So I wanted to open this thread, thanks to a reminder of
Ghost, who quickly mentions it in another thread.
I have to say that in the beginning, when I heard about the game, I was blown away and quite looking forward to it. But now, I have to say, after all the hype, I have my doubts.
The main question of course is, does it really keep you playing for many many hours, or does it get boring after 10 hours in? At the moment I tend more to the latter.
Do the planets differ so much from each other. Infrastructure, vegetation, resources, fauna...? Is there enough to do? Any interaction with other players, or are there even NPCs?
F.ex. how are the animals/creatures generated? Is it like in Spore, or do you encounter the same ones over and over again, just in another color? I mean I don't want to collect green frogs, than red ones and then the same in blue. Might even be boring from beginning on.
Is there really enough happening in that universe? I like the idea of endless space, but I still want to have a goal to reach, perhaps without investing hundreds of hours.
I will wait for the first reviews, but I'm quite sure they will be very mixed, if not tending to be more negative than positive. Will see.
What are your thoughts?
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Originally Posted by Ghost:
Sort of off topic, but a supermarket that sells computer games?
Yeah indeed, plus they always sell the games already before the official release
Main Luxembourgian supermarket chain Cactus:
http://www.cactus.lu/en
I played the game yesterday for about 3 hours. First impressions are quite good.
So far I only was on 2 planets, the first one being the one you're starting on, because you're stranded there and have to get your ship working again to leave. Planet is quite big, loads of stuff happening, but it is also because you don't know anything, have to learn how the game works, and well, it's the first planet. After you collect the needed resources, you're ready to leave the planet, and fly into space.
I spent quite a lot of time on the first planet, like I said, finding out about the controls, what the whole thing is about, and what exactly is your goal, how to achieve it. Which resources do you need, and where to get them.
There's a lot of chests scattered around, and also unknown places marked with a ?. Basically you scan the surface with your scanner, which tells you then what resources are around and near you. You then gather them with either your plasma gun, or just by extracting from plants and such.
To move around, you either walk, run or use your jetpack to reach higher ground. You can of course also use your ship, although on the first planet, first you need to fix it. Nicely done is if you mark/have a target, it shows you the real time you need to get there. When heading towards it, the time diminishes then accordingly on how you achieve this. If the timer shows 3 minutes, and you walk, you need 3 minutes real time to go there, if you run, the time goes faster. Running exhausts you, so you cannot run for longer time. Plus your energy decreases depending on the atmosphere of the planet. First planet has a quite normal climate, thus I could last a lot longer than I could on the second planet, which has lower minus temperatures.
You have an exosuit in which you store collected resources, but the space is limited, you have like 10 slots. This can be upgraded though. You ship has also a limited cargo capacity, so in the beginning you cannot carry around too much stuff, and have to focus on what is important. Although when your suit is full, you can transfer it at any time to your ship, if there's space. Your plasma gun will also use energy with the time, and you will eventually have to replenish it, otherwise no harvesting.
There's also these little flying robots, which scan you if you're harvesting too much I guess. None attacked me or did something in any way though, I was also behaving I have to mention.
I left the planet straight away after the ship was repaired. Another thing before I left was that there was an animal closing in on me, then I had the possibility to feed it. I immediately did, and it was happy, and followed me all the time along my way. Was nice.
Lifting off with your ship, and flying into space is nicely done, and very easy to do. The ship also controls very nicely, and for the first time you get a glimpse of the multiverse. You can also see then other ships cruising around, I guess friendly, none attacked me.
So I was flying to another planet, this one having a space station in orbit, small one. The planet was absolutely HUGE. I navigated towards the beacon and landed there. At those beacons, you can save your progress, and it shows you if you're the first one discovering it. You can then also rename it and upload it, you get even rewards for this, money.
This planet was quite dark and had not a lot of fauna, almost none, resources were quite scarce. But on this one, you can already find docks. Flying there is important, because in these little planet stations you will find life, plus trading shops and upgrades. I met one alien race so far, don't understand their language at all, but already found a document with one word of them translated into English, not as big help yet. At the trading post you can also sell your stuff, and buy what you need, in case you have enough units. You can also rename all of these docks if you want. If you communicate with the alien on board, you get information, or various goods. F.ex. the one on the space station, where I flew later, gave me antimatter, which I needed to build a warp shield, which I needed for my hyper-drive.
Here also land different aliens, and you can trade goods with them, or even buy their ship, if you have enough to pay them. This is nicely done, as you can straight away compare both ships, see what's installed, shields, weapons, hyper-drive... and also see how much cargo space it has. So far I met 3 guys, same race, but each one had a different ship. Unfortunately I had only 40.000 units, and the guy with the nice cargo ship wanted 6.3 million, quite out of my budget. Other guy had a fighter, only a bit more cargo, but great firepower, still was 600.000.
You find upgrades all the time around these docks, but to built them, you will of course need the right resources, which are not always easy to get. I'm a bit stuck on this planet now, as I want to fly around to explore, but struggling to get fuel for the ship. And I need 100 plutonium to build my hyper-drive, but have problems finding some.
Like I mentioned before, you have to get used to the game, to see how all the mechanics work, which is not all that easy in the beginning, because you all the time need something to do another thing, and it needs getting used to it.
The controls are very good and very easy to use. Music is very good, and the graphics fit the purpose. So far it's great to explore, but I could see the problem in it getting tedious. I guess the first 10-20 planets are quite interesting to explore, but can it deliver and keep it that way? I'm quite positive that there's still a lot of stuff to happen before it gets boring. Meeting other aliens, the only race I met is quite friendly. Buying and upgrading your suit, weapon and ship is quite interesting, and what about a nice space battle? Planets with ferocious animals? Why not, bring it on, I'm ready
If you have any other questions?
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