Saturday, December 21, 2013

Game review: Space Engineers.

Hello Ladies and Gentleman!
Today I will write a possible final review for the year 2013! The review will be of a game called Space Engineers.
A bit about the game and developers.
 Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction and maintenance of space works. Imagine it as Minecraft in space, where you can fly what ever you build by your own hands. This game is still in a very early Alpha stage, therefore you must know that a lot of things might, and most likely will change. Space Engineers is being developed by Keen Software House, which are the same guys behind Vrage and Miner Wars.

About Gameplay.
As said above, Space Engineers is something like Minecraft. Currently the game futures only Creative game mode, in which the player has unlimited resources. Player can just open his inventory, put the items into the toolbar and use how he / she wishes to use it. But there is a small twist. This game is not a voxel based game, therefore building something is much harder than most of the other games. You have to turn the object how you see fit. And putting other objects might be a bit hard, since the objects maybe won't be in a good angle.

There are many various items that you can use to build your small ship, big ship or a station. As it is probably obvious, You can fly small and big ship, but you can't fly a station. And you really wanted to make a huge carrier, didn't you? Well no problem! Just make a massive big ship. Make it so big that it can actually keep other big ships inside of it! Nothing and no one can stop you from doing that! Will it be slow? Of course it will, but you still did it! You can really build what ever type of a space ship or a space station that you wanted to. The game also has a lot of very nice parts that look nice inside of the stations, such as doors or inner walls, etc.

Everything in this game is destructible. And by that, i mean everything that you have built, or your friend. Even if it's an accident, you can't stop it. If your ship is about to crash into a station, you can do your best to evade it but you will most likely fail, and destroy half of the station and the ship. And the amazing thing is that the developers actually put the effort into that! The destructed objects look amazing!

I have to say, this game will have multiplayer in the future. The developers have already confirmed that a long time ago. And I can tell you, the multiplayer of this game is going to be amazing! Imagine four or five player building massive ships and stations. Gosh, I can't wait to do that! Even though the game is in very early alpha, and it really doesn't offer too much to do for now, exploring the current content of the game already showed me that this game has a lot of potential, and that it might actually have a very bright future!

Graphic and Audio
Graphically speaking the game looks very good, but it's nothing too special. The visual effects of explosions are very good, and destroyed items look amazing. The game's building "blocks" don't look the same. In fact, they are built in a way that they keep "continuing" each other all the time, therefore each part of your ship looks somewhat different. The game also futures coloring, therefore you can have a rainbow ship! Well, you can't really make that but you can try. Music on the other hand isn't anything too special. It's very fun at the beginning, but it gets rather repeatable after a while.

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Space sandbox building game.
- Multiplayer in the future.
- A lot of different "blocks" with which you can make many, many different ships.
- Ability to mine through the asteroids and get minerals. We will see what will we be able to use them for in the near future.

Cons:
- Jet pack is very hard to use.
- Flying anything is very hard, and there is almost no way to stop your ship mid-air. It will keep on flying away.

Final Grade: 7.5/10

Extra Info: As mentioned earlier, this game looks very promising. I can guarantee that as soon as this game releases multiplayer, it will be much better and much more fun. We just have to wait and see what will the developers do!

And also, I wish everyone Happy holidays! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

1 comment:

  1. You need reverse boosters and a gyroscope to stop your ship in mid-air :) Plus, you get used to the controls.

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