No Man’s Sky
For: PS4, PC
From: Hello Games
Rating: (PG) ★★★★★
So, back to the beginning. No Man's Sky has been on the radar for years and has long intrigued gamers with its bold promise of virtually infinite space exploration and insane numbers like 18 QUINTILLION (that's ... a lot of zeroes) planets.
It's the child of a tiny gaming company and the product of the mind of a dude called Sean Murray, who apparently grew up in big sky country in the Australian outback and would gaze longingly at the stars and fantasise about exploring strange new worlds and galaxies.
The phrase used around the game is "procedurally generated'', which proper gaming boffins will understand but which needs a bit of explanation. It effectively means the planets, creatures and plants in the game are not the product of artists painstakingly creating each element by hand. They are instead churned out using algorithms and random number generators, and that's about as technical as I can get.
The result is a sweeping, unimaginably huge game on a scale unlike anything else in the history of sandbox gaming. But the ambition of No Man's Sky was always going to require being matched by the solidity of its gameplay if the hype was going to last, and what a relief to report that is the case.
Here's the setup: You start the game alone, on a strange planet - everyone that plays the game starts on a different planet - on the edge of a strange galaxy.
Then, a warning voice. Your spacesuit is running low on ... something ... and you need to quickly find that material to stay alive. But where? There is no map, no hand-holding, no set objective other than immediate survival.
Staying alive, thankfully, is not too difficult or demanding, and you can go back to exploring this bizarre world with the help of your "multi-tool'', a sort of mining tool-cum-weapon-cum-scanner which can be upgraded and used for various purposes.
Harvesting resources becomes the next major focus. There is stuff everywhere, including iron and zinc for fuel, plutonium for charging weaponry and equipment, a silicone-like element called heridium for advancing technology, and gold for cashing in at market.
One catch? Your spacesuit and ship both have VERY limited inventory slots, and managing and upgrading storage soon becomes a big part of the game.
Next step, explore. And keep exploring. Once you've had a good poke around the first planet, leap into that ship and set sail through the galaxy, stopping off at any spot that takes your interest.
It is virtually guaranteed every planet you visit, and every creature you encounter, has never been seen before in the game. You can rename the lot and upload the new names to the "Atlas'', the game's sort of data system, so in the event other gamers stumble across a planet you have already discovered, they will discover "Oamaru''. (Yes, that was my first planet.)
Your character does not level up, as such, but there is a deep trading and upgrading system to keep you hunting for hours (days, weeks, months). There are also aliens to encounter and strange languages to slowly master. And caves. And jetpacks!
I feel like I'm rambling. But the truth is No Man's Sky has generated a sense of wonder in me that no game has in a very long time.
I'm not going to pretend I've played it for 100 hours, but I am excited and entranced and can't wait to see what else comes next - and that's even before I really have a clue where the overall "story'' is going to take me.
Frustrations? Only a couple. Inventory management is a pain for a while, and some glitchy graphics can occasionally spoil a trip across a planet.
But ye gods, this is a wondrous achievement. You need to play No Man's Sky, because it is going to be remembered as a classic.
