Tuesday 7 October 2014

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky

Hello Games’ Sean Murray is steering No Man’s Sky’s debug camera from a few inches of dirt on the surface of a desert world up to a view of the planet from orbit. Up, then down. Up, then down. From the ground he swings the camera upwards, where another planet hangs low in orbit on the horizon. I can see hills, valleys and forests on its surface.

“That planet is being fully generated, just at a low level of detail,” he says. “The planet you’re stood on is also fully generated. When you’re stood on a mountain you can see forever - to the curvature of the planet.”

There are no loading screens or pauses as the perspective of the debug camera races from ground to space, from world to world, just a slight fading effect as terrain closer to the player is rendered at a higher level of detail. The reason there are no loading screens is because No Man’s Sky isn’t reliant on reading content from a hard disk. In fact, none of this data is contained in a file at all.

Asus Strix Pro

Asus Strix Pro

A good headset can provide a very big edge in gaming, and Asus have demonstrated their understanding of this concept in the form of the Strix Pro Gaming Headset. It joins the Strix range of components and peripherals (for those who like uniformity) as a multiplatform stereo headset that really delivers the goods.

And it looks good too. The Strix logo (owl eyes and eyebrows, essentially) has been cleverly worked into the design; the powerful 60mm neodymium drivers are housed behind clear panels in the ear cups, are accented with a bright orange. When the ear cups are folded down (they rotate a full ninety degrees) and the headset is laid flat, this element, combined with the shape of the ear cups, looks just like the logo. It’s a nice touch when all is said and done, and one that speaks volumes about the design approach taken for this product.