Explore The Entire Universe In A Scientifically Accurate Version Of “No Man’s Sky”
As a person who loves Star Trek there are 2 major things where Roddenberry’s vision excels — the inner strive of developing yourself to become the best human being possible and, of course, the discovery of outer places. That’s in a nutshell what Trek is or used to be about (you know, until some action loving guy came around, took the franchise over and seeks out more annoying, uninspired regions).
However, being also a Gamer — there’s this new, totally hyped and kinda cool game called No Man’s Sky on the virtual shelves now. Its mission is to bring to life a literally endless universe for us to discover and delve into — which sounded good to me.
The problem I have though, is that after a couple of hours it’s getting pretty repetitive. Thinking about this game, I start to wonder if it’s really worth another round or, to be more accurate, another planet on my way to the center of the coded universe? Maybe it’s just a waste of time? Yes, the game is neat, but I never liked mining or Minecraft to begin with and — more so — I always enjoy good story-telling like in the Uncharted or TLoU series… something that’s totally absent in this one. In fact, that’s making the trip to the random galaxies more of a No Man’s Land for me^^
Another missing piece that otherwise would’ve pushed NMS onto another level might just be around the corner. There’s this talented Russian dude, who at least created a scientifically accurate game much the same way, the guys from NMS were trying to do, but didn’t for their reasons.
So, unless you’re more a follower of the flat earth society, this game could be a better fit for the Trekky in you. Here you actually do go on a mission seeking out the real universe… yes, the known parts of it, but anyway, the rest will then be generated by the AI and algorithms.
Furthermore, the game going by the name Space Engine is a free simulation game featuring almost any real star or galaxy you can think of waiting to be visited. The rest of the universe is filled with procedurally generated galaxies, stars, and planets. You enter a star ship and discover all types of celestial objects, including galaxies, nebulae, stars and star clusters, planets, moons, comets, and asteroids. A built-in wiki system allows you to see descriptions of all of the celestial objects, even the ones that are generated by the game itself.
It originally saw the light of day back in 2012 and has now been updated with several new features that include black hole accretion disks and rogue planets (planets without stars). Enjoy the trailer for the latest version or download the game altogether.
This article was originally published on pionic.
