Topic: "Guess the review score" 2016 Edition

@Scollurio: Haha - no worries man. I just took it as a jovial response! And besides, I did!

Just wanna bring this topic back to attention since we already have a few scores to compare!
I might say, I'm not far off so far!
What about you folks?

7 out of 10 for No Man's Sky people will be dissappointed due to the title being overhyped

Division 7
No Man's Sky 8

I wouldn't be surprised if No Mans Sky drops as low as 4-5. With its price point it should be reviewed along with games like the Witcher 3, Uncharted 4, Fallout 4 etc. Visually its bright but certainly not up to these standards. Gameplay may have hundreds - even thousands of 'potential' hours but as its quite repetitive without much (if any) story, I think t could get repetitive and very samey - Planets will become very similar and no doubt give a sense of 'deja vu'. No doubt some reviewers will give bonus marks for its ambition and scale, and extra points for the fact it's achieved this with a small development team. I don't know how many levels of Spaceship, Suit and weapons there are but there is no character levelling or skill trees. I don't know how many Monoliths there are or how many you would need to find to be able to reach the centre but is that 'mystery' of what's there going to be enough to drive people?

@BAMozzy: I think the some of the planet environments looked great considering its an indie game developed by a tiny team. I also don't think its fair to compare the visuals with other triple A games since they have a bigger team and budget. I thought Fallout 4 looked like a PS3 game but people still enjoyed it. As for gameplay, I'm still on the fence and I'm gonna wait for reviews first. It'll be interesting to see how people would react when they actually do meet another player for the first time in this game. lol

@WanderingBullet: Whilst I can agree its maybe unfair to compare this with big studio's and their AAA games from a visual perspective, I think its totally justified considering the price point. If Uncharted or Fallout looked like this, there would be a lot of negative comments thrown at the developers. Even comparing it from a purely visual perspective, it doesn't even compare to last gen games either - Uncharted, Last of Us, even older games like Bioshock or Dead Space - even 'big' RPG's/open world games like Oblivion, Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption.
I know it may have a 'small' team behind it but so did Dust: an Elysium Tale and Ori and the Blind Forest. In all honesty though, visuals are the least of my concern but if it wants to charge a 'premium' price, it has to deliver a 'premium' product on all levels - visuals included.
According to the Developers, there is less than 1% chance of meeting up with another player and you can't explore with 'friends' either - https://www.vg247.com/2014/12/11/you-wont-be-playing-no-mans-... Its effectively a Single Player experience. The main way you will know other people have been there is because they will have named something. I bet most solar systems won't have many players in at a time anyway and god knows how many solar systems this could have.
To quote 1 article I read 'Rather than people actually playing together at the same time, No Man’s Sky‘s multiplayer elements will work in a similar way to those of Dark Souls or Terraria – both of which are examples that Murray uses for comparison. The first player to discover a planet will leave their legacy behind on it (when others visit it, the message “Discovered by [insert player tag here] will pop up) and there will be other ways for players to make others aware of their presence.'
Murray also said '“Just to be really clear… it is not an MMO. All of those questions are leading toward that. There are loads of MMOs out there. People can play those. We want people to be able to get a sense of playing with other people and feel like this is a real, live universe. If you want to play a first-person-shooter-sci-fi-run-around-on-a-planet game, play Destiny. It’s a really good game. Go play that. We’re not trying to do that.”
With 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 procedurally generated planets in it, even if EVERY person who owns a PS4 were playing online at the same time, there is 500,000,000,000x more planets than people! I can't see it happening.

@BAMozzy:

If Uncharted or Fallout looked like this, there would be a lot of negative comments thrown at the developers.

Of cause there would be but those are like I said major studios that has a history of developing triple A games. Hello Games previous work were only the Joe Danger series if I'm not mistaken. I also definitely think that it looks better than Dust: an Elysium Tale plus the scope of the game is bigger too.

