Space Pirates and Zombies
GAME TYPE:
2D Space Combat
Proberly THE best Top down space shooter you can get! When you unlock the capital ships you feel in a fight like Capt Kirk himself.
Even after all these years, this game is still my personal favorite when it comes to 2D space action. But not only the combat, also the ship building elements, upgrades and story make this a fantastic game. I also like the visuals - the colourful space looks beautiful! And the humour… oh my god! This game is so funny!
– Real player with 235.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Sci-fi Games.
While I’m a bit late into the game of reviewing SPAZ, writing it anyway couldn’t hurt. Space Pirates and Zombies is a action-strategy space shooter with elements of random generation. While you have some control over how random it is, it only serves to increase or decrease the difficulty in the long run.
Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty solid. You pilot your ship around with WASD keys, and shooting your weaponry with the mouse. What makes it special if that you don’t point and shoot, but the direction of your ship controls where your shots are. If you place a weapon on the front of your ship, expect it to shoot forward until the higher class ships which have rotating turret mounts that do just that. Even then, anything other than lasers will still need to lead the target, as nothing is hitscan. This makes shooting more skill based.
– Real player with 120.7 hrs in game
Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut
While I have experience in space shooters in general, Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut always fancied me when I wanted to try another game. Finally adding this game to my Steam library and clocking in actual playtime, does this game have the merits to be considered worthy to the genre?
The Good:
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The music is memorable, especially when you get the title Strike Suit. Paul Ruskay of Homeworld fame does it again.
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The graphics are nicely done, especially on higher end machines. The art style is also appropriate for this title, and
– Real player with 19.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Mechs Games.
I love spaceships. Always have, always will. In particular, I love fictional spaceships blowing the snot out of each other with lasers, missiles, and giant machineguns. Among that category, I especially love small-scale dogfights between small fightercraft. The careful maneuvering. The tense lining up of the perfect shot. The inadvisable victory flourish of flying through your vaporized enemy’s debris cloud.
Problem is, I suck at it.
The venerable Freespace 2 is widely reputed to be the master of this genre, but buying and playing it left me cold. It seemed to expect that I would have the reflexes, dexterity, and coordination to be an actual fighter pilot, with the ability to juggle power systems, track objectives, use a target-lock system that was like finding a needle in a haystack, command allied wingman, find and execute a target that seemingly has no bearing on the overall battle, all while worrying about pesky enemy fighters that seem infinitely faster and more maneuverable than I am. When all I wanted to do was fly around shooting stuff, this was simply not fun. I have been searching for a game to scratch my Luke Skywalker itch for years, and with Strike Suit Zero, I have finally found it.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
STAR WARS™: TIE Fighter Special Edition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hty5Zx8Thcs
Like the Windows Version of X-Wing, TIE Fighter Requires the use a Joystick to play. The MS-DOS Version of TIE Fighter Special Edition is very fun to play. This time around, you’re one of the Bad Guys fighting along side the Galactic Empire set where The Empire Strikes Back begins as you crush the Rebel Alliance so that the Empire can maintain Peace, Order & Law throughout the Galaxy with an Iron Grip & most of all in Vader’s Fist name set in 13 Different Tour of Duty Battles with a total of 121 Missions & if your Reputation is High Enough, you might be able to attract the attention of the Secret Order, a faction of the Empire with Close Ties to The Emperor himself. You’ll fly 7 different ships in your Mission to crush the Rebel Alliance including TIE Fighters, TIE Interceptors, TIE Bombers, TIE Avengers, TIE Defenders, Assualt Gunboats & Missile Gunboats. If you don’t have a Joystick, then play the MS-DOS Versions of TIE Fighter, Regular or Special Editions instead of the Collector’s Edition CD-ROM Version made for Windows.
– Real player with 68.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Space Sim Games.
-Quick Review-
TIE Fighter is a star wars combat space flight simulator where you take on the role of a TIE pilot fighting against the enemies of the empire and bringing peace and order to the galaxy. You will pilot several different fighter ships against classic rebel vessels and maybe even a few new ships you’ve never seen before.
Review Video:
If you don’t like reading, or are curious about watching gameplay check out my video here:
-Detailed breakdown review-
– Real player with 42.7 hrs in game
Darkstar One
Darkstar One is a space flight simulator in the trade/fight/explore genre that most people are familiar with from games like Elite and Freelancer. Darkstar One is not a game that deviates much from the tried and true, most of the features and design direction you find in Darkstar you will also find in the older successes of the genre.
