Noctis

Noctis is one of those laid back games, were very little can go wrong. there is no winning or losing, just exploring.

The whole point of noctis is to explore space. What’s that I hear you whispering in the back? It’s been done before? Good point, but here’s where it gets interesting, it’s not about exploring space per se, it’s about exploring the planets in space! You actually land on the planet and can run around and explore, taking pictures as you go along.

So I bet you’re thinking, exploring planets.. sounds like fun, but how long till I explore every planet and get bored? Well feel free to calculate, each planet has well over an hour to fully explore, but if you look in the right places, less time than that is required to find something interesting. each star has an average of 3 planets (some have more, some less, and some none, but i'ld say that’s a fair average)... and there are 70 billion stars... yes that is not a typo, there really are that many stars... So now your thinking, this game has to be huge (download) but no, thanks to procedural generation, the author has managed to create 70 billion stars in less than 2 megabites!

It gets better, you like a planet you found? Name it! Name the star while your at it... then upload it to the server so everyone (who takes the time to download the library file anyway) will be able to find your planet!

Also there is life to find, and if you get into this game as much as I did, you will be really excited when you first find a lifeform !

Despite the filesize, this game is huge. Now for the bad parts.. while planets do look beautiful, the resolution the game uses is very poor, and the graphics are pretty bad. Also there is no sound in the game.

Also one last thing, you must extract fuel from a certain sun type, and if you run out of fuel, you can call for help, and may find another ship giving you just enough fuel to get to the right sun type (this makes for amazing pictures!) and even if you close the game, it calculates what should have happened in the time you where gone, when you get back, and makes it seem like the game was still running (i.e., if it took an hour for your fuel to run out, and you quit the game, and came back an hour later, no fuel... if you called for help, got fed up waiting and left, help might have arrived while you where gone)

Pros:

Uploading/downloading library so everyone shares the same universe is a great idea
Sheer size of universe is breathtaking
Sheer size of universe versus size of file, is amazing
Variation in types of planets and stars
Integrated camera in the games helmet, makes photography fun

Cons:

Graphics
Lack of sounds

Review by KrazyKain