Fractured Space: Early Access Review

Welcome to space.  Fractured Space.  Where massive capital ships duke it out over vast, asteroid filled maps.  This tactical shooter is all about controlling these regions and taking out the other team before they can.

The first thing that will strike you about Fractured Space is the amazingly detailed ships.  Each ship in the available three classes has an incomparable amount of detail.  The lighting effects are especially good showcasing the ships precise design.  Each ship is entirely unique, and easily recognised from a distance.

These ships are gorgeous

Of the three classes of ship there are large carriers equipped with a potential variety of fighters, fast support cruisers which can repair other ships, hunters which have a blink ability to outmaneuver the other ships.  Each class, of course, has it’s own set of unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses to help you get an advantage over the other ships.  Though these differences help each ship seem even more unique than their appearance, the actual abilities aren’t that unique from other similar games.

gameplay is similar to other recent beta’s like World of Warships.  Teams start off on opposite sides of the map, and must race to control various flags or bases across the map.  Each base captured adds experience for the controlling team, and gives you a place to retreat for cover and repairs.  As you defeat enemies, or take over more bases, experienced gained advances you in level, and returning to a base upgrades your hit points and shields.   Battle continues until one team can capture the opposing team’s home base.

These explosions are really dynamic

These battles are usually fairly quick affairs.  The fights are often decided by rock, paper, scissor, as each class suits taking down another if piloted well.  You need to be slightly ambidextrous to work with the default controls as well when they require much mutli-pressing buttons with one hand or the other.  Once you get past this though, the short battles are still fun, but don’t always feel that tactical as you are generally just spamming the attack button and waiting for your special abilities to refresh.  Though taking advantage of positioning does help some, the map is fairly open and generic.  Ducking in and out of cover, or around asteroids doesn’t happen often, and battles quickly become more about numbers and accuracy.

After each battle, you gain experience used to obtain higher tiered ships and purchase new abilities for your current ships.  These new ships add a bit more strategy to the combat with stealth features, long range attacks and the such which opens up new strategies and play styles.

Tech Tree!

Fractured Space is still in development, and I am sure these minor gripes will be worked out in time.  Varied maps and effects would be great, but the overall gameplay is still quite good, and the ships themselves are really beautiful.  I am looking forward to coming back to this game upon release the see the new features and available ships.

As always, please comment and like below, let me know what you think of Fractured Space.

For my preview of World of Warships head here next!

 

Skulls of The Shogun: Rewind Review

Another week, another Rewind Review!  This one just barely qualifies having been released way back in 2013! Back way before the flying cars, insta cleaning clothes, and weather control that Back to the Future II promised us this year.  Though it’s not as old as some of the other games I have featured so far, this is still a great game to pickup on play if you get the chance.

A 2D tactical RPG, Skulls of the Shogun takes inspiration from other classic games like Final Fantasy Tactics, and Advance Wars.  Taking place in a colorful cartoon world, Skulls of the Shogun takes this inspiration and rolls with it in all sorts of fun and intuitive ways.

Getting the lay of the land

Set in ancient Japan, you take the role of a recently deceased Shogun.  Killed by his own lieutenant during battle, he is relegated to the afterlife as a skeleton. Faced with waiting in line with thousands of other fallen soldiers to the end of time waiting to get into the afterlife, the general instead decides to take matters into his own hands and raises an army to push his way to his rightful reward.

The playful art style mixes well with the almost constant shade of humour in the game.  Dialogue and character choices are both funny, and light hearted.  The third wall is broken often as the characters question not only the game mechanics, but the player’s actions.  This cleverness tends to fade a little as the game proceeds, but not so much that it isn’t still funny at times.

You got that right buddy!

Each character class has a unique look and animations.  The only fault visually is occasionally the screen becomes crowded with units and objects and it can be difficult to pick out the object you want, though the game does try to assist with a pop up when several items are selected close together.

Each battle is a 1v1 turn based affair.  The game starts you out with very basic commands and units and does a good job of dishing out new elements with each new battle.  Every different unit comes with it’s own stats and abilities.  Infantry have solid defence and good knockback, but are slow and don’t deal that much damage.  Calvary have long movement range and high attack, but no knockback.  There are various other units like archers and magic casters to fill out the ranks.  Your general is also controllable in battle and gains new abilities as the story progresses.

I’m a beast!…. errr Demon…

Each of these units can be upgraded during any single battle in the unique manner of eating the skulls of fallen foes, even though as they will tell you themselves, it’s pretty gross.  Each skull adds hit points to your units including your general, and when 3 skulls are consumed your unit becomes a demon and gains an extra action each turn.  This extra action can be extremely useful in most battles.  Along the way you will also find various potions and power ups to assist you in winning.

