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No Mans Sky has given me so much enjoyment in the 1000+ hours I've played it that i'm starting to feel guilty at having only paid the asking price...
TLDR - Highly Recommended, the spirit of the game is space exploration, the atmosphere is relaxed and low pressure, the mechanics are refined, the developers are active and engaged and the community is friendly. If the idea of exploring alien worlds is appealing to you i'd 100% pick it up.

What i love :-

+ Travel - Fly to and land anywhere with no perceivable loading screen, no other game does this as well in my opinion. This mechanic alone is my new benchmark for space exploration games, its 80% of the immersion.
+ Lore - Initially alien and obscure but surprisingly deep and interesting if you pay attention to it.
+ Infinite exploration - Procedural generation of planets, flora and fauna. My search for the perfect paradise
planet and the most anatomically correct T-REX continues!
+ Building Mechanics - Tricky to master but rewarding with varied building pieces and basic but satisfying factory, farming and power systems. Building a stasis device farm was a really enjoyable project!
+ Mobile Bases - You can own a capital ship and build your own fully fleshed out mobile base inside. You can also summon this ship to any location, use it to teleport inventory, teleport vehicles, run npc missions and as a fast travel point. This is one of my favourite systems in the game.
+ Ship collecting and building - Procedural generated ships, search for your perfect ship or collect parts to build your own. Multiple ship types, stats and upgrades. Organic and Robotic ships are standout favourites of mine.
+ Community - Generally speaking other players are generous and welcoming and a pleasure to interact with. The game also has a thriving YouTube community with loads of great content creators for you to get on your second screen. Captain Steve, Beeblebum, Professor Cynical, Xaine, Ghost Light and Jason Plays to name a few!
+ Hello Games, free updates and improvements - Hello games have gone through a genuine redemption arc and are now a testament to what a smaller more focused game studio can achieve. The constant updates, free content drops and community engagement have transformed this game into something to be proud of. Other developers could do with following their example.

Needs improvement -

+ The Ship Combat - The ship combat is basic and accessible, it reminds me of freelancer and i like it fine, but could be improved with one addition, inertia! In freelancer you had the ability to turn your engines off and coast with inertia, this enabled you to pull off some cool manoeuvres and faster turns making the combat feel a lot more dynamic than it deserved. If inertia was added it would go a long way to improving things.
+ Aggressive Fauna - We could really do with some more threat. Aggressive fauna are rare and are more of annoyance than anything. We could do with more aggressive fauna enemy types (flying and ranged) and higher enemy strength and frequency. One solution would be to add a new planet type where these new aggressive fauna types spawn and gate combat specific rewards behind objectives on those planets. That would scratch that itch while keeping it an optional game mechanic.
+ The companion system - I really enjoy collecting creatures but for the most part they aren't useful. Companions can technically mine resources and attack enemies but they never seem to do it. If you increase the frequency and strength of these abilities in line with companion loyalty levels and allow taming of large flying fauna types for mounts that would go a long way to improving things.