No Mans Sky Review

Smokeycastle plays No Man’s Sky

No mans sky has been a real treat to play. Even before it got patched I really enjoyed the solitude and game play that no mans sky had to offer.

Smokeycastle’s base in No Man’s Sky

When no mans sky launched I enjoyed playing through the story line and exploring and naming things. I never made it to the center of the galaxy but was fully content with the content that was available.

With the introduction of the NMS NEXT patch I reloaded no mans sky and got to enjoy the fun that was base building, farming and collection of resources from nature. Additionally the introduction of multiplayer elements was a real treat and allowed myself and friends to play the game together. I had a real blast making bases and helping friends build bases or teaming up for some conquest and exploration of worlds.

I really enjoyed the expansive story line found in the atlas rises update and I was finally able to ‘complete’ the story, I chose to remain in the Euclid galaxy for now since that was where my friends were currently and I hope that in the future that choice does not turn out to be a bad one.

I am really looking forward to some possible new updates such as the No Man’s Sky: BEYOND update which is said to increase the multiplayer portion of the game and also to increase the story elements of it too!

Factorio Review

Smokeycastle plays Factorio

So a while back I heard from somewhere (not sure where) about this game Factorio. I decided to purchase the game and 120 hours later I had launched my first rocket and had got the lazy bastard achievement on steam (its anything but lazy let me tell you).

Look at all that pollution!

The game is very intense with a focus on building to launch a rocket into space while automating your factories and minimizing the harm you do to the environment all while fighting off aliens who absolutely detest pollution.

I had to restart so many times because of numerous reasons, too many aliens, too few resources, went overboard on factories thus had evolved aliens from pollution ect. Half way through these restarts I learned that there was a lazy bastard achievement that was really hard to get, basically to get it you have to only produce a minimum amount of objects through your inventory before launching the rocket. Restarting and limiting the way I was producing items to factories only I found the game really opened up and made me more aware of automation. It showed me how automating incorrectly would lead to products that you do not have a need for leads to excess pollution as well as angry aliens.

Finally at the end of 100 or so hours I launched my first rocket only to find that the most important game winning piece (the satellite) was not onboard. thus I had to make another rocket but now I had angry aliens swarming over my base and resources were getting scarce. After another 20 hours I had constructed enough defenses to ward off the aliens, had constructed the satellite and had launched my rocket with the satellite onboard. Finally I had completed the game and achieved the hard achievement of lazy bastard.

Though the game had multiplayer I found that people willing to play it were few and far between and that it while being very smooth to play on a multiplayer server was not conducive to good game play. It actually caused arguments between me and my friends who played it. As a single player game it really shines but the multiplayer at least for me was a hassle.