No Man's Sky Next, Tomb Raider

No Man's Sky Next

• When the game first came out I put about 20 hours into it and thought it was a nice zen game.  I was hoping for something truly special and it was just OK and hadn't played it since.  
• They have been releasing free expansions over the last couple of years and a big one just dropped this week so I thought I'd fly back in.  
• I started a new save since I hadn't played in so long and wasn't sure where I left off and thought it would be easier to learn everything new.
• The starting tutorial did a nice job of explaining all the new features and it had a nice progression.
• They made some drastic changes in the crafting system where you have to refine elements into other forms using special machines.  This seems nice at first then it's just a chore since refining takes actual real time so you are waiting on those to complete before making something else.   
• All these changes make the game feel more dense, but the core game play loop is the same and unfortunately it's not enough for me.  
• I like the idea of exploring and finding new diverse planets and even though they did make the planets(ring planets)  and terrain more variable there is still not much to do differently on each planet.
• There are quests that you can undertake and so far they just been find x of this mineral, kill x sentinels, or find a bounty that leads to a space battle nothing really interesting.  
• Now the biggest feature is multi player and I didn't give that a shot so maybe that would change my opinion of the game as roaming around space with friends and just chilling could be cool. 
• I do like the game but I wanted something special and as I mentioned at the top it's just OK.   

Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider

• With the announcement of the last game in the latest Tomb Raider Trilogy releasing soon, I thought I'd go back and play through the other two again, I especially wanted to see them in 4K on my OLED.  
• I remember really liking the first game and kind of preferred it to the second as it was a more focused game.  
• The first game still holds up and was fun playing through it again without having to worry about trying to find everything and just enjoyed the story, exploration, and combat
• The sound in the game is amazing and it rattled my game room constantly especially the shotgun, it would trigger my buttkickers into overdrive.   The second game supported Dolby Atmos so I was really eager to give that a try. 
• Unfortunately only the console versions of Rise of the Tomb Raider supports Dolby Atmos so I had to play it on my Xbox One X.  I would have liked to played it on my PC since I have all the DLC there but was surprised at how well the game ran at 4K resolution on the Xbox.
• The HDR implementation is awesome and really adds to the game especially in exploring dark caves using a torch or a light stick.  
• The sound is exceptional as well and I'll have to experiment to see if I can notice the difference in the ATMOS mix.