Forum Overview :: Reviews :: Space Pirates and Zombies 2 first impressions

[quote name="Mischief Maker"]I didn't like SPAZ 1. It was ugly, the music was depressing, and other games did overhead Newtonian dog fighting much, much better. Plus the grind was ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE! SPAZ2 I like so far, in part because it barely resembles the first game. It's a combination of Rebel Galaxy-style 3rd person naval combat in space, Space Rangers-style living galaxy simulation, and a pinch of Captain Forever tinker-toy ship customization. The premise is the galactic government has fallen and outer space is in a state of total anarchy with 200 individual ship captains scavenging resource pockets and banding together into loose factions. You play the crew from the first game, entirely unrecognized for being the saviors of humanity, scrambling to buff up their ships and build alliances with other captains before a zombie plague (ala. Homeworld Cataclysm) takes over the galaxy. In galaxy mode, time only moves when you execute an order, and resource gathering is for the most part instantaneous (big improvement!) The big hook of this game is custom-building your mothership from (mostly) cube-shaped modular components. The shape and arrangement of parts affects the speed and maneuverability of your ship, as well as numerical bonuses to the components themselves. And damn if there isn't some real choice in the matter because the game has arena battles on every space station that showcases a different prefab mothership design that play very differently from each other. You also have the option of shooting specific pieces off enemy ships and stealing them for yourself. On the flipside, I'm not so sure about these arena fights because they're the one money/reputation-making activity that uses no time, so I'm worried I might be handicapping myself if I don't want to replay them in sandbox games. Graphics are definitely below the standard of Rebel Galaxy and Starpoint Gemini Warlords. But at least it follows my rule that if your game has low-fi graphics, at least make it colorful. Oh yeah, and you can use your tractor beam during battle to smash asteroids into enemy ships. So far positive![/quote]