What's in a name? Names are important, if you ask me, as they lend meaning to pretty much everything. When I approached this game, I was struck by a few guiding points: it's a space-sim, the main character is referred to as "Adams," and no where on there did I find the jumpsuit-clad Samus (Evangelion spawned this thing for jumpsuits, you see). Regardless, it was pretty, there were ships turning into and out of robots, so I went ahead and hopped into it.
Going back to the names, Adams comes onto the fold as stuff really picks up. The storyline is that him and his nation or whatever are at war with the colonists (IN GLORIOUS 3D SPACE), and during his test to see if he's good enough to pilot, they're attacked in their own space by the colonists. The question is thrown around by how they've intercepted so close, but it isn't brought to the attention of the audience why they're called colonists, when we obviously hate them. Where did we go wrong?
Regardless, you kill them, save a freighter, and go on your lovely way.
I'd like to address my issues and concerns before I get into what I actually enjoy about the game, so I seem far less pessimistic.
For starters, comparing this to a space-sim is like comparing Ridge Racer to Gran Turismo. It's an arcade-game wrapped in a neat little bundle, and it does work, but it only works for so long before you start losing interest. The loss of interest stays because the weapon-unlocks are handled in the way to keep the player as far detached from their own customization as possible.
At the end of each mission, you're given points based off of how many things (and I say "things" because there's really no other class to set them in) you've destroyed, or at least got the assist on. Then, according to what seems like an absolutely arbitrary system, it just...rewards your performance with better gear that you can use retrofittedly or in future missions. To this point, I've unlocked three separate weapons, none of which are better than the gear you start out with. It makes me wish that there was an alternative that allowed us to use the points awarded to peruse the unlockables and pick our own, or at least gave us a point-amount until we get the next unlockable. I have very little incentive to actually focus on unlocking things because the new weapons so far provided are shorter range, far less damage, and aren't unlimited on ammunition.
The music is grating. Some people might like it, but I can't recall a crowd who'd really enjoy electric-sitars playing more groovalicious covers of EVE and Freespace. It might be that I've grown accustomed to very chill music while playing space-sims to emulate the feeling of weightlessness, and the songs in this game just so happen to make you feel very grounded.
To run down the controls really quick, you have accelerate as W, accelerate faster as shift, brake as S, and roll to the appropriate side with A and D. Unlike every space-sim you can think of, the obvious missing piece here is pitch, which, along with yaw, are all covered by the movement of the mouse. Yes. Your mouse covers yaw. It blew my mind. It feels like baby's first space-sim to me because of it, but then I realized what technical characteristics of a ship would actually allow it to achieve yaw, and suddenly, it all made sense. That being said, because of the inclusion of yaw in the game's mechanics, I've yet to figure out why roll is included, aside from people to yell, "DO A BARREL ROLL!"
To set the difficulty back even further, there really isn't much in way of having to dodge missiles (something that was ever-so-fun in Freespace); their tracking was a bit too tight and there wasn't any sort of way to track where the missile was coming from aside from paying enough attention to the beeps. Rather, what you did was wait until the beeps were screaming their asses off at you, then pressed Ctrl to send out an EMP and disrupt your signal. Woo.
The visuals, although originally very inspiring, fall off fast when you stare at the same static backdrop for about ten minutes, and notice that the explosions seem to be a nod at the games that it sought to emulate. The ship designs don't change, and the first ship is absolutely boring to look at. Every other ship's fine, but at the end of the day, I get tired of third-person just because my ship is so boring. It's not enough to break the game, but it is enough to mention it in a game review.
So, let's see, what did I critique? Visuals, music, gameplay, movement...that seems to about cover the elements, huh? So what DID I like about my experience with this game?
First up, I enjoyed how out-of-the-way (for the most part) the GUI was, even in first-person. It was very clean, with your ammo, shields and armor, and thrusters in various places along the top of the screen. It allowed the player to remain focused in the fight, even if every time you got hit, it looked like someone vomited destruction all over your screen (the destruction made you feel like you were in mortal danger until you noticed that THERE WAS NOT A DAMN THING HAPPENING TO YOU).
The pacing during battle was splendid: I was constantly trying to duck and weave, and the game even supplied cover for you to use if you're bad like me and kept crashing into surfaces to lower your shields. Of course, there were entire times where the game would tell you, "fly 10000 meters out, then 8000 meters again, then another 6000 meters before you can continue." I have no idea why it couldn't have been a cutscene, nor do I have any idea what they sought to accomplish; after that particular instance (beginning of the second stage, for anyone who cares), enemies warp in and attack you.
The story seems pretty generic, but the fact is, there's a story in a space-sim. Compared to the X-series and EVE, that's better than nothing, right? It's episodic, and there's no room for exploration, but each stage has a bonus requirement that will net you a passive-bonus, which is nice, if you're up to the challenge.
Overall, I'm hoping it gets better. The battle is exciting when not way too easy, and I'm sure that the weapons will be nicer once you get into the game, and I've yet to actually unlock the ability to turn into a giant mech with a shoulder-mounted laser-array (I'M HOLDING OUT FOR ZONE OF THE ENDERS), so I'm hoping that it gets much more exciting. I'll keep you guys posted.
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