The game does a good job of making losses feel like a real blow, without the sense that you've lost so much investment of time that you're tempted into the ol' task manager pseudo-savescum. Repelling boarders always adds a spicy new angle to the mayhem.īut every Kirk needs their redshirts, and you will see a good few permadeaths. It's got that illusionist's quality that makes you feel like a genius for getting out of any scrape: it's the James T Kirk mindset, neatly packaged for consumption. Space Crew makes you feel perpetually on the edge of catastrophic failure, but rarely tips you fully over. When you get in that groove, it feels wonderful.Īnd it's all balanced so deftly that you never, ever feel too in control. But a well-judged time slowdown ability stops them becoming APM orgies which punish slowness, and success hinges on getting to know the rhythm of your crewmembers' skill cooldowns, until you're playing your ship's system like an instrument to the metronome of instinct. Its central crises, where you're constantly trying to do slightly too much with your crew, against waves of mean little alien fighters, are cracking. Generally, I had a really good time with Space Crew. That back and forth between frantic space missions and dopamine-soaked downtime at HQ is what makes Space Crew so compelling - but it's also the source of some major, if fixable, limitations. And while there's a superficial level of similarity to FTL, with reactor power bars to be allocated, fires to be extinguished with atmosphere vents and all the rest, it's a different beast.Ĭrucially, it's built around the time-honoured structure of bracketing missions with time in a central hub, where you use space coins to upgrade your ship, its crew, their gear and their skills. Followup Space Crew takes the action back into space. When three-man studio Runner Duck released management-tactics game Bomber Crew in 2017, it was rightly praised for turning the "move people around the parts of a large vehicle in an ever-increasing state of panic" aspect of roguelite classic FTL into a whole game. They're hampered by a lack of choice in the management segments between them, but not enough to put too big a dent in the fun. Space Crew's bouts of tactical damage control are a masterclass in controlled chaos.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |