May 7, 2014

May 4, 2014

Space Engineers Review

9:59 AM Posted by Unknown , , , , , , , , No comments



Developer: Keen Software House
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X (Steam)
Release date: October 23rd, 2013
Genre: Action, simulation, indie, strategy
Standard Price on Steam: 18,99€
Co-op and Single Player

This week we’re going to look at a game in early access (god knows there’s a ton of those). The game is Space Engineers, a game about floating around in space, gathering resources and constructing space ships and bases, with the optional meteorite shower that will ruin your day.
Right off the bat, the game is a lot of fun. It provides you with interesting challenges, and you feel like you have accomplished a lot when you get to ride your first space ship, or when you finally fixed the broken refinery station.
You may build/capture ships in any shape and size.
The game is very customizable. In the menu you get to choose whether you want a survival or creative world, whether or not you want it to be realistic, and you may add meteorites for an extra challenge. You also get to choose between a beginner world with extra resources, and a more challenging one with fewer resources. We will be looking at the survival one with meteorites, because a “creative game” with no challenge, is not a game, it’s a model builder.

Once we are in our survival world with some mineral rich asteroids, you bring out your drill and go crazy. Once you’ve drilled a fair amount of different kinds of stuff, iron and uranium most importantly for starters, you need to get to your refinery to process this into useable materials. Iron might become steel plating for a new base or ship, while uranium is necessary to produce energy. In order to make said steel plating, you need to take the processed iron, and put it in the assembler. Congratulations, you are now ready to lose your progress to the first meteorite shower.
Now that is probably my greatest issue with this game right now. If you get unlucky and a meteorite hits either the refinery or the assembler early, you have pretty much lost. Unless you have an extra of these machines somewhere, which you will not have early in the game, you lose the ability to process and produce things. You’re stuck, and there is no other way to get out of it, than either suicide (yes there is a button for this), or simply make a new world and restart.

My second problem would be exactly that though, the death and coming back to life. If you die and your spawn point, that being the Medic Station you last used (as far as I can tell, it’s not 100% for sure), is destroyed, you start in a small, new yellow ship with both refinery and assembler, not to mention a lot of other useful components. This new ship concept is easily be abused. Destroy your spawn, suicide, get another ship with lots of components, salvage parts to build what you actually want, repeat. I guess it’s their way to give you a new start so that you’re not completely screwed when the meteorite hits, but it becomes more of a; “Hey Neollok, could you kill yourself real quick so we can get another refinery and salvage another reactor? K thanks”.
Your helpful beginner ship.
Now when you create the world, you may also add randomly spawning ships that spawn in many variations. From private sails with solar panels, to resourceful mining carriages, to military escorts. It’s a fun way to get ships that you could use or salvage for parts, even though it’s kind of strange that the crew of all these ships seems to have turned to dust and vanished completely.
While there is many creative and fun things you can build in space, welding a piece of metal is only fun for so long. That is why updates with new pieces of metal will really save this game, and keep it interesting. The previous update added working turrets so you can actually defend against those evil, evil showers of hell, and some other cool stuff like wheels, oh and rockets for the rocket launcher. Yes, there was a rocket launcher without rockets for a while. It’s easy to see that the game is lacking content, though this is to be expected since it is in early access.

What about the actual engineering then? Does it work, even though there isn’t exactly a million things to build just yet? Oh yes, it works. I actually really like it. It is detailed, since you need a lot of components like steel tubes, computer chips, plating, displays and so on, and then you put all the needed components onto the thing you want to build. Then, slowly, you weld it together. I like this high detail when it comes to the construction, as well as the deconstruction.
How about the physics and destruction then? How does that work? The answer; very well. You can really see the catastrophe when a meteorite hits your platform. A big hole with ruined steel plating, which you have to replace and weld back together. Again, nice details that I really appreciate. The same goes for smashing two ships together (which will happen a lot on public servers). The damage is awesome to look at, and ships will tear apart, even torn in two.
The detail with construction and destruction is great.
Recap

Story: This game has no story as far as I know. You open a world, and you play around in it. Simple as that.

Gameplay: The gameplay feels very good. Once you get the hang on the controls and get a feel on how much thrust you need on the jetpack in order to move well through space, it’s a great feeling really. The construction, salvaging and destruction is highly detailed, very good. It’s challenging and unforgiving with meteorites if you want that, but it gives the option to give a more relaxed and creative experience.

Graphics: The game looks quite good. Nothing bad to say about it, really. The lighting is good, with sparks flying left and right as you weld together your machines. Yes, graphics are looking good.

Sound: This is a bit weird at some points. The music can decide to go for an intense setting, even if nothing is really happening. So the music does feel quite random. The sound effects does what they’re supposed to do, though they can be glitching out and not play correctly at some points, mostly when it comes to drilling. Then it sort of goes on and off when it wants to. Still, overall sound is ok.


The Score

Keep in mind that I am a simple gamer who has not done a ton of game reviews in his life, and so you cannot simply decide whether this is a good or bad game simply based on my opinion. That is exactly what this is, I will rate the game based on what I have said in this review, that being my personal opinion and experience playing the game. Now without further ado, the score I will be giving Space Engineers is:

Score: 4/7


- Neollok