I played a few hours of this last night and hated it. Having not bought into the hype, nor searched out any information about the game apart from the limited amount posted here, I went in blind. I don't wish to cover all of the reasons I disliked the game, but here are a few.
My first issue was that despite running a 980ti, the frame rate was at times, dire. This was especially surprising given the sub par graphics. My starting planet was radioactive and so I was required not only to mine for resources to fix my ship but also to retain the integrity of my suit, which was mildly annoying especially given the limited instructions. Moving forward. The controls using an xbox controller could be best described as vague and became nothing less than a hindrance whilst traversing landscapes. The main issue for me though was the constant reminders that I was playing a game. The linearity of the game world and the rules, structures and elements that bind it seem to add no depth to the universe in which you are playing. If anything they seem to go out of their way to pull you out of what could have been a rich and rewarding experience.
Someone mentioned earlier, the fact that any game can be deconstructed to the point where its primary gameplay elements consist of at best, three key conditions /rules that the player is bound to. Kill,loot repeat ad nauseam, for example. The same could be said about real world activities. Football is just a group of people kicking a ball around. Life is just eat, sleep, work repeat. The list goes on. However, that isn't the point. It's the core elements that exist in between these actions that serve to bind and culminate in an enjoyable experience. If those elements don't gel, then the experience isn't likely to be rewarding. These core elements differ from person to person. Whereas I prefer a progressive story that gives credibility, reason and justification for my actions in a game, some simply prefer crafting their own story in order to justify why they just spent two hours grinding resources. Whilst others feel a sense of reward in attaining a new weapon, or at least the promise of...
I fully respect that some people are enjoying the game. Personally, it's just not for me. I can see what the team were trying to achieve, and certainly financially they have succeeded. However, I feel as though whatever vision they were trying to convey has been so heavily diluted by the sheer number of technical issues and odd design choices that it becomes little more than a vague notion, an idea lost in translation.
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