Spacebase Startopia – comic Odyssey. Review of Spacebase Startopia starts a flight with a strong note: it is abundantly cut and refers to mass culture, offers good economic

Spacebase Startopia – comic Odyssey. Review

Spacebase Startopia starts flying with a strong note: it is abundantly cut and refers to mass culture, offers a good economic component and serious strategic challenges. But is everything so cloudless in the space of Startopia?

• Station Director
• Starting wars
• Without a face

The manager’s everyday life at the space entertainment station is not sugar: either galactic pirates are storming a disco, then eggs of dubious origin appear on a biopulub, then “colleagues” try to survive the business, capturing our compartments with huge mechanoids. And this is not to mention the primary functions – ensuring the work of entertainment institutions, providing amenities to visitors and employees, as well as monitoring the reputation of the station. And here, it is also not the best of the malicious artificial intelligence regularly strives to release the caustic remark about the organizational and strategic abilities of the manager. In a word, the work is nervous, but we knew what we were going to …

And this image will be placed on the advertising booklet of our station … In the sense, printing has not existed for two thousand years?

⇡#Station Director

The station, which was in our hands, is not much like an entertaining center of a cosmic scale – at first it is deserted and littered storage rooms with a garden in addition. So first it is worth establishing the infrastructure on the lower deck – putting the communication center to attract personnel into our still provincial and not a drop of an entertainment center. To build a hostel so that the newcomers were where to cry in a pillow. Then it will not be superfluous to put a processing point, warehouses, a factory and, of course, a medical center – there was not enough pandemic at the station! And for the harmonious existence of an entertainment institution of the orbital scale, muzor robots and atmospheric filters will not interfere-so as not to drown in impurity and fetid evaporation.

Having dealt with the basic needs, we move to the deck higher-the center of the cultural and entertainment life of Startopia. Here is the very place for the disco and the Starkots cafe – fun for the most unpretentious taste.After all, the needs of our current guests – cosmic truckers, all kinds of tramps and buyers of the package tour – are by no means universal proportions and exactingness. But the more impressive our Empire of entertainment becomes, the more exquisite the audience, arriving here in the desire to quench the thirst for impressions, and the higher the requirements for the leisure provided!

The “skills” cells are acquired for prestige – “pseudo -pseudo”, extracted by positive reviews of “startup”

Simple tourists already wish something more than a cup of coffee with a space margin and unpretentious dancing under a disco-sharm-they are more drawn to visit the gym, ride on the attraction Falling in the Black Hole. Yes, and their safety requirements are higher than that of our previous regulars. What can we say about the “privileged”, “rich” and “chic” subspecies of tourists, for the joy of which it will not hurt to erect molecular restaurants, fashionable hotels, casinos, novotherapy and ATMs, so that visitors have the opportunity to lower all their condition at our station … well, and well In order to achieve the approval of snobs – the most demanding audience, we have to spend a decently and we, erecting an expensive combat arena or extreme fun of the “measurement races”.

Naturally, in order to spend energy (local equivalent of rustling pieces of paper), you need someone to earn it. Employees at the station can be found in a tourist stream – guests are surprisingly eager to accept employment. True, hiring everyone without analysis does not make sense, because each type of aliens has its own professional area. In similar toleeps of the Talgors – the processing of garbage; Eternally dancing Dryads prefer to work on a biopulub, mining useful resources; Overlast leviathanes are suitable for the protection of our enterprise; And enthusiasm, the race of reasonable bats, like no one else is controlled with an audio console at a disco. And the “startup” also visit Galactic intellectuals Ev’Rikers, who are best determined to work in a laboratory where they will not be able to meet with obvious worldview opponents – chem’neters, specialists in religious propaganda …

According to reviews, by the way, you can find out which aspect of the station to improve, what to urgently build and how employees relate to our enterprise

In a word, there is so much work that the head goes around (or is it because of the centrifugal power of the station?). And you do not always understand what to grab in the first place. Fortunately, the player is thoroughly devoted to the basic concepts and organizational foundations of Spacebase Startopia in the plot campaign.

