Review of No Man's Sky for the PS4

Everything that I had heard and seen about No Man's Sky before launch made me want to get the game and play it right away. This game was only supposed to be for the PS4, but can also be played on the PC as well. The version of the game that I am reviewing is for the PS4. I will describe how the game starts out to give you a better feel for the game. When the game is loaded up, you see the title page and then you drift among the stars until you finally crash land on a planet. You start the game by holding down the square button. You leave the crashed ship and take a quick look around at your surroundings. In the game, when you first land on a new planet, you will see the name of the planet, when it was discovered, and what the conditions of the planet are. The first planet that you crash land on is not that dangerous and will have all the resources that you need to repair the ship. The pictures and video that I have in this article is from a play through that I started so that I could have pictures and video for this article. Since you have crashed on the planet, your ship is damaged and needs to be repaired before you can move it. The starting ship has only 15 inventory slots and some of those slots are filled with ship parts that allow your ship to travel in space. The most inventory slots that you can have on a ship at this point in time is 48 slots. If you want to try and buy a ship later on in the game with that many slots it will cost around 120 million units more or less depending on what the ship is equipped with.

Near your ship is a distress beacon which you can activate. It gives you the choice of following the Atlas path or not. If you follow the Atlas path and collect 10 Atlas stones, you will be able to create a new star somewhere in the universe. If you choose not to follow the path, you just explore the galaxy freely. The materials that you need to fix your ship are located close to where your ship crashed. You start out with a really basic multi tool that has only five slots which is also damaged. Three of those slots are filled with the mining beam, analysis visor, and scanner. Both the analysis visor and the scanner are damaged need to be fixed. The analysis visor takes 25 iron to fix which can be found usually in the rocks lying around the planet. The scanner takes 25 carbon to fix which can be found by harvesting plants. The most slots that a multi tool can have at this point in time is 24 slots. Better multi tools can sometimes be found in buildings where an alien is located. There are only three species of aliens that you can talk to excluding the Atlas interfaces: Korvax, Gek, and Vy'keen. It is possible to learn all the words of these aliens by interacting with them or by interacting with the monoliths, plaques, or knowledge stones that can be found scattered on different planets. You can also raise your standing with each species by the choices that you make when you interact with them and with the monoliths.

You start off with only 12 slots in your exosuit with three slots already filled with life support, jet pack, and hazard protection. The most slots that you can have at this time of is 48 slots. This game does not include a tutorial so that it can be difficult to figure things out and what you need to do if you have not watched anyone play the game. The material that I had the hardest time locating at first was Heredium, which is usually found in a tall blue pillar and is a component that you need to repair your ship. You can carry only so much, so be careful in what you gather. I found that it can be really easy to gather a lot of low value material and not have any room for anything else.

I have included two video clips that I made of the start game and how to repair your ship. It comes in two parts. I did not narrate my videos and hopefully, the videos will be of some help. The videos will at least show some of what the game play looks like.

After playing the game for a little over a month, I feel that I can give the game a fair review. I don't think that the game is bad, but it feels like it could use more content. Each planet is randomly generated and feels that way. I like the idea that you can travel in space and explore new planets, but it would be nice if you could build more stuff in the game besides just upgrading your exosuit, multi tool, and ship. I like visiting the monoliths, but after visiting enough of them, it seems that there is not really any more story to be had and there really is nothing new that you learn. After learning all the words of any language, clicking on a knowledge stone or anything that would normally allow you to learn a new word will just give you the phrase: learned nothing new.

I like that if you land on a planet that is really hazardous, you can just skip it because there are so much to explore in the game that missing a few planets will not hurt your game experience, I also like that if there is a planet or system that you really like, you can spend as much time as you want, Getting to the center of the galaxy is nice, but all it does is basically restart the game with all the stuff that you have in a broken ship.

This game is most suited for people who just want to relax and wander around exploring the universe. This game is not for everyone and from what I have read and heard, this is one of those games that you either really love or hate. I would also advise to save often in this game. This game, even after the patches still can crash and freeze up.