No Man's Sky: Hype level critical!

 We're only a week out from the release of what I'm going to say is the most highly anticipated game release of 2016, No Man's Sky.

Wait. Hold on. When was that last blog date? 2013!? Holy shit I'm on a really ridiculous pattern right now. Put up 2 blog posts, disappear for 2 years. Post 2 more times, disappear for 3 years. This keeps up my next post will be in 2020. Alrighty, midyear New Year's resolution. Blog at least once a month moving forward and strive to hit once a week. Obviously there's a whole lot of shit that'll keep that from happening and I'm certainly going to struggle to find things I want to write about but better to set a goal and miss than not set one at all I guess. Especially when that goal can be accomplished via the couch and pajamas. Maybe I'll hit the gym next year. Anywhoo back to the rambling...

No Man's Sky. If you know me then you've heard about this game on several occasions as I haven't been able to shut up about it. If you don't then here are some of my favorite blurbs from the company's site.

"No Man’s Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy.

Whether a distant mountain or a planet hanging low on the horizon, you can go there. You can fly seamlessly from the surface of a planet to another, and every star in the sky is a sun that you can visit.

Explore uncharted solar systems and catalogue unique new forms of life. Every planet’s landscape is different from the next, and populated by species never before encountered.

Every solar system, planet, ocean and cave is filled with danger, and you are vulnerable.And one mistake could see you lose everything. In No Man’s Sky, every victory and every defeat has lasting consequences.

18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets."

Do you enjoy open-world exploration games? Well how about a game with 18 quintillion open worlds?!  That is No Man's Sky.

I'm a huge fan of open-world gaming. When playing one of the Assassin's Creed entries my favorite part of the game is opening the map up so I can see everything. Same with pretty much all the Bethesda offerings Skyrim, Fallout, etc. (I think I've only ever finished Fallout 3 as far as story goes but I have pretty much the entire map revealed in almost all of my Bethesda play throughs.)

I think my love of this genre of video games comes from the fact that it tries it's hardest to create a feeling like I can do whatever I want in the game world. (Coincidentally this is the same thing I love about tabletop RPG's.) When I read books or watch films, the thing I wish most sometimes is that it was real and I could experience it. That escapism is what games like this promise, not that I'm going to see a story play out in a world I enjoy but that I can choose to explore those worlds in full even beyond the story the game wants to tell.

Enter No Man's Sky and it's promise of a near infinite universe to explore. If you can see something you can explore it. That's a developer's promise that will have me throwing cash at my screen instantly. And not only is this the design of the game, it's the advertised core premise. Sure there will be combat, space battles and a story woven through the game but all of that is secondary to the main goal of exploring any and every thing you see. This is enhanced by the fact that things you discover are noted as discovered by you and you can even name them, making your permanent mark on the game's universe moving forward!

Scholars will look back someday on Uranus and laugh.

The game has leaked early and of course set swathes of the internet on fire around the game play videos and descriptions of what's occurred for this user. People are ranting about it being buggy, not living up to its promise of amazingness and all other rages people love to have around a much hyped game. Others are screaming in defense, claiming the leaked copy is a developer copy or that the guy is out to create false narratives, etc.

Will the game live up to people's expectations? Of course not. The kind of hype this game has generated always ends in let down. I expect mixed reviews, cautious posts of how good it could've been, and other typical responses.

Is the game a true simulation of immersion? Nope. I can't decide to build a hut and start farming crops on Mars if the urge hits me. I toss this in as people inevitably assume that no game gives you true freedom if you can't do literally anything you want. But given the limits imposed by any game, NMS certainly allows me to do everything I might want.

Will the game live up to my expectations? To quote an esteemed prophet "All signs point to Yes." I won't lie, I've watched the leaked footage and read the comments both good and bad by the leaker related to the gameplay. Everything I've seen so far leads me to believe that actual bugs (like game crashes, etc) aside all of the things he's seen are what I've been waiting to play for the last couple of years now. A near infinite universe in which my singular goal is to explore whatever I feel like exploring.

I'm sure I'll find something I wish was better about the game but for now I'm ready to strap on my space suit and go chart the cosmos!

P.S.

My interest in this game is on a whole other level and I've created a blog of a different sort to go with it. No Man's Saga will be the narrative tale of my adventures through the universe. There's no telling where it will lead, how much I'll write or how long it'll last but I was inspired to explore the game through this alternate medium which in itself is an accomplishment for a video game.