For those of you not in the know, No Man's Sky is a game that doesn't yet have a release date.
About which very little is clear.
Other than that its art direction is an homage to golden-age Omni magazine covers.
And that it takes place in a procedurally-generated galaxy.
With a few quadrillion procedurally-generated planets.
full of untold bajillions of procedurally-generated critters based on literally hundreds of seeds.
That are explored, MMORPG, by gajillions of procedurally-generated ships.
I mean, jesus.
Here's the first space sim I ever played:
As someone on Reddit put it, "This game could never come out and it would still be my favorite of all time."
Fer real.
Yeah, this is one of the games I'm most looking forward to getting my hands on. That and The Witcher 3. However, the founder of the developer did say that it's "the opposite of an MMO." Because of the vast size of the universe it is very unlikely you'll run into other human players. Though it is possible to play with them if you did. I think it just looks like a really nice game to chill with. Put on a great album, have a drink, and explore the universe. It doesn't even really matter if not much happens. For me, the most defining factor of this game will be how much diversity they manage to derive from their procedural generation. Also, the visuals are fantastic.
This game looks like it has a whole lot of potential, but it also seems like it's really ambitious and will have to work really hard not to disappoint. I love games, especially really huge, sprawling ones, but man, I do not have time for them anymore, unfortunately.
I am so making time. Well, that's not true. I remember Spore, and thinking "this game is going to be awesome!" and then like a day later, the press was "this game is so not awesome" and I'm like "whelp, that's a letdown. At least I didn't buy it." Realistically speaking, I have no reason to buy a PS4 until this game comes out. But when this game comes out, unless it sucks, I'll buy a PS4 for it. (until then it's Wipeout HD Fury)
I don't know how I feel about consoles. There's lots of potential for PC gaming, but I don't think it'll take off in the way that it could until great games come out for the lowest common denominator. I had a pretty nice computer a few years ago that ran Skyrim really well, but this piece of junk I'm on now can barely run it on the lowest settings (like, characters basically have no faces). Incidentally, my mom was saying the other day that she was kind of toying with the idea of getting an XBox One because she was interested in that Kinect thing and some dancing game or other, but when you tally up all the costs of getting a good TV (if you don't have one) plus the Kinect, plus the game, plus the console and all the services, it's like the same cost as buying a really sweet PC (or putting one together, as far as I know). Anyway, if my mom is talking about getting into gaming, I'll take that as a benchmark that games really are starting to become the kind of immersive experiences that people are going to have a hard time denying as "art".
That was the Wii in a nutshell: "Let's see if we can get a bunch of people who would never play Call of Duty to spend $300 on a balance board." Answer was: Fuck to the yes. Here's where I'm at: PC gaming is designed to use a keyboard and a mouse. That means there are potentially thousands of commands. It's designed to absorb your attention entirely, with no concessions to anyone else in the room. Console gaming is designed to use the buttons that fit on an ergonomic controller. It's designed to happen in the living room, which probably has other people walking through it at some point. There are necessarily concessions to observers. You can't watch someone play a PC game unless you're a fan of that PC game. However, watching someone fuck up on a console game is almost as much fun as watching reality television - never mind watching something interesting. I've got a hand-me-down PS3 and a Wii. But I've got a bitchin' couch, a 92" projection screen and a coffee table. That means my wife and I can trade off on beating Tomb Raider or The Cave or Metroid Prime or Okami or Zelda and it's a casual, engaging experience. If I'm playing Crysis I'm playing it alone. So I don't play Crysis.
The first space sim you ever played was Asteroids?
You know, I haven't played an online game since like, shit, 2007, and that was only a couple of times, and the vitriol and nastiness turned me off forever, but this seems like a slightly different and maybe more accessible take on Eve, which I haven't played but have heard wonderful things about. I may actually do this one.