No Man's Sky (PS4 & PC)

[Onken]

This one deserves its on thread and should've really had one by now.

Theres still no solid release date but they're targeting toward the end of the year. Sony are well behind it and there next big press event is the Paris Games Week at in late October when I expect a final trailer and details before its out.

Will it live up to the hype? Doubtful but I can see myself enjoying what it offers.

[Pdine]

You are on a red planet with grasslands and a yellow sky with three-legged creatures that look like giraffes crossed with hippos.
What now?
>_

[TheFalconMalteser]

It looks like they've forgotten to include a fun game in it.  As far as I can tell you land on a planet, click on a various bit of shrubbery, and then get back on your ship.

[falafel]

go east

[TheFalconMalteser]

If there's genuinely interesting trading it could work... but then isn't it just x3 or whatever that was called?

[TheFalconMalteser]

Oh and

kill jester

[TheFalconMalteser]

It's this sort of comment that concerns me, from the developer:

"That's the truth of it. And I think that's what's interesting in games at the moment. There's nothing to stop you. Everyone starts on a different planet on the outer edge of the galaxy and there's nothing to stop you never getting in your ship. Just walking around a planet, if that's what you want to do... It's not what I want to do, but some people may want to -  and they'll have a Twitch channel, and they'll have people watching them, probably.

Well no - unless their genuinely is enough stuff to do on a single planet - but my guess is that there isn't and that would be completely boring and pointless.

[Thursday]

It looks like Elite, but you can explore the planets. Which sounds fine to me, but a lot of people are going to be disappointed with it. They definitely started hyping this too soon. But I'm guessing they were pushed into it because there's been a lot of money invested for such a small studio.

[The Boston Crab]

I don't think they've hyped it themselves, they've tended to give pretty bare facts from the off, none of which has been disproved by any footage so far. There's no narrative. There's no goals beyond reaching the centre of the universe, though there's a fair amount of progression in terms of upgrading gear and compiling data. There's not necessarily any point to it for many gamers.

Bare facts: It's a procedurally generated universe, which will feature a certain spectrum of diversity, in which you can take off and go through the atmosphere into space, and vice versa. I assume there's a fair amount of fast travel with hyperspace stuff and the descent/ascent through the atmosphere might also be masked by loading screen/trickery/removal of player control. The last point is the main concern I've got, really. I don't want the space exploration/landing to be little more than Metroid Prime.

I think the shooting looks and sounds bloody awful, though, like something from a Flash tablet game. The concept of shooting rocks for currency and materials is also cack and simplistic when you consider the sophistication of some of what is happening elsewhere in the game.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Giving the benefit of the doubt, you'd think the developers must surely be aware that the game would pall pretty sharpish if there's not enough variety. presumably it would be at least as varied as Minecraft manages.

I wonder if it'll have big oceans with space whales and such, or if it'll be limited to shallow stretches of water with space trouts.

[Bored of Canada]

Do I get to punch trees and rocks in order to make more stuff that means I can punch other trees and other rocks?

I SURE HOPE SO.

[Bored of Canada]

I've been busy so haven't read RPS in a bit but I just hopped on and there's an article with my exact fear talking with the exact same point as my previous post.

[TheFalconMalteser]

It looks like Elite, but you can explore the planets. Which sounds fine to me, but a lot of people are going to be disappointed with it. They definitely started hyping this too soon. But I'm guessing they were pushed into it because there's been a lot of money invested for such a small studio.

If the environment can be demolished... and you build things... well maybe it starts to feel like Elite with a Terraria dimension.  I really want a new game, I even thought about getting FF online....

[Johnny Textface]

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=43739.0

[Viero_Berlotti]

I love the stylised look, but think that may ultimately restrict variety. From the little bits I've seen it looks as if they'll be definite planet types; jungle, volcanic, desert, temperate forest all having a similar stylistic look. A universe created on an Apple Mac by the God of graphic design.

Games like this are always going to be smoke and mirrors, and infinite possibilities are just an illusion, but I reckon this universe is going to start looking samey pretty quick though.

[kngen]

if the planets are self-generated from algorithms, surely it will only take a tweak-as-they-go-on approach from the programmers to change things up a bit. Potential for finding cool new shit and not letting on apart from to your buddies, and then getting annoyed with everyone else stumbles upon it, too. Hipsters in Space!

[Mister Six]

I don't think they've hyped it themselves, they've tended to give pretty bare facts from the off, none of which has been disproved by any footage so far.

Yeah, it's mostly been the press and gamers who've been frothing at the gash for it.

It's frustrating, because the moment this was announced, I knew that it was going to be a gameplay-light "experience" with some clever code as opposed to a compelling game, but almost everyone started acting like it was the second coming OMG I BET U CAN GO INSIDE A SHOP AND LOOK INSIDE A BOX AND PICK UP THE THING INSIDE AND THEN ZOOM INTO ITS ATOMS AND THEN ENTER A NEW UNIVERSE AND ITS ALL IN REAL TIME. And when it turns out to be what the designers say it's been all along, everyone says it's shit and goes off disappointed.

It's like with Watch Dogs - it was fucking obvious from the start that it was just going to be a GTA clone with a few pre-scripted "press X to hack" sequences, but everyone seemed to think it was going to be this insanely detailed world where each pedestrian had their own personal history and you could hack ANYTHING.[nb]Granted, the developer/publisher hyped it too. But there was a frustrating lack of critical thinking from games press and gamers alike.[/nb] And lo and behold..!

[surreal]

You'd think people would have learned from being disappointed with everything Peter Molyneux has ever done that these things are never as detailed and flexible as you want them to be.  I think Hello Games have done the best they can in trying to promote the game while holding back the tide of hype as much as possible - if people are disappointed it's not the developer's fault.

Personally I'm looking forward to it - I'm expecting to treat it as I do Minecraft, just log in every so often and just mess about without being forced to do missions or unlock stuff.  Having a proper sandbox be just that will be fine, and if it looks spectacular then all the better.

[The Boston Crab]

Yeah, totally agree. The IGN First vids over the past month have been pretty good in showing exactly what you do. I'm very doubtful that there's any further surprises to it, either in terms of gameplay mechanics or narrative, and it looks like an interesting experience. I don't feel deceived in the slightest.

Watch Dogs on the other hand, I felt totally duped. I agree that I should have known better but I still point a shitty finger at Ubisoft for massively overselling the mechanics. The vast majority of the hacking stuff was useless circumstantial press X to trigger cut scene. I know you just said that but wanted to repeat exactly how shit it was.

Anyway, just hoping for a release date for this year on NMS. That said, one of the most amazing release line ups I can remember leading up to Chrimbo so I'll survive.

[Pdine]

I had assumed that Watch Dogs was a dog-spotting simulator and was extremely disappointed by the reality.

[Onken]

How the fuck did Sean Murray get booked to make an appearance on here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqeN6hj4dZU

[Onken]

JUNE 2016

Fucking hell. That confirms they're saving it to be a PSVR launch title.

[The Boston Crab]

I know this was predicted but it's actually pretty exciting, and an actual reason to get the VR thing. Let's hope it's not total aids.

[Bhazor]

I don't care about the gameplay. To me it's just a huge procedural version of Endless Ocean. If there was no space flight or other worlds I'd still be perfectly satisfied with it as just a wild life photography simulator.

[The Boston Crab]

Same, I just want something to escape from marking.