Traders, Aliens, Robots and a little something else, all packed in an indie strategy game… fun times ahead.
Foreword
This isn’t a high tier game or a very popular indie title, but I decided to write a review for it because even though it may not seem great, for its price it can be thoroughly enjoyed.
Some key points that this game offers:
- Simple mechanics, so easy to get into the full swing of the game.
- Challenging, expect to test your mettle when going up against the AI in hard mode.
- Beautiful cartoon graphics.
- Two races to choose from.
- Same system multiplayer, that’s right, 80’s co-op is right here; up to four players on the same machine can play together.
- Levelling system that allows you to choose passive skills to boost your abilities.
Gameplay & Controls:
The controls for the game are very simple, you use your mouse for pretty much everything. Right click to choose upgrades and what structure to build on a planet, left click gets used to attack planets, or to accept chosen options, pretty self-explanatory there. The mouse wheel is used to set the stance of your buildings, such as guard mode. You have access to the space button and esc for quick shortcuts but they can easily just be pressed with LMB.
Now for the gameplay, it’s a straightforward strategy game, that isn’t all that complex, you start with one or a few planets and as your resources build up you send your ships to take over more planets, you build up money to upgrade your planets to higher levels which makes them stronger and produce more resources for example. The game offers several different game modes such as king of the hill and domination so we are on familiar ground.
Graphics:
Great effort went into creating beautiful background art for the levels. each level you play is behind a stunning static background with moving elements, filled with vibrant colours. which is accompanied by stunning cartoon like graphics, bringing a full package of awesome together.
There are numerous different planets all with their own sizes, details and purposes, carefully detailed to give them their own unique appearances. The upgrades are also decently depicted making it simple to see what structure is where.
Sounds:
The factions all communicate with each other before and sometimes after a fight, in most cases the conversations are quite humorous and funny.
There is very soothing yet enjoyable background music in game while you playing, adding to the overall gameplay and improving it.
Replayability:
The game has online multiplayer for you to play against other players, it offers same system multiplayer and skirmish against other players or the AI. Other than these the game has a reward system that gives you medals for completed actions, you unlock titles for completed actions and there is a levelling system.
All of these plus a few achievements that requires some effort are sure to give you some good clean fun to replay the game.
MGR Gaming’s Conclusions:
Spoilers Ahead:
The game starts with you as a humble trader deep in debt seeking treasures. You wind up in a lost and mostly forbidden sector, where you go up against other traders in search of treasures. There is a robotic race trying to keep you out of the sector, at times you have to face off against your debt collectors in a match where you have to pay them cash which acts as a repay method of the owed debts.
The story line isn’t that deep, your off in search of treasures while the robot race tries to keep you out of that sector because something terrible is within it that should not be awakened. The gameplay is surely fun and entertaining, especially when you follow the simple story line with it, as you complete more and more levels the game does get harder and more skill is required to make it through some of these levels
As I briefly mentioned, once you are done with the campaign you can take it to skirmish mode to play as the robot race against the AI or against some mates. You can choose online of offline mode; offline mode allows you to play with four mates on the same machine at once. If you prefer online mode then it is the usual set up. All in all, for the price of the game it really is a nice little gem.
Additional Info:
Platforms: PC: PlayStation 3: Xbox 360: Mac
Genre: Strategy: Indie: Space: Sci-fi
Censor Rating: n/a
Age Rating: n/a
Developer: Targem Games
Publisher: Topware Interactive
Release Date: 27 September 2012
MGR Gaming Steam Curator:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32364038/
