Space Run

Another steam summer sale, another myriad of games to review and potential buyers remorse to suffer. Its been pretty good so far though, nothing terrible as of yet and Space Run was actually a pretty nice surprise. Well, surprise might be a bit much, it met my expectation well is probably more fitting of a statement.

Space Run is a tower defense game with the added twist of you being a moving target on object on rails. I was pretty surprised when I looked into the game's developer and publisher since it seems to be one of the more indie games that I have. The developor is a small one man studio called PassTech Games although he does seem to have good relationships with a couple of freelancers of varied specality. The publisher, Focus Home Interactivce, is not as indie given that it seems to be a pretty established company, but its definately smaller than other publishers of other 'indie' games. The game was released in June, 2014 and is at the time of this review exclusively available on the PC, I played it on Steam on a computer that uses the windows operating system.

Tower defence games are a personal favorite game genre of mine just like +Ahmed Jadaa is a big fan of point and click adventure games and +Abdulhakeem Jomah is a fan of punishing roguelike games. The genre is just something I like due to the fact all the games in it have to follow a certain stucture of tower types and effects as well as an upgrade system to get new structures and upgrades. The gimmick I saw here that made it a bit unique is that unlike most other tower defence games instead of being stationary you are a spaceship moving from point A to point B and get attacked at certain points along the path. I liked the building system in the game that was based around using the hexagonal spaces on your ships to build towers on them as it does take some strategic thinking to take into account firing arcs of weapons to build and place the various defensive and aggessive structures in the most cost effective manner. I also liked that the various structures in the game have secondary and sometimes tertiary functions that can be used by supplying them with more power adding another element to your building planning. Granted you might have to turn into the flash to use all these powers in a fight which could be a source of frustration for some. The final mechanics that I also enjoyed was the use of time markers, in order to get a full rating on a mission you not only have to protect you entire cargo load, but you also have to get to the destination within a certain time which means that you can't simply turn yourself into a flying fortress and wait it out. You actually have to thinking about balancing speed, firepower and defense to get through missions. 

The graphic art style and sounds design in the game were solid and detailed, which is a big reason I was surprised when I saw that it was developed by such a small indie studio. This isn't to say that indie games can't be beautiful, they can, but they usually go the route of minimalism or retro visuals. Do note though that I'm not sayign that Space Run can compete with AAA games in the graphics department, but it definately is a good looking game and is a tier above most indie games. Granted there was one shortcut that was taken in the game where still images were used instead of cut scenes. The sound design and voice acting were alright in my opinion. The sound effects were nice and visceral, but the voice acting is something that people can take offence to though as it is extremely campy. I am confident that you could actually imagine the voices of the characters once I give you a quick description of them and you would most likely get them all correct. But again, this isn't to say that the voice acting is bad, its solid, clear and consistent just very very campy.

The narrative and story of the game are pretty weak but that is something common in the entire genre and can't be held against Space Run individually. The game did an adequate job in its world building attempt with the voice acting adding some life along side the text description of each of the companies that hire the game's antagonist. The dialogue does a decent job conveying some character development and creating some tangential plotlines, but there is not big narrative pay off and I don't grudge the game for it because I'm not playing it to be entertained in that way. Maybe one day a tower defense will have a solid story but until then its not something I expect in the genre.

For a person who loves the tower defense genre I enjoyed Space Run quite a bit, the building mechanics in tandeum with the time mechanics created a pretty compelling experience that I enjoyed playing the levels over again to get all the achievments in the game. It was definately fun for me and didn't fell like a chore like others might feel. As an indie game I found its polish on a technical level to be pretty impressive, but I still don't think its worth the full price of the game. This might be the cheapskate in me talking, but I suggest picking this game up during a sale. But even if you don't you will still be getting yourself a pretty solid experience that should keep you entertained from twelve to eighteen hours.