No Man's Sky: First Impressions

OK, I'll give you some space to laugh at me- I pre-ordered No Man's Sky back in March. However, knowing that I was going to play the game no matter what, I felt like ordering it while it was on a lower price would do me better just in case there were issues. As No Man's Sky has just become available for people to play on PC, I've started my attempt to play it out at least to the point where I will have spent a dollar for each hour, forty hours in total, before making the decision on whether I'd like to keep the game in my normal repertoire or let it sit in my Steam library without feeling so much shame on my part. So far, I've played for two hours, and here are my thoughts so far:

I'm not quite sure if I'm just lucky or what happened, but the planet I landed on was pretty damn gorgeous. Somewhat radioactive, so I had to hop back in the ship to recharge every few minutes, but besides that, the atmosphere was nice. Dust storms happened quite often (or maybe they were rain?) but didn't interfere. The days were green and nights bright red. For being described as a low-fauna planet, I sure found animals, from six-legged dinosaur things to snake-plants that were really mean to me. I was approached by Atlas...and, you know, like the hesitant little person I am, I flat out-rejected it. I don't need guidance in an exploration game, I decided, I don't need someone creeping over my shoulder telling me what to do in my sandbox.

But, looking back on that first planet (Soultamer I) from my current planet (Soultamer II)...I just wonder if I should have made a different choice. In a world so vast, should I have accepted what seemed to be the only form of assistance I could get? I think it was with this realization that I really started to accept the focus of the game, that for all the world around me- For the (by all purposes) infinite universe surrounding me, for all the flora and fauna and languages and cultures and pesky space-police and plutonium deposits and planets and suns and satellites and stations and rocketships and blasters and whatever the hell else is out there...I'm alone. All I have is myself to depend on.

And depending on myself was a step that I discovered I wasn't exactly prepared to take when I stepped out of my spacecraft to go and collect some Heridium on the quest to repair my sad, broken spacecraft. As soon as I discovered the toxicity levels, I realized that I would have to be effective on my trip out and back; And without knowing the exact path, I found myself wondering if I would have the guts to take on the mission. I did, in fact, do it twice, since my game crashed shortly after the first one without auto-saving even during my trip. I did the trip again with more security, but I knew that I was completely capable of doing it the first time. After that, I started to adventure more and even piss off the planet police on Soultamer I after taking all the Plutonium in a 1.5-minute walking radius from my ship.

But now, all the familiarity from Soultamer I is gone. Having just landed on Soultamer II, I'm finding the planet more desolating and depressing than I. No flora or fauna, but at least there are planet-police everywhere to keep me company. Ah, well..

Note to self: Acquire space-dog. Make it side compartment. Friends forever.