#NoMansSky: What the hell Happened?

    When No Man's Sky was first teased in 2013, it was well received and and immediately began generating hype. "An infinite procedurally generated universe filled with all sorts of strange flora and fauna and terrain features to discover on countless worlds" caused it to fit right in with the likes of Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen as people have been scrambling to get their hands on the perfect Space Sim. As short and vague videos of zooming over gorgeous planets and wandering through alien forests, shooting down pirates and blowing chunks out of asteroids out in space were released, people went crazy and with the continued vagueness about the game's actual game play as well as the typical indie studio mistake of making ambitious promises they don't have the ability to keep, they hype train for No Man's Sky reached biblical proportions. As the years dragged on and people got more and more eager to get their hands on what they believed would be a game that would bring about the second coming of Christ, the hype train reached speeds that would only result in a catastrophic crash...and that is exactly what happened.
    People believed that a dev team with only a couple completely unrelated games under their belt comprised of only 15 people would be able to do in just 3 years with barely any funding what Triple-A studios with hundreds of people and millions of dollars behind them have been unable to. So when the game finally launched just a couple short weeks ago, people were met with the harsh reality: No Man's Sky was very obviously a game made by an inexperienced indie studio with just 15 people behind it. Optimization issues, crashes, bugs, laughable generation of creatures, the rubiks-cube syndrome (in which yes there might be a quintillion combinations but they all just look like a rubik's cube, so to might there be a quintillion planets in No Man's Sky but only a handful of those will be distinguishable from any of the others), and a lack of easily noticeable depth to the game. It was a video game, not the answer to world peace, and that is what people need to realize about hype: the end result will NEVER live up to the expectations of  years worth hype, so declaring "there ain't no breaks on the hype train" will only result in your experience being far less than it could be. Hype killed No Man's Sky's first impressions.

    So is No Man's Sky any good? Yes. It actually is in spite of everything that has happened. No, there is no multiplayer, no the game looks nothing like the trailers, and yes, it is disappointing compared to what the hype made it seem like it would be, but in the same way that Elite: Dangerous is a niche title that requires a certain kind of person to enjoy it, so to does No Man's Sky require a special kind of person to truly appreciate what it offers. Pictured here is a planet that I discover in what I dubbed the "Horizon System". The planet, Horizon 1, was a lush tropical forest world of large islands and shallow oceans teeming with life and filled with rare and valuable resources, protected by highly aggressive sentinels. The world had frequent rain storms and gorgeous sunsets that reminded me of mangos, which only added to the feeling of being in a tropical paradise. Deep caverns filled with glowing crystal formations, as well as being dotted with the ancient ruins and monoliths of the Vy'Keen race of aliens ensured that I had hours upon hours worth of content to explore here. And that's really what No Man's Sky is about: exploration. Finding something you haven't seen before, something that catches your attention and imagination and makes you say "I want to see everything on this planet!". The game's narrative and ultimate goals might be shallow, but the lore and interactions with the various alien races and the exploration of planets is very deep indeed. Somebody who truly loves the journey of a game rather than the destination and finds relaxation in wandering aimlessly wondering what they're going to find next will find endless enjoyment in No Man's Sky.

    If people would learn from history and stop getting so hyped over things, and realize that it's okay for people to like things they don't, disappointment like what happened to No Man's Sky would be kept to only the truly atrocious games such as Arkham Knight, Ride to Hell: Retribution, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and anything Konami produces post-Kojima, then niche titles such as No Man's Sky will get the praise and attention they deserve. On top of that though is also another underlying problem: the fact that publishers and studios have banked in on preorder culture as hard as they can and are now purposefully trying to drive the hype up and then suppress pre-launch reviews to make sure that their day-1 sales are as high as they possibly can be, so that way even if day two sells four copies because the game turned out to be utter garbage, the company can still say they had a successful launch and then move on to the next project to do the same exact thing.

DO NOT GIVE IN TO HYPE CULTURE.

No Man's Sky can be purchased on steam for $59.99 here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/

#Battleborn Vs #Overwatch: Are they the same thing?

