No Man's Sky is, hands down, the best open-world creative and survival video game I have ever played. A game that had a rocky start but absolutely has proven itself above and beyond the call of duty for any video game as a leading title in the genre of survival, creative world-building, and space exploration.

Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay has a relatively difficult learning curve, it took me about the first 10 hours of gaming to thoroughly understand the basic controls, navigation for every vehicle, and character movement. Between reading every page of the in-game instruction manual, Steam guides, and gameplay guides - it was worth every minute of patience. The gameplay is enhanced by the numerous customizations that the developers have enabled when it comes to movement, environmental interaction, and exploration.

Graphics: 9.5/10
The graphics are absolutely stunning from the beautiful horizons to the procedurally generated flora and fauna species that inhabit every alien planet. The fact that EVERYTHING is procedurally generated by an AI and the game is able to portray alien environments so well, is the cherry on top. The only factor stopping me from giving it a perfect 10 is the obstacle of needing top tier PC specs to run No Man's Sky to the best of its ability - so the barrier to entry for this spectacular world is quite high.

Creativity: 8.5/10
Initially I enjoyed the base building, vehicle customization, mothership modifications, but as the hours began to build up - I became quite tired with the rote and repetitive actions that limit a player's creativity when it comes to really pulling out all the stops and going full God mode in space.

Storyline: 6/10
Ah yes, the storyline is the single biggest let down of No Man's Sky, it is for the lack of a better term - barebones. Clearly this game is not for the most hardcore of lore-seekers or narrative-driven players, which in its own way, strengthens the game because the lack of an intense must-follow storyline allows every player to explore the No Man's Sky universe at their own pace.

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10
I highly recommend any and all to give No Man's Sky the chance that it has well and truly deserves. I praise the developers for persevering past the issues and naysayers of it's initial launch to give us a game that has grown into a true space exploration leviathan, all DLCs come free with the purchase of the base game, and that alone is a huge plus point in No Man Sky's favor. Good luck and see you out there in the cosmos!