On later maps you will also be tasked with some minor resource management.  Rice paddies can be conquered to give you rice to pay for new troops at barracks.  There are also other buildings to be conquered to give you access to more powerful units.  Rice paddies are limited, and each one including the other buildings can be conquered by the opposing force at any time.  Controlling the map becomes very important on these levels.

Just a little exposition

Each map has different objectives, and several can be won in different ways.  Defeating the enemy general, defeating all troops, or moving a unit to a specific marker may all be ways to win.  Several maps have multiple stages and differing objectives in each stage.  This with the overlapping humour keeps the game fresh and fun throughout.

This is a fun game with a long campaign, multiplayer options and a ton of laughs.  With a regular price of $10.99 on Steam it’s definitely a bargain, and will fill up hours of your time.  If you are a fan of strategy games, good humour and want a game that is easy to get into, this is a great one for you.

As always, if like this review, or have played the game, make sure to like and comment below, and be sure to follow me on Twitter!

Missed last weeks Rewind Review?  You can catch it here!

The Cosmos is MINE!: Early Access Review

TransOrbital miner license?  Sense of adventure?   If you said yes to both of these questions you are perfect for The Cosmos is Mine!, a real time strategy game from Playcorp.  A small Australian developer focusing primarily on strategy games.  The Cosmos is MINE! is a real time strategy game focused on zone control and resource collection.

Dropping you onto a small 3D planet, The Cosmos is Mine! tasks you with competing against other players for the valuable resource of Animus.  The hexagon based maps though seemingly small, are full of detail and various biomes.  Mountains, lakes, forests, and frozen hills cover the landscapes to give each planet a unique look and feel.  The game takes advantage of the unique 3D environment to affect game play.  Line of sight and the various defence towers gain advantages based on their elevation.  Units slow down, or must find new routes to get into zones due to impassable mountains or other obstacles like the oceans.

The world is mine!

The current gameplay is simplified with 4 distinct units.  The engineer builds towers and mining facilities.  The prospector scouts ahead and can capture new zones and bases.  You can engage other players in combat with the assault class, or the artillery class.  Each class is upgradeable via some of the excess Animus you collect.  You must take advantage of each unit, along with the various defensive towers to control zones on each map, as well as guard your Animus collectors.  Every few minutes of a match you are required to reach a certain quota of Animus in order to keep your license and stay in the game.  This mechanic forces you to play a balanced game of attack and defend so as not to miss your quotas as they arrive.

Though you can play a solo campaign, it’s doubtful you will do so more than once to get your bearings.  The multiplayer is where the fun is here.  Currently only 1v1 and 2v2 game types are available.  The 1v1’s have you pushing to quickly get as many zones as possible, or cut off your opponent before he can do the same.  2v2’s on the other hand are hectic affairs as the maps feel small and you must quickly react and work together to avoid being double teamed and watch your quotas be missed.

So much to learn

Though the current build of The Cosmos is MINE! feels like it lacks a little bit of content, what’s here works well.  The environments are lively and interesting.  The learning curve is very low, and it doesn’t take long to get into the game.  There is a great deal of room here to add some more units with differing abilities, and possibly planetary effects that can impact gameplay.   The main concern here is how to add the type of content that will keep players coming back to play over and over again.

Overall: 6.5/10

The Cosmos is MINE! is currently available on Steam Early Access

IGN members can also get the game free this month with their membership.

For a similar game, check out my preview of The Universim

 

Trove: Beta Review

A new dungeon to explore

Welcome to the colourful, voxel world of Trove. Trove, currently in open Beta is an exploration based, RPG building game. Sounds like a lot, and it is, but Trove pulls off this multitasking well.

Built around similar concepts to the ever popular Minecraft, Trove allows you to build might structures. This time however, rather than stone and wood, you use simple coloured blocks as your main building materials. Yes, there are ores and special blocks and artifacts to be found and mined to help build more detailed blocks for your castle or house, or mighty tower too. Trove however differs from Minecraft in many ways. Each zone you inhabitat, whether it be a player filled hub, or a dungeon filled adventure zone, allows you to port your constructed home with you wherever you go, and attach it to pre-determined home spaces in each area. These unique difference continue in most areas of the gameplay for Trove.

My new home

Where Minecraft’s basic survival mode tends to revolve around, well mining, Trove takes a different path here as well. Questing and exploring the various adventure zones and their differing biomes is the main ingredient to the fun of Trove. Each hub world contains various portals with varying difficulties that port you to these adventure zones. Here you will find many dungeons, ranging from small caves filled with skeletons, to massive, multi tiered tree house fortress among others. Combat in Trove is fun and fast paced, with attacks and skills you might more commonly see in MMORPG’s like WoW, or Final Fantasy Online.

