Recent reviews by Barnes

brothers gonna be playing this beyotch in their old age home

Satisfaction abounds.

Yesterday I drove a five-wheeled bus through the desert for hours and hours looking for a wheel. But in the end I realized it wasn't the wheel I was looking for, but the rim.

10/10 will drive more

Hannibal Lecter's finishing move is the Fava Bean Forearm

I have never played a game that makes me want to go to sleep as much as Red Dead Redemption 2. I am an enormous fan of RDR the original, but for actual gameplay.

If I want to sleep for 12 hours, just load me into camp with everyone acting like my cousin Steph on a camping trip. "Where's my Garnier? Where's my back-bacon? Why is my Roscoe out of its holster?" This game is Mount Rushmore 2012 all over again. #UNSUBSCRIBED

Not one single rendition of Scarborough Fair. Unsubscribed.

TLDR 2-Point Summary
#1: Procedural magic appears among the sameness.
#2: No Man's Sky is nowhere near as much work as the game you're currently playing.
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I've put somewhere north of 800 hours into No Man's Sky. One hundred+ of these are due to the first Expeditions season.

When I began playing in the Spring of 2020, I was looking for something less intensive than my current game, and to be honest, that's the best description I can give you. No Man's Sky: less intensive than the game you're playing.

Don't get me wrong, No Man's Sky is full of surprise, jump scares, risk and loss. But those are only accessible, oddly, when you just play the game. For a procedural space game, it seems to be able to tell when you're grinding -- and refuse to pay out.

There's a lot to be said and a lot to explore, but if you're like my brother Chris, you see through "proc" like Neo in the Matrix, and the suspension of disbelief is gone. If you're like him, No Man's Sky is probably not for you.

One thing you learn when you play a lot of games is that patterns emerge across any playstyle. If you're acquisitive, you'll find your particular route to success, on a continuum of passive to active. The continuum is directly controlled by the player, thus the PvE elements are only as challenging as you like. As a consequence, No Man's Sky can feel like easy inventory Tetris. A Passive player can just as easily cross all the gates in the story. In fact, until the relative innovation of the Expeditions Gameplay Seasons, there are few reasons to ever risk one's life, or even a scrap of inventory.

If you've gotten this far, you might be looking for advice: first, become Zen with dying many times.

Background: I'm terrified of Space. Ever since I was young, I've been petrified of being locked in a capsule, blowing out my last breaths as spiders of veins pop across my neck. It's a nightmare I've had since the very first time I saw Steve Austin crash his rocket capsule on a black and white tv.

The first time you launch into Space in No Man's Sky, leaving the comfort of terra firma, it's disconcerting. With a full field of planets ahead, there's a real sensation of losing your place. Of never finding it back to your start planet. It's absurd of course. But there are real feels.

When you first resolve, you're crippled, with a starter Exosuit. Far from shelter, a ship, help of any kind.

In Survival Mode, you'll die thirteen times on your dangerous planet before you can read the pop-up about feeding your Life Support. On the way to shelter you'll die another 13 times. Once you reach your ship, that Zen I mentioned will kick in, and the link you used to have to dying will be broken. It's humbling. It's freeing.

Instead of a weapon, you're given a Multitool, which makes the implications of this game extremely family-friendly. At no point during my first playthrough did I kill anything other than a pirate -- in self-defense -- unless the mission compelled me. The Multitool has the capability of deploying a scanner, a shield, a visor that can find resources, can mine great chasms into the soil, and can fire offensive or defensive rounds in various ways.

When you begin there on your Starter Planet, you get a small MT with limited capabilities. As you start to shop around, you'll see there are loads of styles and many different varieties of tools, all with their own characteristics. And then like everything else, you realize the tools are procedurally generated, right down to crystals in the handle, or color of the body. Or whether it's a pistol, rifle or alien tech.

