No man's sky review

Platform: Playstation 4

A flawed but absorbing space adventure like nothing I've played before

Eighteen quintillion planets to explore and discover, just the sheer number is unimaginable, and it's only when you go out into space for the first time and open up the galactic map does that number really hit you. While it's impossible to explore each of them, the sheer ambition of No Man's Sky really is something to behold, and despite all of its failings, Hello Games should be applauded for its efforts.

At heart No Man's Sky is a first person survival game as much as it is about exploration, you start on a randomly selected planet in a star system on the outskirts of the galaxy, your Starship has crashed and in pieces. So it's up to you find the materials to repair it so you can leave the planet for space and get to the centre of the galactic core. 

The first few hours of the game act as an introductory tutorial as you learn more about how to mine the materials you need for your ship. It can be a bit of a slog at first, but once you fix your Starship, the mechanics of the game begin to flow, and it doesn't really change much from there on.

It is only by upgrading and crafting your inventory that you can explore the vast reaches of space and mine the best materials from the planets you visit. There are three kinds of inventory slots, an Exo-suit, one for your Starship, and another is your multi-tool. The inventory system is very basic but fiddly, and until you upgrade it extensively it can be a bit of a chore to use, and it doesn't help that you have to open up the menu to be able use it. But it does become less of a problem the further you progress and the more items you have.

The objective on each of the planets is the same throughout, as you fly from one question marker to the next, finding upgrade formulas, mining materials and visiting trade outposts or alien monoliths. After a while this does become tedious, especially if the planets you come across are boring. But the game is saved by the great feeling of progression you get from upgrading your inventory, and trading the resources you've mined so that you can acquire better Starships to warp to other star systems with.   

The planets are all procedurally designed, so all eighteen quintillion of them have various differences from one another. You will encounter glorious shades of forest planets to ocean ones, right down to bland rock planets. After a while, the wonderment of each of them begins to fade as the differences are often very minor, and for every five planets that you visit, maybe only one of them might actually be interesting.

Life on these planets is sparse, and the designs of the species you do encounter are mixture of dinosaurs and zoo animals. Discovering them is rewarding at first, because just like the planets, you can name them once discovered, but it begins to wear off very soon as you realise that they're for the most part all nearly identical, and act as nothing more than wallpaper to the planets landscape. The interaction with the species is also quite limited, as you can feed them and nothing much else, although you may have to kill some if they're hostile.

There are three types of alien NPCs in the game, all have different personas, and you can learn their own individual languages by opening monoliths on the planets you visit. But once again your interaction with them is very limited and they are more or less cardboard characters, and you will only ever encounter them in space stations and trading posts.

The exploration of space is wonderful at first but it quickly becomes static, freighters you see are just kind of there, and you can't land on asteroids as the developers had promised. But going from one star system to the next is a very rewarding, and each star system is unique from one another. Just as there are awe inspiring views from the different planets you visit, the same can be said when you see the alignment and scale of the different star systems you explore.

The combat in space and on the ground is passable at best, hostile species are rare, but on each planet you will have to deal with robots called Sentinels which attack you if you cause too much harm to the planet you're on. In space you will have to deal with pirates which attack you, none of this is particularly challenging or exciting, but it's only a minor part of the game that won't detract from your overall experience, but it could have been better.

Although No Man's Sky is a shared universe to some degree, with eighteen quintillion planets in the game it's unlikely that you will visit other players discoveries all too often, which does ask the question of what the point of it all is? A better mapping system to connect players discoveries is a real missed opportunity. But in No Man's Sky the journey is far greater than the destination.

No Man's Sky is bold and like no other game I've played before, and without doubt the moments of inspiration can't take away the game's eventual repetitiveness. Although shallow, the game still has me hooked because I want to keep discovering planets in this shared universe, and with the promised updates the game could still get better.

If you enjoy playing games by yourself and willing to try something that's different to what you might have played before then No Man's Sky is for you. If you're a sceptic and curious, then wait for a deep sale.

Verdict: 7/10

  

    

Suicide Squad review

Director: David Ayer
Running time: 123 minutes

A wasted opportunity with a few nuggets of redemption

Much like Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad is probably an idea better in concept than it ever could be in execution. A film about an ensemble of comic book bad guys as the main protagonists has never been done before, and the trailers were effective with its dark tone and offbeat characters.

