Recent reviews by Aachen

There's not enough there there.

Get it if you adore cats, the Flood Infection Form AI, or simple, linear puzzles.

Otherwise, wait to see if more content comes.

I don't know; I still can't find my way off the Planet.

Someone told a story where I did. It's like a dream someone else had.

But I wake up and I'm still here.

I've heard rumors there's other, stranger tech somewhere .... somewhere.

I'm keeping an eye out for a new software pack. Perhaps that'll have the parts I need. It'll be months till I know for certain.

There's a lot of ground to cover across the Outer Wilds.

The first plunge one is presented with what seems rather ramshackle technology in a the apex settlement of a stellar system. There's a sense of tranquility, almost pastoral, which sets a fitting tone for the remaining minutes one will spend. There's a tension between the simple and the deeper mysteries that require deeper inquiries.

Lift-off is liberating. You'll see the distinctive bodies and set your systems toward one. There will be long-gone communications to decipher, as well as companions broadcasting to guide you to their holdings.

Then, it's all drawn back, in a great rush of memory, and with a jolt you are back comfortable by the fire in a very familiar quaint settlement.

There are still many mysteries to be found on those bodies, and your memory will be a guide.

Hold your breath around the anglerfish, though.

Heaven's Vault beautiful intertwines a character-centered narrative, a broad-scope, yet inevitably indistinct, world and simple-yet-engaging gameplay elements to create an engrossing story. Or, perhaps, it creates multiple stories which are pursued in parallel.

Though the language constructed to drive the gameplay may lean rather-too-consciously on English, it still has a reasonable verisimilitude despite this connection. Dialogue and interaction choices can spring unexpected and unchangeable consequences on the player, but this only rarely felt frustrating or unfair—and never struck me as unmanageable.

The most disappointing thing, for me, was that there simply isn't enough. Hardly a problem I mind having.

This. Is. Space.

Understand orbital mechanics. Recognize the operational limits of the weapons available for space warfare. Creativity and patience are to be valued.

It's an incredible model, a fascinating experience, and a wonderful way to learn what hard science fiction is.

Seems fun at first.

Then you'll face endless waves hostiles that outnumber you between 5:1 and 12:1, with terrible weapons, while trying operate a rail company with one, and only one, train engine. Wear will force you to sink more and more time into idling that single engine in towns while timed events and quests pass by. You'll tend to end up with "trains" of two-three carriages. Luckily, there are lots and lots of money-sinks to prevent you from accomplishing much more than treading in place. Have a good time with the capricious whims of quest givers sending you cross country, not picking up passengers since ninety percent of the thee-six people in any given station going nothing like the same direction you are.

A game so good, it spawned, more-or-less, a constant stream of imitators (if not a new genre)! And, eight years later, the developers are still actively adding content.

The whole last bit, with the zombies? Janky, capricious, unfun grindfest. It was OK till then, but that last section was such a slog that it ruins what charm the earlier sections had.

As a person who waited until the NEXT update (2018) to start playing No Man's Sky, I must say I am impressed. As contentious as the launch was, the effort invested into the game since has made it very good for those who like charting and exploring as gameplay.

No Man's Sky lacks for diversity; as with any procedural generation, it could use an order of magnitude more primitives to really give it a feel of greater variability. Still, this is not a failing, as I see it, that is particular to the title.

The sheer scope of the game though is astounding.