Support NeoGAF

[Bloodporne]

The gameplay in general is paper-thin at best with a rinse and repeat nature to it. Depth? Forget it. The visuals do it no favors either and the franken-fauna design is absurd.

The best thing I can say from my experience with NMS is I like the cover art (I bought the game digitally) and I like the "idea/concept" of a grand planet-hopping spacefaring exploration game but even though the Hello Games developers seemed to put love into making their version of it, the sum of its parts was pure jank and ultimately just not fun to play (I put about 6 hours in and decided that was more than enough for me) in my experience.

I spent four hours at my friend's house last night playing and it sadly confirmed my previous questions and apprehensions in the thread.

Essentially, I feel exactly the same as this. The gameplay is unbelievably thin and un-fun at every turn. It 'feels' totally off to me on top of it, the character movement, camera. My friend is pissed off he dropped $60 on this quite frankly since I know some people asked about value.

In its current stage, I would be as well. It looks gorgeous and the idea is fantastic but the promise of greatness wore off for me after discovering the streams weren't magically 'played wrong', but it truly feels that boring and devoid of any excitement when playing. I'd liken my experience with it to playing only the first landing room of Metroid Prime in an infinitely stretched version over and over again or something. As a matter of fact, the general look of the animals and fauna strongly reminded me of a half-baked, sloppy version of Metroid Prime.

I can't say I liked anything about it but its pretty face ultimately after getting my hands on it.

 

[tcrunch]

Spore 2 or Greatest Invention of Humankind confirmed yet?

Mass Effect 1 Side Missions: The Game.

...oh.

 

[backflip10019]

I just want to share this here:

Yikes, getting lost in a randomly generated cave for an hour sounds extremely frustrating to me, not my idea of fun at all.

 

[Bloodporne]

I think the reason the game only starts to shine after 20 hours is that the devs do not want to put an incentive on the start of the game, otherwise people would just restart over and over to discover/name new planets instead of upgrading their tools and exploring.

If a game only starts to 'shine', aka stops sucking, after TWENTY hours of gaming, something's seriously fucked up.

 

[PodcastFips]

Where are the scores? It's almost like nobody wants to start the avalanche.

I'm going to insert the disc now, btw.

 

[shark sandwich]

If a game only starts to 'shine', aka stops sucking, after TWENTY hours of gaming, something's seriously fucked up.

Yeah, if a game just starts to shine after 20 hours, it absolutely deserves to get shit on.

 

[backflip10019]

If a game only starts to 'shine', aka stops sucking, after TWENTY hours of gaming, something's seriously fucked up.

The last game I remember people telling others to hold it out for 20 hours until it gets good is FF13.

 

[Baconsaurus Rex]

If a game only starts to 'shine', aka stops sucking, after TWENTY hours of gaming, something's seriously fucked up.

It depends how much of a game is left after the initial 20 hours. A 150 hour game? Yes I could grind through the bad stuff. 30 hours? Yeah no.

 

[danowat]

I think the reason the game only starts to shine after 20 hours is that the devs do not want to put an incentive on the start of the game, otherwise people would just restart over and over to discover/name new planets instead of upgrading their tools and exploring.

Possibly, but regardless of whether it was a design choice or not, it's poor design (IMO), not everyone has 20 hours to plough into something before it gets good, I value my time more than that.

Where are the scores? It's almost like nobody wants to start the avalanche.

I'm going to insert the disc now, btw.

ACG is the first to give it one I believe (at least from an outlet that I give credence too)

 

[Felix Lighter]

If it's the same as the PS4, I wouldn't bother, there is an altitude buffer, and no matter how much you point at the ground it won't go below this till you press the land button.

As for throttle,single button press boost and slow down, that's it.

That's actually worse than I feared. This was the one aspect that I noticed from early videos but it's not completely obvious just by watching others play. Your description makes it seem even simpler than I had anticipated.

 

[Freeman76]

Where are the scores? It's almost like nobody wants to start the avalanche.

I'm going to insert the disc now, btw.

The scores wont mean shit for this game. They are going to be polarising as FUCK.

I got addicted to the gameplay loop after a few hours, maybe 5? You have ACG saying after 20 he wasnt feeling it. This is going to be the norm, it's certainly not a game for everyone.

