One of the most eagerly anticipated and crazily ambitious games of recent times, No Man's Sky, is finally out this week. The only trouble is, you'll need a PS4 to play it.
It's an epic sci-fi first-person exploration game that takes in a whole randomly generated galaxy. You can explore planets, engage in space-bound dogfights, become a wealthy trader - the options are bewildering.
Fortunately, there are a fair few games on the App Store that boast many of No Man's Sky's qualities. Maybe not all in the same package, and certainly not at the same scale. But download each of these six games and you'll have a pretty accomplished composite of Hello Games's latest effort.
Galaxy on Fire 2 is probably the closest thing to No Man's Sky in terms of scope and variety. It's a free-wheeling space exploration game in which you can choose your own path, whether that be as a glorified space miner, a gun-for-hire, or a fearsome pirate - all in the service of pimping up your initially humble spaceship.
In gameplay terms, FTL largely turns the attention inwards, to the logistical workings of a medium-sized spaceship with a small crew. But the randomly generated environments, sense of intrepid interstellar exploration, and need to improve your ship will be familiar to No Man's Sky fans.
Like FTL, Out There concentrates on the workings of your ship as much as any spacey exploration stuff. It's really more of an adventure game with elements of resource management - plus a compellingly bleak choose-your-own-adventure story tying it all together.
Here's another game that aims to nail the open do-what-you-like-in-space vibe. The key difference with Vendetta Online, though, is that it's a massively multiplayer game, so you'll be interacting with real players - some of which will be playing on PCs and Macs.
Besides the epic exploration angle, No Man's Sky is all about mining for resources. No iOS game has captured that intergalactic junk collector feeling quite as well as Space Miner: Space Ore Bust. Scoot around space, blasting asteroids, hoovering up precious ore, and pimping out your ship.
Of course, No Man's Sky isn't all about space travel. It also lets you explore strange alien worlds and slice up the indigenous life. For a taste of that on iOS, you can't really do better than Knights of the Old Republic - a top conversion of one of the finest RPGs ever made. Did we mention it's a Star Wars game? Yeah, there's that too.
