Recent reviews by Helios

Does what it says on the box.

best of its category

Satisfying. Not as slow as I feared.

One of the best examples ive seen of a community made sequel.

A classic with mechanics and quality of life scarcely found in modern titles.

Does what it says on the box.

Does what it says on the box.

so far its been a super smooth polished port of reach. which is very good. multiplayer works.
easy to play.

Larion should make KOTOR 3.

I would be writing a different review if this update was garbage, or if they never touched the game again. But now that their development strategy has become more apparent to me. I can see the potential of launching a game that is a mile wide and an inch deep, and then simply adding inches as the outrage and feedback flows in.

Excellent update. As effective in salvaging the game as Diablo 3's overhaul. At this rate, with an update this big every 3 months. The value of the game is going to multiply. Simply because any feature + infinite planets creates a huge yeild of gameplay potential. The survival mode is superbly difficult and forces you to utilize everything to get by. Huge improvement there for me. The one bug im having is with the look acceleration when in flight (edit: i just had to update the lowflight mod). But because the combat isn't important it isn't breaking the game for me. Which bring me to my next point:

UPDATE THE COMBAT NEXT!!!

I think the game isn't perfect, the hyping was badly handled, basic things like "return to main menu" don't exist in the game. But it has been worth it for ME.
I think that a flat price of $60 for the game, the whole game and nothing but the game is a better way to monetize than, kickstart donations, microtransactions, subscriptions and paid dlc.
HG selling their game at a flat price, even if it's $30 too high, they don't deserve the level of hate that the gaming community have unleashed on them.

As a student of game development i can see right through the Molyneux speak as a necessary part of gaming enthusiasm. I guarantee if you try to make a game the first thing you will do is pitch the idea to colleagues, and as you pitch it to them you will propose countless features that you can't code for or that nobody can code for.
When they ask Sean about multiplayer and he winces and talks about the improbability, as a developer i can see he wants it, but can't imagine how to implement it. Then ppl take it as OMG INFINITE SCALE MULTIPLAYER CONFIRMED! This is exactly like that scene from Dumb & Dumber, where she says "one in a million" and he exclaims "SO THERE"S STILL A CHANCE!"

I recommend the game to anyone who's looked at the game being played and is still interested. It's no better or worse than how it seems when you watch a game stream. A game can be incomplete but still very solid and unique, whilst a complete game can be a real peice of crap.
For example, not that it's a piece of crap but the recent Doom game, it also released at full price. I was very close to getting it, i watch some game stream of it. It's very polished, exciting, satisfying etc. But the multiplayer didn't interest me over a something like Planetside 2. And the 8-12 hr campaign isn't long enough for me as a grindy-gamer. So it wasn't for me. More ppl need to inform their purchases this way. Doom is the king of it's own hill. But when it come to planet generation, No Man's Sky is the only game in town. For now anyway. And don't tell me Rodina, Pulsar and Empyrion are better. One look at those early access graphics is all it takes. You can get those three games for $60, and have 3 rest-on-their-laurels-early-access-deadend-90s-art-design games. Or you get NMS and have a game that is full-price yeah, but at least has potential and has shown one siginficant overhaul.

This recommendation is based on their now confirmed plan to improve NMS long-term. This could change though and would be a squander of assets.

I ask you, is it so bad if small teams charge full-price and use that to fund their long-term updates, launching bare-bones to get maximal feedback from the community along the development process?
Compared to a faceless corporation churning out a full priced title every year and then never looking back?

I was disappointed with the release too, some ppl say this first update comes three months too late. Well, one month for the flooding, two for the lawsuits. Can you see how it MAY not be pure evil on their behalf?

EDIT(2020):
Halo style vehicular combat.
Mass Effect 2 style squad system.
Borderlands Guns.
Shadow of Mordor nemesis system.
Diablo style builds and leaderboards.

Having a gametype that can't be modded, has anti-cheat and provides a legit economy with leaderboards would really help the multiplayer.
What's the point if you can just change your .ini save file.

...and change that whole text based campaign. Chop it down and voice it in the background. It spoils the replay value. Make the characters from it part of your first default squad. Then grow your crew procedurally and do loyalty missions like Mass Effect 2.
With a larger crew and fleet you can conduct larger ground and space battles. There needs to be some kind of galactic war that can be found easily in frontline systems. Enemies with the scope of the Covenant and the Flood from Halo. Right now in NMS the only real enemies are the Sentinels. Imagine if Halo only had sentinels to fight against. HA!
The 3 factions that they have in the game STILL have no leaders or wars between each other. Each corner of the galaxy should have some combination of the 3 going to war, and you have to make the decision for your whole character career, which race is allied, neutral and hostile. That would add to a sense of ownership and replayability. As it is you can have everything in every playthrough, no interesting consequences or limitations.

The game needs a lot of long-term motivators:
-villains to take vengeance on
-locked doors that have more than plants behind them
-item builds that have interesting synergy
-roles that players can specialize in when in co-op
-sacrifices. limitations. stakes.
-decent puzzle minigames
-a genuine challenge somewhere
-an unattainable challenge somewhere that requires mass-multiplayer co-op