I love the atmosphere and relaxed feeling of it personally, it's not in a rush to go anywhere. The inventory management pisses me off no end, but they have already said they will expand it more, other than that it's a winner for me.

 

[More_Badass]

Yikes, getting lost in a randomly generated cave for an hour sounds extremely frustrating to me, not my idea of fun at all.

That seems like a good metric if someone would enjoy this game. Those kinds of moments are what makes exploring fun and exciting.

 

[backflip10019]

That seems like a good metric if someone would enjoy this game. Those kinds of moments are what makes exploring fun and exciting.

I don't know about that. From what I've seen of the game, it seems like I'd really enjoy it (don't have a PS4 currently, though). I'm really interested in the exploration/scanning parts of the game, but don't want the experience to be hindered by the downsides of procedural generation, which the "hour long cave" seems to be an indicator of. Quite honestly I just don't have the time for it. Some sort of fast travel back to your ship option might mitigate my concerns.

 

[Irminsul]

I think after watching and reading about NMS a bit, my biggest concern is indeed the survival aspect and inventory mangement.

I mean, I have 170 hours on Euro Truck Simulator. But I play that to relax, not to babysit my truck. Yes, I have to refuel, get rest and sometimes repair it, but that's once every 30 minutes of gameplay or so and done relatively quickly. It seems you have to do stuff like that all five minutes in NMS, and that's far too often.

I like to explore, but to me it seems that NMS is actually punishing for doing that. Maybe I'm wrong, but at least that's what I got even from Giantbomb's basically positive Quicklook video.

Oh, and while ETS definitely doesn't have any deep gameplay, NMS seems to be even shallower. In ETS, you at least have the option that driving around narrow roads or in cities is a bit of a challenge and reverse parking your trailer can be even more so. Whereas it doesn't seem you can do any wrong flying around in NMS.

 

[Bloodporne]

It depends how much of a game is left after the initial 20 hours. A 150 hour game? Yes I could grind through the bad stuff. 30 hours? Yeah no.

Just the idea of having to force yourself through twenty hours of trying to like a videogame to finally get some enjoyment out of it sounds more like a form of borderline insanity to me honestly...kind of in a funny way but still absurd as hell. If a game can't create at least a spark within an hour, there's no saving it for me.

 

[Freeman76]

I think after watching and reading about NMS a bit, my biggest concern is indeed the survival aspect and inventory mangement.

I mean, I have 170 hours on Euro Truck Simulator. But I play that to relax, not to babysit my truck. Yes, I have to refuel, get rest and sometimes repair it, but that's once every 30 minutes of gameplay or so and done relatively quickly. It seems you have to do stuff like that all five minutes in NMS, and that's far too often.

I like to explore, but to me it seems that NMS is actually punishing for doing that. Maybe I'm wrong, but at least that's what I got even from Giantbomb's basically positive Quicklook video.

Oh, and while ETS definitely doesn't have any deep gameplay, NMS seems to be even shallower. In ETS, you at least have the option that driving around narrow roads or in cities is a bit of a challenge and reverse parking your trailer can be even more so. Whereas it doesn't seem you can do any wrong flying around in NMS.

The inventory management is a pain the arse, majorly. It isnt meant to be a 'pick everything up in case you need it' game, but its hard not to play it like that. I think it needs some balancing in that regards.

 

[Madchad]

Spent about 12 hours in game so far been on a total of 1 planet and just got to a moon.

Said moon is strictly populated with only gold and plutonium with exo upgrades no more than 2min apart, found 5 so far on this moon and the gold is paying for them

It also has a lot of these orb monolith thing that i have to make a choice at rather than just examine

Love it so far and i have not even made my hyper drive yet jeez

 

[Confidence Man]

That seems like a good metric if someone would enjoy this game. Those kinds of moments are what makes exploring fun and exciting.

Exploring for what though? Is it possible to find some rare item in that cave, or is it just the same resources you find everywhere else?

 

[Blackthorn]

Exploring for what though? Is it possible to find some rare item in that cave, or is it just the same resources you find everywhere else?

For me, the joy of exploration itself is the reward for exploration, just as it is in real life. As long as there is the promise of seeing something new, I'm happy to keep going.