When it comes to tech, almost every portion of the MT is upgradeable. You can add a shotgun feature with the Scatter Blaster, or install an upgrade to add 20 rounds to its magazine. Upgrade your scanner for range, rewards and cooldown.

Governed by Class

Like the Multitool, your Starship is capable of surprisingly numerous upgrades, add-ons and modules that can change the way it fights, hovers, scans and takes off. Not to mention, every Starship in No Man's Sky is capable of Warp, which can move you to a new system perhaps thousands of Light Years away.

Also like the Multitool, Starships have a Class designation from C to S. C-Grade is the lowest, B is medium-grade, A is top-grade and S is Superior. The cost of an S-Class ship can be surprisingly affordable, but generally the grades describe a fairly steep gradation in price. An A-Class Shuttle with 28 storage slots can cost 2.2 million units, while an S-Class with 34 slots can be around 6 million. That's because there are Class benefits that add up to extra powers or strengths for your ship.

A conceit, or a wish you make to yourself

Being a participant in self-deceit is how an outside observer might consider traditional Role Play. The self-deceit you must realize is that after some time, when it comes to proc, the parts and pieces will all align and you'll find yourself going "it's all the same."

This conceit is threaded through the rather nihilistic storyline, which in no way compels one to continue. No Man's Sky is almost a "take it or leave it" experience. The game would rather not have you play if you're not into it.

You will see common creatures whole Galaxies away. You'll see similar ships. You'll see a lovely tailfin in a weird place in a far-off Galaxy. But then you'll realize it's just a tailfin.

If you ever played one of those face-switching games as a kid, you'll know what I mean. Flip the card and put the googly eyes in place. Flop the mouth for big, sexy lips and a full mustache. Parts and pieces.

Spend enough time in Space Stations and you'll see those pieces and parts, in different concatenations, wherever you go. And after a while your mind sort of reels, thinking of all the diversity inherent in an admittedly closed system such as this one. After all, the Universe limit is 255 Galaxies. The inference is real: this is all a simulation.

That's not a spoiler, by the way. You'll see the sameness in the species you encounter, the differences only in gesture, visage or costume. If you focus on this sameness, the illusion dissolves. But then, that's sort of the point.

The sameness extends to Planets

This effect occurs with planets as well. Your Star System can have as few as two celestial bodies, and as many as eight, including natural satellites. The planets themselves are procedurally generated in No Man's Sky, so when you venture into a system where it says "First Contact," this experience is being made for you. This is why it's so satisfying.

And this is why it works.

I'm afraid I can't explain much farther without adding too much value to the game, getting into partial spoilers and potentially upsetting the critical balance. No Man's Sky is about making something magical emerge from utter sameness. Cold, bland, sameness. There is a greater metaphor there, and as you discover your umpteenth System, you'll think about that. The magic that can be derived from the same old stuff.

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Full video review coming to my channel.

At some point you'll be in my boat and feel like replaying this game. You may find yourself racked with real guilt over how much you hope you've improved at wiping out humanity.

My Conan Exiles Early Access Review: get it now before the price goes up.

The Good: Building is incredible. The scenery is awe-inspiring. The combat system is addictive and engaging. The different zones of the map are beautiful, and punishing. You will need your wits, feats and perks to make it in The Exiled Lands.
The Barbaric: Scraping out a living on this vast map is actually a challenge. This is an open-world multiplayer experience -- there is no one story -- just inferences and connected bits of literature around the world; part of the puzzle of the game is just trying to understand what it might mean to wear that bracelet. Mysteries make players seek the help (or the hunt) of others, two of many reasons for single-player faithfuls to branch out to multiplayer.
The Ugly: You can't have multiplayer without a community, and this one is a house divided. Many players wanted sorcery or mounts, or both, and for Game Launch, combat won out. Fighting is a very important part of server life, whether it's PVP or PVE, and with truly great battles you'll replay just for the epic kills.

Highly recommended.


This review is based on content not yet present in the Live Build of Conan Exiles.