GAME TECH: Sky’s the limit for space travel

ALIENS have visited Earth. No doubt about it. They just haven’t introduced themselves yet — after all, they’re too busy searching for signs of intelligent life. Or, maybe they were scared away by our highly-trained Halo military force. (Tea-bagging can have that effect).

Truth be told, we’d have to travel a long way to find any signs of life on another planet. Even then, that life is likely to be microscopic, smaller than the chances of this column winning an Olympic gold medal. Still, that’s not how we like to imagine the universe in popular science fiction. We like to imagine the universe as a sprawling garden of teeming life and beauty, with plants and creatures that resemble our own, but which have been put through a hall of mirrors, familiar yet incredible.

No Man’s Sky will be released in June and it aims to capture that feeling in a bottle. If you’ve ever wanted to hop in a spaceship and fly off to discover new lands and places, then this game may be your golden ticket. It has referenced the sci-fi book covers of the 1970s and brought them to life. If you’ve seen the artwork of Chris Foss on an Isaac Asimov book, then you know what to expect from the world of No Man’s Sky.

For an industry obsessed with exploration, it has taken a long time for a game like this to be made. A game in which space travel is accompanied by planetary landing, without load times. In No Man’s Sky, you can land on any planet, hop out of it, explore the strange new lifeforms unique to that place, then hop back in your ship and fly to the next planet, all without loading screens. By all accounts, the game is so large (universe-large) that it will never be fully explored.

Yet, like the mystery of life in the real universe, there remains a question mark over No Man’s Sky. Is there a compelling game underneath all that exploration? There are shooting and crafting elements, and interactions with characters , but do those things sustain hours of gameplay? How does the game feel to play? Creatures and plant life are randomly generated on each planet — will the models start to repeat too soon and too often? Just like an Irish politician, wearing different colours doesn’t necessarily change the thing.

Still, it’s exciting to see a game like No Man’s Sky on the verge of release. Aliens might not yet have visited Earth — but there’s nothing to say we can’t visit them.

SALT IN YOUR WOUNDS

If you’re looking for a game that puts the ‘salt’ in assault, then how about this tasty morsel? Salt and Sanctuary is a 2D platformer that references the Dark Souls series for gameplay and tone, but does so in old-school fashion. It’s a cross between Castlevania and Souls, with your custom character stranded on a demonic island filled with secrets and giant bosses. Instead of souls, the enemies drop ‘salt’ and, just like Dark Souls, you can team up in co-op. You can also expect to die early and often. Still, unlike the sometimes cumbersome Souls controls, Salt and Sanctuary has the advantage of being 2D, which makes the gameplay a little more arcade-like. Not a bad choice, at all, for gamers craving a deep, and lengthy, platform RPG.

VIRTUAL STAR WARS

Last week, this column complained that Star Wars Battlefront was too safe for a Star Wars game. Well, lo and behold, Sony and EA have since announced Battefront VR, a virtual reality (VR) version of the game being made for PlayStation VR. It’s exactly the kind of move that both virtual reality and Star Wars games need to make if they are to push the boundaries. Sony’s VP of marketing, John Koller, whose job it is to speak plainly and without any bias whatsoever, said the following:

“We are working to make that experience intrinsic to what’s in many people’s DNA, which is, ‘How can I be in that world of Star Wars?’” Koller said. “Battlefront is going to be one of those games that will really show gamers what it means to be in the world of VR. It’s very special.” Our alien friends will be pleased.