No Man's Sky Review - Story Mode

No Man's Sky Review - Story Mode

Writer's Note: Story Mode reviews are meant to describe a typical day of gameplay while summarizing the overall feeling of a game to prospective buyers. They are not scored and do not delve directly into game mechanics or particular details. 

Taking off from a barren, radioactive wasteland filled with mineral resources and drone police, I pilot my starship skyward, punching through the atmosphere into an asteroid strewn, violet-hued solar system. To my left I notice several heavy freighters engaged in a battle with space pirates, jets of red and green blinking back and forth. Checking my inventory, I can see that I'm ill-equipped for an starship assault, lacking the necessary materials to repair my shields and refill my pulse blaster. Therefore, I reorient myself to my right and see a yet undiscovered planet. Engaging my hyperdrive, the onscreen prompt informs me that I'm 40 seconds from this new planet, the invigorating electronic music breaking the silence. 

I begin to plunge through the atmosphere of this new planet, cartwheeling for style points, and am greeted by a lush, tropical planet complete with maroon oceans and palm-tree lookalikes. Spotting a trade outpost, I set down on the landing platform and head over to the strange Gek lifeform poring over his future IPad. Though I've only learned around 50 words from the Gek language thanks to the plentiful alien ruins that dot many of the planets, I am able to understand three words: help, oxide, and blueprint. With these fragments, when he asks me to give him either silicate or oxide, I know what to do and I am rewarded with new multi-tool blue print that will speed up the mining process. 

After I disengage from my new alien friend, I can see that several other ships have landed at the spaceport including one that seems to have been ripped straight out of Battlestar Galactica and I immediately check how much it costs for me to purchase as my own. At nine million credits, its just a little too expensive for me despite the fact that it has only two more inventory slots than my own, ugly-as-sin Slave 1 impersonator. Now I've got a mission though. Find Gold or Emeril deposits on this planet and make some money. I check the trade kiosk and see that they're buying Emeril for slightly more than the galactic average and I physically cheer.  

Hopping off the the elevated landing platforms, I jet pack safely to the planet's surface and find it carpeted with oddly-shaped grass and iron-laden rocks. Blasting one of the rocks with my mining laser, I pick up some iron for safe keeping and head into the wild. Before I get twenty feet, I'm suddenly beset by some tentacle crab horror that skitters in circles around me.  Flipping my laser to combat mode where I've leveled up a shotgun-style close-range blaster, I manage the clumsy combat controls and take it down in one shot.  Continuing forward, I crest a hill that reveals rolling hills, pocked by deep cavern entrances and eventually giving way to a massive sea.  And amidst those hills I notice roving bands of triceratops-like creatures, lumbering to some unknown destination. I scan them, noting that they are passive by nature and decide to name them Asteroid Escapees netting myself some free credits. 

Just beyond the migrating herd, a glittering green spire of Emeril beckons me and, for some reason, I find myself inordinately excited to go shoot a laser at a rock for 5 minutes. After I mined the Emeril, named some more bizarre wildlife, got in a battle with some interloping Sentinels (drone space police), and sold my minerals back at the trade post, I have eclipsed nine million credits and although my desired ship is long gone, I know that I can buy it in the future. I take off once again and this time decide to head to a new solar system, opening the daunting galactic map. 

Inside the map, millions and millions of tiny dots of light blink across my screen, each one holding mysteries yet undiscovered. Perhaps an Atlas installation, or a space anomaly, or even a black hole that will jettison me closer to my eventual goal at the center of the universe will be waiting.  It is at the same time invigorating and exhausting, creating the sensation that I'm not only a great explorer but also insignificant. 

As the light-years have passed me by, I have garnered the maximum number of inventory slots on my exosuit; I've unearthed entire ecosystems whilst painstakingly naming each creature; I've discovered the secrets of the Atlas installations; I've warped through several black holes shown to me by the enigmatic Nada and Polo; I've engaged in and thwarted space piracy; I've fought off the toughest forces of the Sentinels and fought through the rage-inducing game crashes that happen all too frequently; and despite all of this, I've made an all but imperceptible dent in the galaxy. It's a tough thing not to be weighed down by the melancholic inertia of it all after upwards of 20 hours. That's when you discover that it doesn't matter what's at the center of the galaxy. I've already been on my journey from fledgling, awe-inspired newbie to battle-tested frontiersman and whatever's there at the center isn't relevant to my fantastical travels thus far, to the thrill of the purest sense of exploration that comes before it. 

To those among you who truly want to become planet-charting space adventurers who measure success in the efficiency of a mining laser and the competency with which you understand alien races, then I cannot recommend this game highly enough. However, if the number of wings on your spaceship doesn't really matter to you or if you're put off by random game crashes or the seemingly goalless nature of the progress, perhaps you should just enjoy No Man's Sky from the safe confines of a twitch livestream. There are only a certain number of algorithms that can generate so much 'new' geography and with this knowledge, you know there are no massive alien cities or diverse space stations  Nonetheless, after all is done and said, I will simply say that I have thoroughly enjoyed this game for exactly what it is.