money. NMS just isn't. I pay for quality, not quantity. Make a good game and people will pay for it. It's nothing you should worry about.

[UglyCasanova]

Me, my girl, her friend and Eivind (unless he's too hung over) are going to play a full VR experience set in space today. It's basically a VR escape room team based game. So we wlll move around in a physical space with oculust rifts and motion sensor gloves on, solving puzzles in order to escape a space station and fly around in space and shoot things. I AM EXCITED!

[GAS KING]

$60 for NMS is a steal, had it run properly at launch. Kinda shot themselves in the foot.

I have 6 hours in it, and it's still great.
I couldn't imagine watching someone play it over playing it myself.
It's not as grindy as it seems.....or the grinding doesn't feel grindy.

Interesting to see that most of y'all don't see the appeal or aren't willing to try it out.

[Andrew]

It's still probably worth playing at some stage with a more level headed mindset and with a lower price point.

I do think that the actual target audience is a lot more niche than the majority of people that got bought into the hype. Afterall, it's just another crafting/management Indiegame that somehow managed to get the marketing of a AAA game. To me, it has a similar vibe to parts of Mass Effect 1. Even if it was a little janky and repetitive - it is my favourite in the series. Even with it's rudimentary planetary exploration, it's still something just something doing it a little bit different compared to other games in it's genre.

Destiny is as boring as horseshit, but has a nice art style and decent enough gameplay and Elite: Dangerous is great but doesn't have much else aside from being Space Truck Simulator. NMS looks like the averaged out result.

As a game developer, people not wanting to pay full price for a full game experience kind of worries me...

I just got back from holidays and have no spare spending money, that's all.

But really, it's probably just a learned response now unfortunately - things dip in price way too quickly,. Maybe because of sales or greymarket keys I guess? But on the flip side, games now certainly get ported onto new systems and reach new markets. I've rebought Volume, Invisible Inc and Downwell atleast on PC and PS4 and i'm going play the shit out of the re-re-re-release of Resident Evil 4 again. It's hard to say.