Game Review: No Man's Sky Next on Xbox One reaches for the stars

The Game of 39 Hello Games' incredibly ambitious space exploration reaches its biggest milestone yet, and appears on Xbox One for the first time.

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No matter how much it evolves Over time No Man's Sky will always be one of the biggest disappointments in the game's history. No matter how you look at it, that's what it's all about. Is mainly the fault of the developer Hello Games but some reproaches must also go to Sony to incite them and the players not to recognize the warning signs. The idea of ​​exploring a galaxy generated by the procedure was always too good to be true and the entertainment offered by the original version of 2016 had a frustrating half-life.

But for the credit of Hello Games, they remained faithful. Since then, we're adding new features and updates that are completely free. This resulted in the "Next" update, which also coincides with the first appearance of the game on Xbox One. This review represents one of the versions, once they receive the update, although the game on the Xbox One X means that you experience it with the greatest power that modern consoles can offer.

The end result is definitely an improvement, but we do not think even Hello Games can claim that the game has its full potential. Regardless of the number of new features and enhancements to the update layers – and there are many – there is virtually no change in the underlying game loop, and this is going to to pose a problem to new and old players.

One of the big mistakes of the initial marketing of No Man's Sky was not to specify the type of game that's out there. he was before the launch. There was no practical preview and everything was very vague as to what you actually do in the game. The flippant answer to this question is "not much" and it's true that in terms of Traditional gameplay, No Man's Sky seems often superficial and repetitive. And yet the experience can still be very convincing despite its numerous and obvious flaws.

The simplest description of No Man's Sky is a space trader, in the style of the original Elite, with elements of survival games like Rust or Don's. do not starve. You start the game after the accidental landing of your spaceship, with no idea who you are and how you got there. The different updates have tried to add a more structured storyline to the game, but trying to find the center of the galaxy and learn the secrets of mysterious alien intelligence called Atlas remains a goal quite vague.

Now, however, some of them are part of the story journey and some of them only do odd jobs for the different exotic species you encounter along the way . There are more now, but having four or five glued on the spot at a point of sale does not really make the galaxy look more alive than when it was just one. It's an improvement, but it's indicative of other changes that, while technically, a step forward does not really address the fundamental issues.

To get to No Man's Sky, you need resources: create the fuel needed to travel between the stars. power the other systems on your ship, as well as your spacesuit and multitool (a combination pistol, a resource collector and a scanner). You are also free to sell resources collected for money at trading posts and space stations, for a profit, hopefully, healthy. Unlike most other survival games, your hunger is not a problem, but if your ability to compensate for extreme temperatures or toxic atmospheres are not maintained, the effect is the same.

One of the main problems with the original version of the inventory space you had for resources and equipment, and it 's the only one. one of the many problems that have since been recognized and taken into account. But again, this has only reduced the problem rather than eliminating it, and the lack of storage is your biggest obstacle to exploring the unknown.

Unless you do not deliberately encourage it, the fight is quite rare and on foot it is based almost solely on the mysterious sentinel robots that patrol every planet, and that get upset if you cause too much damage with the mining or any other general destruction. The gunplay is very flat and not at all exciting, but the space fight is more interesting. Your weapons are always a bit quivering but the controls are good and the dog fights are tense and enjoyable since you are almost always outnumbered

This helps that death only means going back to the place where you are dead and recovering your lost inventory. but in any case No Man's Sky is not a difficult game. It's too laid back for that. But for exploration to be the main source of entertainment, there must be a real diversity of things to see and do along the way. And unfortunately, this is still not the case.

With excellent artistic direction, No Man's Sky can sometimes create stunning panoramas and graphic fidelity has improved significantly since the launch. Landscapes are now more dense with details and clouds float realistically over your head (or in your cockpit if you land). But there are still many problems with the obvious appearance of objects and it quickly becomes clear that, as different as some planets, they are basically identical.

The flora and fauna may vary visually, but they are only thin. disguised resource mines, and despite all the randomly generated dinosaurs, extraterrestrial dragons and strange insect creatures, none of them has any distinct artificial intelligence peculiar to itself and are little more than basic details. Even secret space stations and mysterious monoliths quickly become predictable in their form and the only vaguely useful secrets that they offer.

In the end, the biggest improvement over the original, other than the new third-person camera option, is the Small range of options that automate your resource collection, especially the giant freighters that you can build into an entire fleet and send to make your choice. But not only do they take dozens of hours to get, but it 's a bit like automating someone else' s to do the filming in Call Of Duty, because that means that it does not work. there is very little interest in doing for you.

build bases where you want now, including underwater, and there are different surface gears, but this seems strangely at odds with the goal of reaching the center of the galaxy. What's more appealing though is the new multiplayer options. Hello Games warned that it was a rather basic implementation and of course being with friends does not really present new gameplay elements once you're bored of trying to shoot you.