No Man's Sky

This is a bit of a tricky one... let me start by saying, after playing over 20 hours of No Man's Sky, I honestly like the game, and I think some of you might as well.  I'll get into the pluses and minuses as I see them in a bit, but first, a list of what this post isn't about:

• This isn't about the game being not what was advertised over the years, or any promises made or perceived to be made by the developers or anybody else associated with the game.  I saw the first video that was put out, thought the game might be worth checking out once it was released, and ignored it after that.  Once it came out on PS4, I watched some other people play the game on YouTube, and decided what I saw there was worth ponying up $60 to play on my PC.  It's a shame if you imagined it to be more than it became, and are disappointed thereby... if you pre-ordered, however, I have no sympathy for you, since that's been a proven path to disappointment for years now.
• This isn't about major technical issues with running the game.  I know there are some people out there who can't even get the game to run... luckily, I haven't had any major issues.  Well, I did crash to desktop on one warp between systems, but I didn't lose anything in the process, so it was just a nuisance.

So, that out of the way, what's so great about this game, you ask?  It's an exploration game set in a fantastic space setting, where you can never run out of things to explore.  There's more to it than that, but that's really the core hook to the game.  It's a game unlike any other, but the closest it comes to any from my past is Starflight, which, being a game from the mid-80's, it's understandable if you're not familiar with it (but it is on GOG.com, apparently, if you think you can handle that level of primitivity in your gaming).

Of course, many gamers these days weren't even born back when that game came out, so they tend to judge it on their own terms.  As in, the ground combat isn't as smooth as Call of Duty, so it's obviously trash... or, the dogfighting action in space isn't as gripping as [insert combat flight simulator of choice here], so it's obviously trash... or, the storyline isn't as well-planned as Mass effect, so... you see where I'm going with this?  Here's the thing:  all those games, you're supposed to be a highly-trained soldier/pilot/whatever, and/or The Hero, savior of humanity and all that.  This game, you're just a guy, who wakes up on a planet next to a broken starship, and has to work out what to do from there.  I started out thinking this might be like a "Space Frontiersman" type of game, but there's a fair population of at-least-as-advanced aliens everywhere you go... so maybe it's more "Space Hobo" than that... but it's got a definite whiff of "get bored doing what you're doing where you're doing it?  Go do something else somewhere else!" to it.

That all said, it's not a perfect game, not by a long shot.  The very "procedural generation" that gives it variety also limits the scope of that variety.  Land form tends to be hilly, with possibly some caverns and/or water-like surfaces to deal with - but I've yet to see anything I'd call plains, swamps, or a mountain as such.  Plant variability is also pretty limited - and in some cases nonexistent to my eye (I'm looking at you, interaction-produces-resource plants).  Animals have the best variability, but not a lot of behavior variability to work with, so if you've seen one scuttling attack mantis-crab, you've kind of seen them all.  I'm pretty sure that procedural generation is also what makes the game put such a load on my machine... I'm thinking the people saying it needs to be "better optimized" don't know how much optimization in a regular game comes down to limiting visible play area and controlling polygon counts on the various pieces in play.  I'll be happy to be proven wrong there, though... the game's quite playable on my PC, but I'd really prefer to stream it to my living room via the Steam Link, and that's proven to be a bridge too far to date.

Oh, and then there's tweaks that could be made to current systems, never mind features to be added down the road... simply put, as-is, there isn't much that's actually a threat to you in the world, that I've seen so far.  Pirates can bombard you into oblivion from afar, if they pop in a good distance from you, but everything else I've had to deal with, whether sentinels or hostile animals, just don't pack much of a punch.  Past that, some of the alien interaction seems imbalanced as well... the "right" choice costing you tens, maybe hundreds of credits, when earning thousands of credits is a simple as scanning a few plants and animals, or mining and selling a few minerals.  It's not exactly a fair comparison, but, difficulty-wise, it's almost like the match-3 or Farmville of space-exploration games as stands now... not zero-difficulty, but certainly not "hardcore" by any means.

At the end of the day, though, all you want to know is whether this game is for you, right?  I'll just say this... all the words that I've written up there, they won't really give you a good feel for the game.  I suggest you do what I did... watch some gameplay on YouTube, and decide for yourself.  I'll guarantee you this, though... if you do pick it up, it will be like nothing else you've played to now, and you may never see its like again.

Remember when businesses didn't screw (with) their customers?

It's been a couple of months since my last rant, and No Man's Sky hasn't come out yet... how about we examine a couple of nuisances I came across on my last trip to Seattle?

Between one thing and another, it had been about 2 years since I last got "out of town" (note to self, that's way too long for your continued mental equilibrium).  Things tend to change over that span of time, and, when it comes to paying for goods and services, those changes are usually either good (for the customer), or at least ignorable (anybody out there use a cell-phone based "wallet" yet?).  Catching two such changes that were neither put a bit of a damper on my trip.

First, a friend and I went to check out an event near the Mariners' stadium.  Naturally, for all we were there many hours before the day's game started, event pricing was in play for all the parking lots nearby... but, for whatever other nuisances might be in play, event pricing does mean a fixed price for the day's parking, normally.  We find a little lot with a sign saying $25 event parking (robbery, basically, but marginally tolerable), and it's even got an electronic pay station (convenience to the consumer, that's probably a good thing).  Choose the event payment and... up comes an extra $5 plus in taxes, which may or may not be legit, but would normally be included in the event price.  As far as we were concerned, that's pretty well a bait and switch, so we moved on (and, luckily, found free street parking within a few blocks).

Next day, it was time to head home, and I decided to fill up the car before I hit the road.  The place I used last time was boarded up, but there was a nice new Shell station nearby, so I gave it a try.  New pumps with large, easy-to-read color displays on them, what could be wrong with that?  Well, no sooner do I put in my card info and choose what I want, I'm surprised to have a commercial start up on the screen, with audio... and there's no pressure on the line.  Best case, this smart new pump was too stupid to display that it was out of the gas I wanted... worst case, they expected you to sit through who knows how many commercials before the would deign to give you the gas you wanted to pay them for.  I verified the same behavior on another pump at the station, just to make sure it wasn't a glitch with the one pump, then got the hell out of there and gassed up elsewhere... and I don't see myself willingly going back to a Shell station any time in the near future.

So, remember, all you synergizers and revenue enhancers out there in corporation land... you start playing games with us consumers before you've got the money in hand, we can still walk.  Sometimes, if you're bad enough, even if you have some of our money, we'll walk and never come back.