⇡#Starting wars

The initial conditions in Spacebase Startopia are not the most original: command-r (aka player) passes certification, systematically comprehending the basics of managing the intergalactic cosmic entertainment base, overcoming, as it arises, different difficulties.True, there was a place for a “sudden” plot of a plot, which is necessary here as a populated planet – an ozone hole in this simple ”plot.

The proposed circumstances are enough to go through the mission with the interest of the mission. Yes, and there are enough entertaining conflicts: then religious fundamentalists seek to undermine our godless “stash”; then terrible cosmic parasites storm the biopulum; then there is a need to defeat another commander on the field of commercial viability; Or to defeat three opponents at once – exceptionally gross mechanized power.

A curious detail: each building has its own specific sound. Just listen to these melodic murmurs of energy waves

Indeed, in addition to the economic and organizational component, tactical-military elements were also found in the “Startopia”. Alas, they do not possess special depth – the success of maneuvers is determined by a banal numerical superiority. Because of this, the impression of two final tasks was somewhat lubricated: they do not offer unusual or fascinating conditions of victory-rivals need to simply be exterminated without undertaking. Moreover, the process of expansion itself is immensely protracted and tiring. You will not have to shine with strategic skills or tactical tricks: you just need to configure yourself for security points and systematically capture sectors / destroy the key buildings of opponents. The “army” itself is also not painful-it consists exclusively of protruding drones and gigantic mechanoids of three types, as if sred from the “huntsmen” from the film “Pacific Forestment”. On this, by the way, the references do not end …

Lutbox-Lottery is installed next to the garbage receiver not by chance-the principle of applying money is approximately equivalent …

⇡#Without a face

The source of negative motivation and the entire narrative is the ulcer of the Val (yes, another reference), the construction of the phrases of which, as well as the general attitude to organic life forms, is more likely to resemble Glados from the Portal series. A recognizable voice, by the way, can be chosen to taste from three options indicated in the options as a “robot”, glawin or “VAL-9000”. Listen to derogatory comments in the spirit of “I have no doubt in you – if there is even the most scanty way to fail, then you will definitely find it” I want to be in the closest heart of tonality.

And although such searse are most often funny and appropriate, a persistent impression is created that they are not from here. As if not a character of the work jokes and tells, but an invited guest from another rather famous universe. The same applies to the external component – here and there, familiar images and situations from Borderlands, Starcraft, Command Conquer, and real life are painted. And the main trouble is that the local references are not just woven into the canvas of the narrative and visual solutions – the game itself mainly consists of Ommage, allusions and parodies and is deprived of, in a certain sense, its own person.

From time to time, Val offers us a choice from the category “to sit in a black hole or choke on a hot plasma” …

But still Spacebase Startopia is a pleasant work with a good economic component, curious game nuances and a laid -back atmosphere. She definitely can not become a cult hit, but for several tens of hours in her company will definitely be fun and with a spark.

Advantages:

• good situational humor;
• a successful economic component with many remarkable features;
• Most of the campaign serves seriously.

Disadvantages:

• an overwhelming number of all kinds of references somewhat deprives the game of artistic isolation;
• The “military” tasks look alien, tightened and simply unsuccessfully.

Graphic arts

External simplicity here is quite appropriate, and the picture and gamma are pleasant to the eye. It’s a pity only – too many visual borrowings.

Sound

The noises of buildings, the sparing remarks from the Val, the prefixing background melody – everything is fulfilled here successfully.

Single player game

The campaign was clearly a success and captures seriously, and let the last pair of plot missions get bored, the overall impression remains positive. For the addition, by the way, it is worth going to free mode with the conditions of the game.

Collective game

The plot missions can be passed in multiplayer mode. “Free game” and “Fast game” are also available there. Alas, it was not fully tested to test them – due to the space vacuum in the lobby.

General impression

The fervent and entertaining Spacebase Startopia does not claim the laurels of a cult project, but will easily pass on for a dozen or two hours.