Each player has the ability to switch between a great deal of different classes, from the basic Knight, to a Gunslinger, or a flying magical fairy, or even a Dragoon like fighter. The sheer amount of variety available to you is astounding. Enemies and items are also just as varied and amusing and are usually fun to fight.

So many choices

The only aspect that doesn’t shine as much in Trove’s current build, is the multiplayer. Though most hub worlds are filled with people, as well as the adventure zones, there is rarely the need to partner with another player to complete quests. Assuming you are in a adventure area fit for your level, most of the enemies can be defeated easily so long as you don’t take on too many at once. It also tends to be a bit of a competition in adventure zones trying to beat others to the highly contested dungeons strewn across the map, though the map does at least tell you which dungeons have been recently cleared.

But otherwise Trove’s world is filled with colour and adventures to be found. Content has been regularly released and there is almost always something new to try when you log in, whether it be a new class, new items, or a new dungeon design. Trove offers a lot of fun for casual players, and enough detailed building materials for people with time and patience to build amazing structures to show off in their hub worlds, or in their own home world where they can invite people to join. All the character models and classes are just as colourful and varied and offer a wide range of play styles for all types of players.

Overall 8/10

Preview: Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Currently in very early Alpha build, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a “realistic open world first person medieval RPG” as per it’s developers Warhorse, a relatively new company comprised of several members of the teams responsible for the design of Mafia and Mafia 2. Taking with the crowd funding approach, WarHorse has raised millions from dedicated fans to fund their project.

Set in the back drop of historical Europe in the early 15th century, players will take control of a young apprentice blacksmith and will become involved in events that will shape the future of Europe. With plans for an open world, that allows you to progress the story at your own pace, the developers plan to give you open choice as well in exactly how you progress. Want to be a knight, and lead an army into the field, sure, or you can be a bard, and whisper sweet nothings into the ears of current leaders and gain their favor. The choice is yours.

Built with CryEngine, Warhorse studios have grand plans to present not only a very realistic game, but also very beautiful. The current build available to some people who have participated in the crowd funding effort is quite striking, and although only contains one small town is full of detail and beauty. WarHorse studios also promises a realistic combat based on actual styles from the time, so no taking on a dozen combatants yourself. Fights are tough, and can be slow paced dependant on the weapons and armour used.

As character goes, the developers have put an enormous amount of detail into not only character stats and tendencies, but even into the clothing you may wear, with over a dozen equipable slots and layered clothing to give a very realistic take on how clothes and armours of the time worked.

Pushing for as much true to history thought as possible, the designers have also added skill based crafting as a new challenge to players. In order to do well as a crafter you will have to practice, it will no longer be the case of simply repeating a task over and over till your level in that skill increases, you will be challenged with mixing the right components together at the right time to create potions, or leveraging a blade at the right angle to sharpen it and make a great sword.

With still a lot of development left, and with developers at WarHorse who are very active in the community, I am looking forward to seeing new features as they are released and how this game shapes up with it’s current release scheduled for late 2015.

Early release review: Boid

I have just spent several hours with Boid,  a simplistic 2D RTS that has you take control of several amoeba like organisms in underwater cavernous environments and pits you against an equal foe located on the other side of the map. Brought to us by indie developer tinyBuild Games, also known for the satrical “No Time To Explain”.

The idea is simple, take over all control points on the map before your opponent can. Control points are broken into two basic categories,  spawn points that slowly spawn new troops up to a maximum of five at a time, and evolution points which allow you to morph your creatures into various upgraded forms, like a strong crab like creature, a long range laser canon, and speedy scouts among other variations.  You are tasked with controlling your flow of new units while strategically choosing which path to take and which upgrades to use and balance everything accordingly. All actions are controlled by a simple click of the mouse, and a side panel gives you a brief summary of units available, and selected, and you can use waypoints to help automate some of your troops to specific defense points or upgrades to capture.

Both offline and online modes are already included in the most recent build. The offline version features a fairly good A.I. which can challenge new comers to the game and is a good way of getting acquainted with most of the unit types, and general gameplay. Multiplayer of course is where a game like this shines, as adapting to a human player’s differing strategies and changes of pace are where the real challenge and fun is. With the recent addition of leagues, and ranked play, you can easily lose hours to Boid.

Graphically Boid’s 2D graphics are simple, yet colourful and make it easy to identify unit types by their shape, as well as identify enemies. Winning and losing spawn points is shown graphically by quick flashes of light on the screen to give you a quick clue that you may need to investigate elsewhere. The submerged aquatic setting is full of life, and the lighting effects give great depth on what is otherwise a flat world.

Available now on the Steam Early Access program at a measly $3.29 CAD, Boid is a steal for anyone looking for an easy to pick up, but competitive RTS. One that is being well supported by the developer with regular updates and improvements.

Overall 8/10