Initial thoughts on it after an hour and a half. (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Tuesday, August 09, 2016, 03:58 (3032 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by cheapLEY, Tuesday, August 09, 2016, 04:07

Most importantly, I want to keep playing. But tomorrow's a work day, so I need some sleep.

Just a few quick things:

The game is pretty. It's not Uncharted 4 by any means, obviously, but it's very pleasant to look at.

On just a purely technical standpoint, the game is impressive. Going to the stellar map and zooming through the galaxy, seeing all the stars, and knowing there are multiple planets to explore around each one . . . it's more than a bit mind-boggling (and exciting!).

The game is a survival game, first and foremost . . . to an annoying degree. I was lucky enough to start out on a planet with toxic atmosphere, so I had to stop every few minutes and look for Zinc to recharge the system that protects me from that. Likewise, my life support (which is a separate thing . . . you'd think being in a space suit with life support would already protect me from a toxic atmosphere, but I guess not) needed to be recharged. As does you multi-tool with which you collect resources. To top it off, all those things require different elements, and your inventory is ridiculously small. I kept finding items that seemed like they would be useful (valuable items I presume I can trade at space stations, other things that I have no idea what they do or what they're for), but I kept having to drop them because my inventory was full and I needed the space for more life support fuel. Also, the multi-tool overheats after about three seconds of using it, and then you have to wait for it to cool down. You're already limited by a tiny inventory, and by having to constantly feed elements into it, why is there another arbitrary limit to basically the main thing I'm going to have to do while playing the game?

Your ship is the same way, requiring separate elements for it's launch thrusters and pulse thrusters.

The controls are . . . weird. They're fine, but they're not intuitive at all. I had to turn my look sensitivity way down from the default, which had me jumping all the place with the slightest touch.

The UI is bad. Like really bad. It's taken a lot straight from Destiny, cursor and all, but it's not even in the same realm. The cursor feels weird compared to Destiny, and the inventory layout is just straight up stupid and confusing. It's laid out in a very basic grid pattern, but for some reason, random squares of the grid are just missing and not available for use. You have to select empty slots and press different buttons to bring up different sub-menus, which, again, is not intuitive at all. I'll get used to it, but it's not ideal. With Destiny, I feel like the menu is never confusing, and it never required explaining. That's definitely not true here.

The soundtrack is disappointing so far. The official album of the soundtrack is absolutely brilliant, and great release by 65daysofstatic. So far, I've heard none of that in the game--it's just a bunch of ambient music. Granted, that's fine and very pleasing and relaxing, but I hope the songs from the album get worked in there, too.

Despite all of those issues, I want to keep playing. Getting in my spaceship after about 30 minutes of hunting down elements to repair it, and then blasting off into space, flying through an asteroid field, encountering a convoy of cargo ships, and warping to a space station, all seamlessly without loading was incredible. And, like I mentioned, the sheer scale . . .

I can't wait to get out there and explore some more. I just hope I'm able to expand my inventory soon.