My Spaceship Has Better AC Than My Car: How No Man's Sky Saved Me From Summer's Tyranny

Here I sit during another warm and humid summer day, sipping a Tom Collins, and trying to recall how many days are left in summer (a dreaded sixty-four).  As someone who eschews air conditioning, I've got my fans blowing with abandon, as I try to keep the hairshirt of humidity at bay.  Likewise, I got my elderly but cool-running Chromebook as a companion to complement my furry feline friend, who is the only creature I know who despises summer more than I do. There are rumors of thunderstorms this evening, and rumors of rumors of thunderstorms as well, but at the moment, I continue to suffer from the baleful gaze of the sun as it continues to take an interest in making me as uncomfortable as possible.  It knows that I oppose its seasonal tyranny, this ridiculous charade known as 'summer' where people walk around with pained smiles as they reassure themselves, and everyone they meet, that summer is the best season, pinky swear and all.  

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It is at times like this that I find my mind wandering to the delightful days of autumn, where nature sobers up and swears off the pointless freneticism of the most obnoxious season of all.  If summer is Alice Cooper wailing with adolescent joy that "Schools Out for Summer," autumn is the mature sensibilities of Billie Holiday's Autumn in New York, where she invites us to join her in a meditative stroll down "canyons of steel" while "shimmering clouds" float overhead. 

Now I've done it. I've allowed my yearnings to uncork the sweet wine of fallen leaves and heavy gray skies. It makes the bitter taste of summer all the more unpalatable. 

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I only indulge in two seasonal pleasures: grilling and swimming. Grilling, because despite mega-gallons of "artificial smoke" being produced every year - even the name is offensive to me - nothing can compare with the actual smoky taste of meat cooked over a bona fide wood or charcoal fire, nitrates and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons be damned. 

As for swimming, that is my portal to another dimension. When I dive into my pool, the sun reflecting off the water ripples like waves of light refracting around a blackhole, I feel like an explorer of an alternate reality, one where summer's heat and humidity are merely a bad memory from a previous life.  The cool, weightless experience always puts me in mind of one of my favorite autumnal hobbies: playing PC space games.  

By sheer number of hours played, Elite Dangerous would be my clear favorite. Elite takes a realistic approach to outer space, something that often makes space as dark as the inside of a shut freezer, and as star-speckled as a winter evening. In terms of mood, it captures the dark days of late autumn and the following winter perfectly, even down to the cozy interiors of space stations and planetary ports that match my love of indoor living. All these elements feed my passion for the game. 

But as a game for warm summer days, not so much.  For summer escapes into the vastness of the cosmos, I prefer Hello Games' magnum opus, No Man's Sky. 

Many Elite Dangerous fans are unimpressed with the game, considering it a "rock-hopper." That is to say that much of the gameplay concerns visiting alien worlds, while Elite, despite also having its own worlds to visit, is more heavily focused on travelling in space itself.  This is a fair criticism. But it is also why No Man's Sky is a superior summer space game. NMS, as its legion of fans lovingly refer to it, excels, perhaps unlike any other game, in bringing alien worlds to life in all their alien summer glory!

I was reminded of this the other night when I had landed on a boiling hot (169°F) volcanic planet, one that, in retrospect, was probably more comfortable than my home on that hot and humid night. The landscape was primordial, with burnt trees everywhere, and small brush fires dotting the landscape. In the far distance, a giant volcano loomed, its ash cone shrouded by gray smoke, indicating a recent eruption, while a smaller volcano behind it glowed with rivers of molten lava.  It was truly a hellscape. 

If 'hot mess' were a planet, it would look like this. 

I had landed on this planet in search of certain minerals that only form in such harsh environments. While there, I did stumble across two alien outposts, no doubt constructed to conduct research on this still-forming world.  While I was tempted to slap the alien scientists across the face and ask what they were thinking by living in such environs, research or not, I then remembered I was the nut surviving summer without using A/C.  Instead, I mined my minerals while dodging volcanic eruptions and got out of there as soon as I could.