...but if it wants to charge a 'premium' price, it has to deliver a 'premium' product on all levels - visuals included.

If that's the case, I can think a bunch of other games that don't deserve the $60 price tag. Should Fallout 4 be priced at below $60 just because the graphics wasn't up to par for a triple A game? What about Destiny, it delivered in terms of gameplay and graphics but certainly not content wise in the vanilla game. Should it had cost below $60 as well? A lot of Namco's games cost $60 but don't deliver premium visuals either like for example Dragon Ball Xenoverse or most recently Arslan: The Warriors of Legend. To be honest I was expecting NMS to cost somewhere in the range of $40 and not $60 either. :/ Guess we'll know once the reviews are out if the that price tag was justified.

@WanderingBullet: I know its subjective but I actually think Fallout 3 looks better than this does - maybe not as colourful but certainly better. As I said, I also think a number of PS3 games (like Uncharted, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, Batman: Arkham series etc) all look better. Destiny (Vanilla) is difficult to compare in terms of content. Yes the 'story' was a bit lacking but unlike games like Halo, Killzone or other FPS, you didn't get the big, open, 'free roam' opportunities with activities in these. Also every aspect is inter-connected unlike the others. At face value, content may seem lacking 20 short campaign missions, 5/6 strikes, 1 Raid over 4 relatively large areas and 12 MP maps but that doesn't tell the whole story. Even people that complain about the 'cost' of the expansion packs, considering its cheaper than buying a PvE and PvP pack separately but combined both. Again the face value looks poor in terms of content but even that PvE content generated more hours than the Witcher 3 for example for many of its gamers. AAA is NOT always about the 'hours' a game can generate or the 'amount' of content in terms of 'numbers'. Destiny for example may seem light of content but it still has great depth, Character development/upgrades, variety of weapons/gear with their upgrades,, depth of lore/back story etc as well as AAA production values and game-play mechanics. I can't comment about Namco's games or games like the recent Transformers, Borderlands, Street Fighter in terms of purely visual presentation or content - like Titanfall or SW:BF (Destiny beats both of these easily). We could argue all day about 'relative' costs - Should TF, SW:BF, SF5, the Order etc be priced at AAA because of their content/visuals etc? Point is though they get judged together as AAA because of that 'price point' not because they have a relatively big studio behind them. Indies are generally compared, reviewed because of their 'price point'. Do you think Firewatch would get as high a score if it charged AAA prices? I very much doubt it! This game is putting itself into the AAA bracket because it is charging AAA prices. People don't care if it was made by 1 developer or 500! Whilst it may offer more 'potential' hours than many AAA games, So do other 'indies' (like Rocket League).
In my mind, Indie and budget (I don't know how else to describe the games that are made by big studio's but have budget prices - like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, AC: Chronicles etc) get reviewed together because of their pricing not because of the size of studio or 'label' attached to it. Its unfair to judge FC3:BD against FC3 or Wolfenstein: TOB against Wolfenstein: TNO but to judge these alongside other similar budget games - including the 'indies'. By pricing itself at AAA pricing, its putting itself into that category and level of expectation.
Its not just about the visual presentation, as we know some AAA games have a unique artstyle (like trying to mimic the 80's cartoons in Transformers or Cel shading of Borderlands) and this in that regard is no different. I personally am not a fan of it but that's a very minor issue. Minecraft (in my opinion) has one of the worst visual presentations of any game yet is one of the most successful. That too has procedurally generated worlds.
I do wonder how many reviews though will compare this alongside other 'indies' because of that label and because they don't have to buy the game. I also wonder how they can 'complete' the game before their final verdict which then makes me ask, how many 'hours' have they spent before reaching that verdict and would they want to continue playing beyond that or has it got too repetitive, too much 'deja vu'. I doubt that there is an infinite number of upgrades to ships, weapons and of course your suit, so what happens after that? Are you just endlessly searching for 'monoliths' and the centre of the universe? Its not like you need resources anymore!