I wanted to like this game, however, in the end I just cannot bring myself to recommend it (certianly not at its current price).

A billion planets to explore, all slightly different, on which you'll be doing exactly the same thing as you did on the planet before (and on the planet before that).

Broadly speaking there are two types of planets; safe planets and hazard planets. On a safe planet you can run around to your heart's content pressing X to collect some resources, and pressing RT to collect others. On a hazard planet you'll be doing the same thing, just slightly slower as you return to your space ship every time the hazard bar (be it cold, heat, or radiation) gets too low.

This epitomises the problem that No Man's Sky faces. It's an exploration game with a nearly endless number of planets, but the only difference is in the visuals and names of those planets (and indeed, in some cases such as Plutonium and monoliths, not even in the visuals).

Sure I came out of hyperspace once to be faced with a massive planet that makes me go "wow". The first time I encountered an alien race and had to learn its language, that was kind of cool. But once you've had that experience for the first time that's it; you can come out of space to a massive planet in your view-screen and you've already seen it.

But then... Plutonium is always a red crystal structure that you press RT to destroy and gain some resources. On every planet. Never is it sometimes buried in a rock face you need to excavate and process with a machine you need to choose between taking space when you move on or leaving behind. Thamium-9 (or should we call it Same-ium?) always seems to be a plant that you run up to and press "X" on. Sure, sometimes that plant is blue, sometimes it glows, but it's never different enough to make me stop. You meet a new race and spend the next hour searching out monoliths, just like the last time you met a new race (or going through identical sets of ruins).

The same short loops repeat time and again; find a planet, find and fetch the resources, find and activate the monoliths, maybe aim at some rocks to scan them, move on to the next planet. Everything you do is effectively a fetch quest.

I'm sure there's more to see; that I could go to another planet and find a four-legged dome-topped animal instead of the tentacled dome-topped one I've already seen. That I could find the yellow iron rock instead of the brown iron rock. I could probably find a purple Thamium-9 plant to go with the red and blue varieties (and maybe it'll glow). But I'd still just be running up to it and pressing a button before running back towards my ship.

For an exploration game the idea of having billions of planets is great (and I'm sure there's ten minutes of amusement to be had naming them after Monty Python references).

However, you need new things to do when you're exploring; new challenges to overcome. We need the ice planet where you have to construct a sled and tame some local animals to pull you around. We need the radiation blasted world where you have to dig a tunnel network. Encountering the same set of pre-fabricated structures and red crystalline formations of Plutonium over and over and over on every planet... Just doesn't do it for me.

I wanted to like this game, however, in the end I just cannot bring myself to recommend it (certianly not at its current price). A billion planets to explore, all slightly different, on which you'll be doing exactly the same thing as you did on the planet before (and on the planet before that). Broadly speaking there are two types of planets; safe planets and hazard planets. On a safe planet you can run around to your heart's content pressing X to collect some resources, and pressing RT to collect others. On a hazard planet you'll be doing the same thing, just slightly slower as you return to your space ship every time the hazard bar (be it cold, heat, or radiation) gets too low. This epitomises the problem that No Man's Sky faces. It's an exploration game with a nearly endless number of planets, but the only difference is in the visuals and names of those planets (and indeed, in some cases such as Plutonium and monoliths, not even in the visuals). Sure I came out of hyperspace once to be faced with a massive planet that makes me go "wow". The first time I encountered an alien race and had to learn its language, that was kind of cool. But once you've had that experience for the first time that's it; you can come out of space to a massive planet in your view-screen and you've already seen it. But then... Plutonium is always a red crystal structure that you press RT to destroy and gain some resources. On every planet. Never is it sometimes buried in a rock face you need to excavate and process with a machine you need to choose between taking space when you move on or leaving behind. Thamium-9 (or should we call it Same-ium?) always seems to be a plant that you run up to and press "X" on. Sure, sometimes that plant is blue, sometimes it glows, but it's never different enough to make me stop. You meet a new race and spend the next hour searching out monoliths, just like the last time you met a new race (or going through identical sets of ruins). The same short loops repeat time and again; find a planet, find and fetch the resources, find and activate the monoliths, maybe aim at some rocks to scan them, move on to the next planet. Everything you do is effectively a fetch quest. I'm sure there's more to see; that I could go to another planet and find a four-legged dome-topped animal instead of the tentacled dome-topped one I've already seen. That I could find the yellow iron rock instead of the brown iron rock. I could probably find a purple Thamium-9 plant to go with the red and blue varieties (and maybe it'll glow). But I'd still just be running up to it and pressing a button before running back towards my ship. For an exploration game the idea of having billions of planets is great (and I'm sure there's ten minutes of amusement to be had naming them after Monty Python references). However, you need new things to do when you're exploring; new challenges to overcome. We need the ice planet where you have to construct a sled and tame some local animals to pull you around. We need the radiation blasted world where you have to dig a tunnel network. Encountering the same set of pre-fabricated structures and red crystalline formations of Plutonium over and over and over on every planet... Just doesn't do it for me.