Having played both games, I can safely say no, they aren't. They are similar, but in the same way that Metroid Prime and Call of Duty are similar (here's a hint: they aren't really). Allow me to explain why, and to do that I will start by talking about what Battleborn is:

     Battleborn is the team-based arena shooter developed by Gearbox that released on PC, PS4, and XB1 not too long ago.It advertises itself as being a badass game filled with badass heroes for badass players and just really REALLY loves that word "badass". But then again, these are the same developers who brought us Borderlands, so that's not too difficult to comprehend. In practice, Battleborn is a first-person arena shooter that uses MOBA elements to create a unique and cartoony multiplayer experience, as well as a Borderlands-style story mode. Each of the games current 25 heroes is completely unique, has their own skill set, and a colorful array of dialogue. The game uses comedy to great effect in order to make the game feel like it doesn't take itself seriously and therefore neither should the player. Normally I would say this is a bad thing for a competitive shooter but Battleborn manages to do it in a way that comes off as "look bro, we're just here to have fun. Don't be toxic to your team, don't worry so much about winning, just get the hell out there and blow shit up".      The game's painted landscapes and colorful visuals, as well as intentional censor bleeping of swear words makes it come off as a cross between a television show and a video game, which is true to the standard Borderlands design that is to be expected from Gearbox.
      As for actual gameplay, it's a lot like a MOBA: each character is pre-made with their own theme, personality, and set of 4 skills and a passive, as well as augments you can get as you level up in a match to alter their abilities to suit the situation or your own playstyle. There are 3 pvp modes: a 1-lane + jungle MOBA map where you push minion waves and capture objectives to destroy the enemy teams sentry robots, of which their are two. But instead of lasting as long as it takes somebody to win, each match has a maximum of 30 minutes. If the timer runs out the match either ends in a draw or the team who has the highest total percentage of sentry health (each sentry accounts for 50 points for a total of 100) wins. There is also a traditional 3-point king of the hill mode, as well as a minion-pushing mode where the goal is to push your minions to the enemy teams altars and sacrifice them, with each minion sacrificed giving you points depending on how big it is, with the first team to reach the goal or whoever has the most points at the end of the timer winning the match.
     The solo campaign follows traditional Halo-style "point A to point B with enemies and objectives between you" linear maps with the story about how an evil interdimensional force is destroying all the stars in the universe and a coalition of several factions populated by the last living races in the universe fighting to prevent the last star in existence from being destroyed as well. Cliche, but imaginative. All in all it's a solid, fun, goofy shooter meant for MOBA players who like Shooters as well.

As for Blizzard's latest addition to the Battle.net launcher, Overwatch is still a team-based arena shooter but the way it approaches things is a lot more akin to Halo multiplayer or Quake than a MOBA. Matches are attack/defense/payload (as far as the Beta has shown) on asymmetrical maps filled with twists and turns and buildings and all sorts of other potential avenues for tactical advancement. Each hero is, like Battleborn, given their own unique theme, personality, dialogue, and skillset. Each hero has a basic attack with their primary weapon, two utility skills, and an ultimate which charges over time passively and by damaging and killing enemies. The time-to-kill in Overwatch is tiny, with many heroes possessing ultimates that can easily wipe out the entire enemy team if positioned properly. The balance to this is that respawn times are very short and do not get longer. They are essentially as long as it takes you to watch the kill-cam of how you died which is a fixed length of several seconds, and then you are back in the game. The atmosphere of the game is still colorful and full of life and action, but the mood of the game is a lot more serious than Battleborn. Overwatch has the air of a comic book, while Battleborn has the air of a late-night comedy show. I only played the Open Beta for a few days, so I can't give too much else about Overwatch, but I liked it enough that I did preorder it and look forward to playing it on the 24th, and so will give a much more detailed overview of the game when I get my hands on the full version.

To summarize:
Battleborn is a shooter for people who like League of Legends and shows aired by Adult Swim.
Overwatch is a shooter for people who like Team Fortress 2 and Marvel movies.

You can buy Battleborn from Steam here for $59.99: http://store.steampowered.com/app/394230/
You can pre-order Overwatch from Blizzard here for $39.99: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/buy/