 

[shark sandwich]

It depends how much of a game is left after the initial 20 hours. A 150 hour game? Yes I could grind through the bad stuff. 30 hours? Yeah no.

Uh no it doesn't depend on what comes after the 20 hours. 20 hours of boredom/tedium before getting to the good stuff is terrible game design, regardless whether you personally are willing to trudge through it.

 

[Freeman76]

Just the idea of having to force yourself through twenty hours of trying to like a videogame to finally get some enjoyment out of it sounds more like a form of borderline insanity to me honestly...kind of in a funny way but still absurd as hell. If a game can't create at least a spark within an hour, there's no saving it for me.

WTF. Why would you be interested in buying a game that doesnt interest you enough to want to see if it's for you in the first place?

It really seems like some people want to buy EVERY game that comes out, always searching for some 'feeling' and hoping that every new release might bring it.

If it doesnt look like it's for you, save yourself the money, save yourself the effort of posting about it in threads and dont go anywhere near it. Posting in threads of games that dont interest people is 'bordering insanity'.

 

[SnakeXs]

Uh no it doesn't depend on what comes after the 20 hours. 20 hours of boredom/tedium before getting to the good stuff is terrible game design, regardless whether you personally are willing to trudge through it.

It's as if "20 hours of trash" is some established fact. I'm 10-12 hours in and I've adored every moment of it so far. If it gets better from here on out I'm in for a treat.

 

[More_Badass]

I don't know about that. From what I've seen of the game, it seems like I'd really enjoy it (don't have a PS4 currently, though). I'm really interested in the exploration/scanning parts of the game, but don't want the experience to be hindered by the downsides of procedural generation, which the "hour long cave" seems to be an indicator of. Quite honestly I just don't have the time for it. Some sort of fast travel back to your ship option might mitigate my concerns.

If you could fast travel to your ship, that ruins the whole danger and such of exploring. Look at the impressions of people on hazardous planets, and then imagine how boring it would be if you could call your ship to you or teleport to your ship

Exploring for what though? Is it possible to find some rare item in that cave, or is it just the same resources you find everywhere else?

Do you need a reason? Exploring for exploring sake is awesome. Then again, I'm a guy who walked across Skyrim and RDR, and finds it fun to just pick a direction in Minecraft and see what's out there

 

[boskee]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

 

[Freeman76]

If you could fast travel to your ship, that ruins the whole danger and such of exploring. Look at the impressions of people on hazardous planets, and then imagine how boring it would be if you could call your ship to you or teleport to your ship

I agree with you but also I think it would be good for the functionality of the game if there was a teleport to ship that you could use once an hour or takes a lot of resources.

 

[Bloodporne]

Exploring for what though? Is it possible to find some rare item in that cave, or is it just the same resources you find everywhere else?

From my experience with it last night, it depends on how far you're willing to stretch your definitions. If you define unique as seeing the same animal but now potentially with an ass as a face or ten feet taller walking in a circle, or now seeing rocks formed in a different fashion which affects gameplay in no way and things like that, you'll be told there's plenty of 'unique' stuff on every planet. I'm being slightly snarky, sure, but I'm not really exaggerating much sadly.

Like I said, I "only" spent 4 hours (which to me as a lot to check out a game) in it but my friend had already clocked 12 and said what I saw is what he's been seeing just three times as long. That being said, all the variations are purely cosmetic from what I saw, nothing affects gameplay in any meaningful or satisfying fashion.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

Metacritic bout to be lit

 

[LifEndz]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

Yikes. I wonder how much the servers being online can relieve some of the tedium he complains of.

 

[Hugstable]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

lol is it just me or is the site down?

 

[OCD Guy]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

5 out of 10 is average to me. Not mediocre

It's using a scale like that which is why a game getting a 7 is deemed as hot garbage, and only a 9 constitutes a good game.

 

[Hanmik]

lol is it just me or is the site down?

you can´t see the Review even when Jim Sterling is online ...

 

[MassiveNights]

Did Jim get to the centre of the galaxy?

 

[Spacecowboy77]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

And.. server's down

 

[jmaine_ph]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

After reading his impressions I expected lower.