Set after Superman's death, the government assemble a group of some of the most villainous characters from the DC lore, and send them into Midway city to defeat an enigmatic entity.

There are moments when Suicide Squad works, but those moments are few and far between. There is little action to really speak of, sure there's a few gunfights before the eventual final showdown with the main villain (one of the most generic in a comic book film). But none of the action is exciting, it's all blandly generic with no weight behind it because the story is scant at best, and the characters motivations are weak meaning that nothing much is ever really at stake.

It isn't helped when the locations are so boring and contained, only about three or four streets and a skyscraper actually take place in the empty city of Midway.

The first twenty minutes of the film are by far its best, as each of the characters have small monologue introductions alongside bizarre choices of music (some work while others are just distracting). Because of its snappy pace and exposition, in its entire run time the beginning of the film is the only time when anything feels engaging. Of the ensemble of characters, only two of them are actually interesting, and it is these characters that save the whole thing from being criminally bad.

Will Smith's screen presence and zippy line delivery just about brings Deadshot to life, an otherwise hokey character who has a daughter he misses (shown through a number of flashbacks). He's the only character with any form of a story arc, and the one with the most screen time and emotional connection to.

Margot Robbie is fine as Harley Quinn, the star attraction and probably the only character those not too familiar with the DC universe might have a vague recognition of. Her role is more or less eye candy with an abundance of one liners for comic relief, sometimes it works but other times it just comes across as flat, and trying too hard. The script doesn't really do the role any justice.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is impressively intimidating as the government official who is co-coordinating the entire operation. Who would have thought she'd turned out more villainous than the actual suicide squad.

Those looking forward to the Joker (Jared Leto) will be disappointed, who is nothing more than a glorified cameo with less than ten minutes of screen time. Appearing as a mob boss cloaked up in jewellery and colourful attire. I wasn't too impressed, the character wasn't frightening or funny, just creepy, so I'll need to see this interpretation in a bigger role.

The other characters might as well be wallpaper, characters with props and little else. The lack of any real action set piece doesn't help because it means the non existent character development can't be glossed over. Killer Croc, one of the most fearsome Batman villains literally has nothing to do.

And the plot is a bit of a mess, suffering the same problems that Batman V Superman had, where the narrative is full of scenes that offer nothing to the central plot, and with subplots introduced and forgotten.

All in all, Suicide Squad is mildly entertaining, the casting is nigh on perfect and it is by no means a bad film, but one with huge wasted potential that doesn't live up to the hype that proceeded it. By the time the credits rolled I wondered what the whole point of it was.

Verdict: 2.5/5


         

Finding Dory: review

Director: Andrew Stanton
Running time: 97 minutes

Pixar produce another fine addition to their library

No film studio has had the consistent influx of quality content quite like Pixar, The Good Dinosaur might have been a bit of misstep. But on the whole, each of their animated features have something special that can't be replicated by other animation studios. Which is why their films are beloved by those of all ages.

Set one year after Finding Nemo. Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), an unrelentingly upbeat, blue fish with a short memory span suddenly gets flashbacks from her childhood, where she once had a family before losing them. She can only recall that they lived in the Morro Bay, so she sets out to find them with returning characters Marlin and Nemo. Their journey eventually leads them to an aquarium, where they meet and are helped by a grumpy, red octopus called Hank (Ed O'Neill).

Finding Dory is full of vivid colour, the visuals ooze off of the screen and it moulds well with the optimistic tone of the film. With that said, towards the end there are a few teary moments (it wouldn't be a Pixar film without one).

As we'd expect from Pixar, the wonderfully designed and charming characters are what's at the heart of the film. With its snappy dialogue, you can't help but root for all of the characters because while flawed they're all innocent enough in their goals to care about.

The final third of the film is far more action-centric than I expected, with a crazy escape plan involving a lorry bursting through a highway on the wrong side of the road. Which seemed a little out of place, but still very entertaining nevertheless.

Also, at the centre of Finding Dory is a positive message about family, belonging and never giving up on those you love. Dory's flashbacks to her childhood are a reminder of how we take our loved ones for granted until they are no longer with us.

What stops Finding Dory from being sublime is its rushed final act, and at times it can feel emotionally manipulative. And to be honest it is inferior to Finding Nemo. 

Verdict: 4/5