“No Man’s Sky,” a first person perspective exploration and crafting game, is set in a procedurally generated “sandbox” galaxy that currently contains over 18 quintillion planets. “No Man’s Sky” mirrors similar game play as “Minecraft”, “The Long Dark”, “Journey” and “Elite: Dangerous”.

The planets are procedurally generated with unique fauna, flora, atmosphere, weather and rock formations, in which a player can discover and catalog everything they find. Furthermore, players can meet and learn to understand races of beings by learning their native language one word at a time. The player can also log all discoveries to the Internet and rename planets and solar systems.

“No Man’s Sky” was released for the PS4 on Aug. 9 and for PCs on Aug. 10. It was developed by Hello Games, which is based in England with a team of about 15 members lead by game director Sean Murray. The graphics and colors of the game have been influenced by artists of classic science fiction book covers such as Angus McKie, Chris Foss and Ralph McQuarrie.

The game opens on a planet where the player’s ship has crash landed. Players do not have a set objective, but they can search the planet for materials to repair their ship. Once their ship is fixed, they can fly into the sky and explore the universe as if they were in Star Trek.

 Players who explore a previously undiscovered animal, ocean, tree, planet or star system, they can scan it, and name that thing to earn some in game currency called “Units,” They can use Units at space stations, and merchants on different planets.

The main problem of “No Man’s Sky” is simply to survive. A robotic army that patrols each planet is called the Sentinels. If the players just walk around on the planet, the Sentinels just ignore them. But if players start killing creatures or start taking too many resources then the Sentinels will attack them. The robots attack like traditional first-person shooter enemies, shooting lasers, strafing and taking cover.

A battle between two alien races

Getting lost. Being forgotten. Discovery. Wonder.

“No Man’s Sky” is simply all that.

Players can disconnect here from the mundane world of insane paced, shallow, light-speed information. Enter a world where the laws are natural and the gameplay is as inventive as their imagination. This is a box of LEGO bricks that has no final design. If they want to be evil, they can be evil. If they want to be good, they can be good. It is all up to the player.

This game is blue ocean strategy. It is non-linear thinking. We as gamers have gotten too used to the “push the button, get a treat” endorphin kick. Fire the gun, drop the frag, run like hell, repeat. If you can let go of that and just lose yourself in the experience, you will love this game.

Also, the technology of a procedurally generated universe developed by Hello Games is a milestone achievement for video games. It creates a huge space for players to freely roam and for game developers to fill with stories, quests and mystery. But, this is where Hello Games fell very short.

Sean Murray promised features like planetary physics, ship classes, asteroid landings, faction reputation and massive space battles. A commerce trading system and free roaming non-player characters were also to be included. Murray also promised an expansive and immersive storyline that would intersect the player’s actions with the actions of all the beings within the game. Murray as well as promised the inclusion of multiplayer.

All these features were absent at release of the game causing a major controversy. Also, the game on both PS4 and PCs were subject to multiple bugs, graphical problems and severe crashing issues. The game feels undeveloped, especially for a full price release at $59.99. With all the major promised features missing, the gameplay becomes quickly repetitive. And the one major goal of reaching the “center of the Universe” becomes a grind of mining resources and jumping from solar system to solar system.  

If you just play “No Man’s Sky” for the discovery and viewing beautiful vistas, I still think the game has replay value. I give a seven out of 10 because of the undeveloped features that were promised. It is still possible to repair this game with patches and downloadable content, but until then, “No Man’s Sky” is a huge ocean that is an inch deep.

The Parkway West Pathfinder gives No Man’s Sky a 7/10.