 

[bbd23]

5 out of 10 is average to me. Not mediocre

It's using a scale like that which is why a game getting a 7 is deemed as hot garbage, and only a 9 constitutes a good game.

they mean the same thing?

 

[OverHeat]

Bought it played it for 3h...disappointed so far, not my type of game to much resources management for my liking

 

[Hero Prinny]

If a game only starts to 'shine', aka stops sucking, after TWENTY hours of gaming, something's seriously fucked up.

Reminds me me of thr ff13 arguments back in the day when people swore the game got good after 20 hours. Thats an absurd defense and really reaching to defend a shitty game

 

[boskee]

Whoa, those are some harsh words

 

[demosthenes]

The scores wont mean shit for this game. They are going to be polarising as FUCK.

I got addicted to the gameplay loop after a few hours, maybe 5? You have ACG saying after 20 he wasnt feeling it. This is going to be the norm, it's certainly not a game for everyone.

I love the atmosphere and relaxed feeling of it personally, it's not in a rush to go anywhere. The inventory management pisses me off no end, but they have already said they will expand it more, other than that it's a winner for me.

I thought this was known for this game. Everything leading up to it has seemed like exactly this.

 

[Bloodporne]

WTF. Why would you be interested in buying a game that doesnt interest you enough to want to see if it's for you in the first place?

It really seems like some people want to buy EVERY game that comes out, always searching for some 'feeling' and hoping that every new release might bring it.

If it doesnt look like it's for you, save yourself the money, save yourself the effort of posting about it in threads and dont go anywhere near it. Posting in threads of games that dont interest people is 'bordering insanity'.

Read the conversation prior and the key word TWENTY HOURS. If I have to struggle through twenty hours of disinterest to hopefully have it hit me at 21 hours, I might be fucking insane yes.

You missed the entire point and this thread is not your safe space either, so I'll continue to talk about a game I did have an interest in but which turned out to be rather shitty in my opinion.

 

[shinobi602]

5 out of 10 is average to me. Not mediocre.

.....

 

[Widge]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

and his website breaks!

I feel really sad about this. I was ready for a release day buy here with 0 expectations but it sounds almost as if the game is like the F2P iOS grind. The grind is the game and there is nothing else.

 

[Wok]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

And.. server's down

Even if his website is down you should never ever post entire articles. Bad form.

Edit: Removed.

 

[SocksAndShoes]

and his website breaks!

I feel really sad about this. I was ready for a release day buy here with 0 expectations but it sounds almost as if the game is like the F2P iOS grind. The grind is the game and there is nothing else.

I'm absolutely loving my experience with the game so far. I don't think it's anywhere close to the grind level of a mobile game. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[Lashley]

5 out of 10 is average to me. Not mediocre

It's using a scale like that which is why a game getting a 7 is deemed as hot garbage, and only a 9 constitutes a good game.

Mediocre means average though

 

[Freeman76]

Read the conversation prior and the key word TWENTY HOURS. If I have to struggle through twenty hours of disinterest to hopefully have it hit me at 21 hours, I might be fucking insane yes.

You missed the entire point and this thread is not your safe space either, so I'll continue to talk about a game I did have an interest in but which turned out to be rather shitty in my opinion.

I dont know why you bought this game if it didnt seem like something you would like. From everything we have been shown up to the point it came out, it was obvious what it would be. It seems like you bought it hoping it would be something else, and are unhappy that it wasnt.

Anyway, pointless talking further, thats what the ignore function is for after all.

 

[spekkeh]

5 out of 10 is average to me. Not mediocre

It's using a scale like that which is why a game getting a 7 is deemed as hot garbage, and only a 9 constitutes a good game.

They mean pretty much the same thing. Mediocre applied to qualities might have a more negative implicit connotation, because who wants to go out of his way to spend time with something that's average?

 

[MassiveNights]

and his website breaks!

I feel really sad about this. I was ready for a release day buy here with 0 expectations but it sounds almost as if the game is like the F2P iOS grind. The grind is the game and there is nothing else.

FWIW there tonnes of people in the OT finding loads to this game and really enjoying it.

Watching streams of it and playing it for yourself, with your own sense of discovery, is profoundly different for many.

 

[Xater]

Here you are:

Even if his website is down you should never ever post entire articles. Bad form.

 

[R3TRO]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

Gah damn.