That immersive experience was not the exception to the rule; rather, it was the rule. NMS is filled to the brim with such experiences, and what a brim it is.  It is estimated that the game generates around 18 quintillion star systems across 256 galaxies, providing hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of content for its rabid fan base.  And while it is true that after the first few hundred awe-inspiring planets, the view becomes rather same-y -"oh look, another volcano world...<yawn> - the game nonetheless provides a functionally limitless sandbox for its "travellers".

Cinders blow in the wind as the surface temperature of this planet sits at a staggering 569°F, which officially makes it Space Florida

Your adventures aren't limited to land trekking either, for NMS also models planetary oceans and lakes, some of which can be kilometers deep.  Being able to take a swim on an alien world is another reason why I find NMS to be the perfect summer space exploration game.  Recently, Hello Games, the developer of NMS, updated the water physics to a much more realistic level, something that goes so far as to have the sea state conform to the prevailing weather, i.e., a stormy day will produce angry waves, and so on. This has taken the experience of alien oceanography to an entirely new level of realism.  And, needless to say, like the land, the watery depths of these alien worlds are populated by all sorts of interesting creatures that the player can explore and catalog.

I discovered this species, dubbed S. Muluchbicrisae, while exploring a shallow sea. It weighs 146 kg at 2.3 meters long.

Needless to say, I would never pretend that while swimming in my pool I was actually taking a dip on one of the game's many alien worlds - I swear! - I have found exploring the watery depths of one of NMS's strange planets can reinforce the urge to explore the vinyl and chlorine depths of my pool. This connection proved so strong this year that I found my in-game Traveller building his own pool at his planetary base.

Step one to surviving on a warm alien world during summer: build a rudimentary base with an elaborate pool

Exploring these otherworlds with their diverse flora and fauna is very reminiscent of my typical summer day out in the backyard. Just what you will discover tantalizes the imagination. Will it be an odd rock formation, some discarded junk, or a bewildering selection of plants and wildlife?  Whatever you discover, you can be sure you'll be filled with both a profound awe at the dizzying possibilities... and the sudden, overwhelming urge to close your eyes and just go back inside. You know, like any given afternoon in my backyard.

A mother and her cub of the G. Goloureseum species often wander around my beachfront base looking for some food.

After spending a day traipsing around some wild frontier world with its assortment of environmental hazards and the waking nightmares that are the flora and fauna in this game, one of my great pleasures is the respite offered by the local space station.  When I land at one of these facilities, I am strongly reminded of how it feels when I flee the biological chaos of my yard and enter the civilized world of indoor living.  What a blessed relief.  

The pure, unadulterated joy of indoor living: technology humming, not an unkempt plant in sight, and zero risk of making uncomfortable eye contact with anything possessing more than two legs.

I particularly enjoy encountering the other denizens of NMS's surreal galaxies, as they are often so friendly, especially when compared to the oft unaccountably nasty denizens of Elite Dangerous's galaxy (seriously, what dev thought it would be smart to have every NPC bark at the player constantly?). I suspect all the visitors to the station are so happy-go-lucky for the mere reason of not being on the surface of the many untamed worlds in this setting. Who could blame them? 

Sadly, such station respites don't last forever. Just like how Target security eventually has to pry me from the air-conditioned embrace of the electronics section, threatening to call authorities if I don't vacate the premises and brave the savage heat of the non-Target world, I am eventually forced to leave my orbital sanctuary to resume my endless errands in the NMS world. Even here, NMS gets summer right.  It doesn't matter if it's one hundred degrees in the shade with enough humidity to drown a fish; there are still chores that need to be done. At least my spaceship has air conditioning...unlike my car.

My station respite over, I head out yet again because if I don't get the space groceries, who will?

But even in this Escher-like setting, when the sun (suns?) sets, it can be rewarding to kick back and relax for a few moments. Summer is the worst season of all, ipse dixit, but it can be quite pretty, too, whether in the real world or the virtual.  If a video game can get me to realize that, it might well be the greatest game of all time. 

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