I can clearly remember being a child, lying in my front yard with my arms crossed behind my head, legs crossed at my ankles, looking up into the sky.  The smell of freshly cut grass and the honeysuckle bushes would remind me that it’s June. I would do this during the day, during the summer, thinking of crazy stuff, like how that cloud looked like a dog or some other bizarre figure I’d imagined. But it was at night, when the front porch light had been extinguished, that I could lie there, undisturbed, with no noise and gaze upon the stars. At first I’d try to count them, a pointless exercise, then I’d try to think how far they’d reach, again, pointless. It was around this point that I began to close my eyes, thinking to myself, more like dreaming, what would it be like to travel to the stars, to leave this world behind — granted, I’d come back, someone had to feed my fish. I wanted to know, hell, I still do, what else is out there. We’d be ignorant to think that we’re alone, that with all those other stars, billions of them, each with their own solar system, that we’re the only lives that exist.

Sadly, I’ll never get that chance. I’ll never see humans leave our solar system and venture into interstellar space. A boy can dream, but a man, a man can simply play his Playstation 4.

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So what with all nostalgia and dramatic writing? Simple, it makes for a good intro and it’s a pretty decent segue into my latest topic, a game called No Man’s Sky. A game that defies all logic when it comes to building a video game and its world (aka Universe). Until now, when we’ve thought about open world games (ex. GTA, Saint’s Row, Assassin’s Creed, etc.)  we tend to think of a city or cities to explore. The folks at Hello Games have broken those boundaries, no, they actually shattered them, picked up the tiny pieces, placed it in a veg-0-matic and purified it into a delicious treat. That treat is No Man’s Sky, a game that doesn’t give you just an open world, but millions of worlds. That’s right, millions. Allow me if you will, to borrow a line from their website: “Whether a distant mountain or a planet hanging low on the horizon, you can go there. You can fly seamlessly from the surface of  [one] a planet to another, and every star in the sky is a sun that you can visit.

No Man’s Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy. What does that mean? It means the game itself actually creates the planets and worlds based on elements that the developers have provided, ie., textures, skins, details, etc. The game then randomly generates planets, animals, aliens and everything else that’s in the universe based on those elements. Essentially, this means that every planet is different. Different climates, temperatures, wildlife, surfaces, skies, water and so on. There has never been a game like this before. It’s fresh, it’s new and it’s an open universe for everyone to explore at their own pace.

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The developers say that while the game’s world is open to all players, because of the sheer size of the game, the possibilities of running into millions of other people is almost never going to happen, not to say it can’t, it’s just very slim. So how will you know there are other people in this game’s universe? That’s also simple, because No Man’s Sky allows you to name planets and its inhabitants, assuming you’re the first one to discover them. Want to name that new ice planet “Kanye Sucks?” Well, as childish as it sounds, you can. Want to name that wondering animal with the big rear end, Kim K, you can do that too. Keep in mind, others will see it too, so as funny as Planet McPlanetface may sound at first, it’s going to stick and it’s going to be around for a while.

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No Man’s Sky is a hard game to describe to people because there’s no point of reference. Unlike something like Call of Duty, which people can say is like Halo, but depending on the game, takes place in WWII, Vietnam or the future. There’s guns, you kill the bad guy and play multi-player. Or, you can reference something like Halo Wars and say it’s like playing StarCraft, you pick your side, build your armies and take on the enemies in Real Time Strategies. My point is, No Man’s Sky isn’t like anything else, people don’t know exactly how to describe it, because an open universe, which doesn’t limit players with an invisible boundary has never been achieved before. Can you shoot and attack, yes, you can. Can you play without attacking, sure. Can you really travel to any star and it’s solar system, the answer is a redundant, yup.

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In the game, your character is equipped with a space craft, which you can improve or replace (i.e. get bigger ones) and fly throughout the universe. You can land on planets or simply fly through their skies. You also have a gun, that can shoot alien creatures or shoot a beam that completely changes the terrain, sometimes creating massive craters or creates holes which reveal hidden caves below a planet’s surface. You can find and collect priceless minerals and artifacts that can be sold for currency.

The game at its core is purely an exploration simulator with no restraints. Because of this, it has become one of the most anticipated games to ever be released. Finally, after years and years of dreaming, this 36-year old kid, whose imagined what it would be like to leave this planet can turn on his Playstation 4, boot up No Man’s Sky and get lost in the vastness of space, exploring new worlds, discovering new life and naming them after the Alf’s (the 80’s TV sitcom) home, Welcome to planet Melmac, where cats are on the menu.

To see a 20-minute hands on with the game and listen to the game’s creator, check out the video below. No Man’s Sky will only be available for PS4 (eventually it will come to PC, but not Xbox One) and should retail for $59.99. Once the game is released, you can be sure I’ll check back with a hands-on experience. Since this is a game that has piqued the interest from not only me, but my wife and son as well, I’ll be sure to let you know how No Man’s Sky performs as a “family-friendly” game too.