No Man's Sky

Released on June 21, 2016

Developed by Hello Games

A science-fiction game set in an infinite, procedurally-generated galaxy.

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The ARG Hello Games organized for No Man's Sky is over, and we ended up with some hints and somewhat cryptic information about the lore of the game. It appears we're playing a simulation started by a rogue AI, which was a common theory. We also got some 1.3 screenshots!

The one above shows a portal-- a structure present in the game already, but one that had no apparent use. Apparently that's going to change soon! The control panel thing pictured isn't currently in the game, so it looks like we're getting some interactivity.

In addition, this beauty dropped showing a new ship class! It's parked next to an observatory, so those may be an important part of the update, or... Read All


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There's a new ARG/Viral marketing thing going on for No Man's Sky, and unless you've been following from the beginning it's easy to be confused like me. It started with cassettes being sent to some people involved in No Man's Sky subreddits that, when the waveform was analyzed and decrypted, had a secret message: portal.

Since then, the Waking Titan project site has launched, with the promise of 10,000 random entrants receiving a physical Atlas Pass v4, a questionnaire, a secret decoder wheel to get you into a website with Titan commands, PDFs with what may be coordinates to planets in-game, and other strange things.

I do worry that this is building hype for something... Read All


Hooooo boy. This is a doozy of an update.

This is a Terraria-level update. I don't know how to prioritize things, so here's a quick overview of the new hotness in the order in which Hello Games presented them.

First up, the graphics have been significantly overhauled, with better textures and lighting effects. The PS4 Pro can take advantage of new features and shinies.

Other players' bases can now be found and explored, and Steam Workshop will let you find them more easily.

YOU CAN NOW OWN MULTIPLE SHIPS OMG THANK YOU HELLO GAMES

Speaking of ships, each ship type has a clear specialization for combat, hauling freight, and exploration.

Multi-tools also have... Read All


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In a ruling posted by the ASA, they found the advertising in compliance with their codes.

In brief:

"We understood that the screenshots and videos in the ad had been created using game footage, and acknowledged that in doing this the advertisers would aim to show the product in the best light. Taking into account the above points, we considered that the overall impression of the ad was consistent with gameplay and the footage provided, both in terms of that captured by Hello Games and by third parties, and that it did not exaggerate the expected player experience of the game. We therefore concluded that the ad did not breach the Code.

We investigated the ad under CAP... Read All


As the holidays continue onward to years end The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable remains steady! Continuing our legacy of talking about what we are watching and what we've been playing we start things off talking about Arrival, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Rocket League, Destiny, MST3K Turkey Day, Stranger Things & Mortal Kombat.

Because main discussion bullet lists are a thing people love:

  • Holiday Gaming Recommendations and Pickups. What games do we recommend you check out over the holidays? Only that guy in Zelda knows for sure as well as the people that watched this episode!

  • No Man's Sky Foundation Update Does Hello Games latest update meet expectations... Read All


The Foundation update, which Hello Games is presenting as the "foundation" for things to come, has been released.

This "foundation" provides a lot of content. Most people that I had seen discussing it weren't expecting anywhere near this much, and I definitely wasn't. A Foundation sounds like something that allows them to add more content in the future, but this is a game-changer. In fact, in terms of things to actually do in the game while planet hopping, this update adds more content than the game even started with. No Man's Sky was a wife and vast galaxy that was unfortunately a bit shallow, but this looks like the start to some major depth.

In brief:
* new creative... Read All


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Travis gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale
This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.
Travis gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale
This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.
This review is only about the game that I played, nothing else. I'm not including the drama surrounding the features that were discussed or shown before release that didn't make the cut. You can read more about those here: http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/3096/no-man-s-sky-review-supplemental-the-game-we-got-vs-the-game-we-bought

Ah, No Man's Sky. This game was hyped far past the point of over-hyped before release, which is always a bit dangerous. I let myself get taken in by it, drooled over every new trailer and Sean Murray interview, but I've ridden hype trains before and I know the risk of getting overhyped. I managed my expectations. I didn't think it was... Read All


I'm currently working on a full review of No Man's Sky, but this isn't it. It's a hard game to review, for many reasons, but one thing that's hard to ignore is people's disappointment in things that were missing. I decided to only focus my review on the game as it is (as much as I can), but I felt the need to address this a bit.

The battle cry of people on various gaming forums is "Sean Murray lied!" or "No Man's Lie" or some other variation on that. But were we lied to? People are using the words "promise" and "lie" quite a bit when talking about this game, but those words carry a lot of weight.

There are features missing from the game that were shown or discussed... Read All


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If you have sunk a ton of time into No Man's Sky and want even more there is a free fan game that might satisfy your quest for more called No Mario's Sky. Finally we have a way to go to infinite worlds to stomp Goombas infinitely. I've heard the universe of No Mario's Sky is so big you will never be able to meet up with other players and the procedural generation of each world is so deep you won't be able to tell that the Goomba's are just color swapped!

"Featuring 10s of Goombas, An Infinite Universe, Muscle Toad, "Original" Music, "Faithful" Physics, Social Commentary about Interplanetary Colonialism, and a Radical Space Ship; No Mario's Sky is the hackneyed... Read All


The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable is back after a short 4 month break! The reason for the show taking a hiatus was that I was busy being a new Dad! Scrypt, Travis and I blast our way through what we've been playing and what we've been watching such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Orange is the New Black, Hearthstone & a ton more. During our main show topics we talk about some great upcoming new Nintendo stuff such as the NES Classic, NX and Zelda Breath of the Wild. Coming off a rocky couple years Nintendo looks like they are going to have some really compelling stuff that we are all interested in playing. We cap off the Roundtable discussing the brand new Hello Games mega... Read All