You play the game as Kayron Jarvis, a young pilot who’s father was recently killed through nefarious means and you set out to discover the truth. Of course you will quickly trip over a number of large conspiracies and eventually have to save the galaxy from an evil race of aliens. That is all standard.
– Real player with 57.4 hrs in game
A straightforward space adventure that is easy to get into.
Straightforward enjoyable game. I loved Space Rangers 2 so I decided to update by trying some more recent Space Sims. Unfortunately, I tried both X Rebirth and Parkan II and immediately got lost… maybe I’m just dumb but I found Darkstar One much more understandable and therefore, much easier to get started in than either X Rebirth or Parkan 2.
The game is a few years old so of course the graphics are a bit dated. (This is most noticeable during cutscenes.) The art style is also a bit cartoonish and the story is very straightforward and simple in the way you would expect from a swashbuckling space adventure.
– Real player with 54.6 hrs in game
Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War
Descent: FreeSpace was - for pretty much two decades - the start of the best space combat simulation ever developed. I probably spent several years of my childhood playing FreeSpace 1 and 2 and to this day there is no other game which I will get back to every few years and then play it for months on end because it is that good.
Never before have I played a game which utilizes almost all keyboard buttons, some of them even twice or thrice with button combinations. It takes days to get used to the controls and to remember all of them in the heat of battle, but after having learned them once, I never forgot them again. I can boot up any FreeSpace game after 5 years without having played it and the controls will come back to me within 5 minutes. No other game has ever managed to do that. No other game has ever managed to entertain me to that degree even although I can still remember every single mission, every enemy wave, every plot twist and all and any scripted events.
– Real player with 198.1 hrs in game
Descent | Freespace: The Great War is a 3D space craft action simulator. You are a recruit pilot who just joined the Galactic Terran Alliance in its age-long war against the Parliamentary Vasudan Empire, but the war takes a different turn when an unknown threat makes its appearance with the sole purpose of exterminating both races.
Pros: You get to live the war and the events through the eyes of a pilot, and the whole story is detailed through mission briefings and in-game events. Different levels of success in a mission may affect the following mission, even open entire branching side-missions. The voice acting does a good job a delivering the humane yet rigid tone of a military situation, something you’ll rely on for immersion as there is little to no cut scenes. Action is great, and often allows creative thinking to resolve an issue, succeed in a mission and achieve bonus goals. The missions themselves are very varied, rivaling and often surpassing classics of the genre like the Wing Commander series. Control is spot-on, although optimized for mouse-less keyboard. As you progress, you get more and more flexibility in how you want to set and arm your squads.
– Real player with 27.3 hrs in game
Strike Suit Zero
I don’t understand some of the posited reviews saying that this game is too hard or chaotic or bland.
The game is not too difficult, it just has a bit of a learning curve. Truly, I thought it was too easy at first. If you’re a passable shot in Wing Commander or Ace Combat or anything like that, you should be a dead-eye marksman in this. I went through the first three levels not using the lock-on function. It was only later that I discovered the game has a freaking target-lead reticle. If you cant shoot using that, don’t say anything about it because you’re a walking advocate for gun control.
– Real player with 43.4 hrs in game
This game suffers of death by a thousand cuts
At first, i was very much taken in. There aren’t many space games anymore so it was nice to have one. The presentation of the game was nice, with voice acting for important characters, and the combat was decent (even though the controls are extremely clunky).
However, after a few hours of fun, you start noticing the many problems this game has :
- Dogfighting is almost inexistant. It’s so hard to aim, you’re better off using homing missiles to blast small ships.
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
GoD Factory: Wingmen
Simply put this is a great game with superb dogfighting, tons of meaningful customization and much strategic depth! However if you are looking for causal fun where you can just hop in and shoot at some starfighters that’s probably not the game for you.
It’s not very clear from the description but essentially this is a MOBA. That’s not a bad thing at all as the MOBA format fits the dogfighting just perfect!
So to describe you the mechanics: every match there are two carriers shooting the hell of eachother and here you come with your two fighters trying to destroy the enemy carrier first. In order to be successful you and your teammates should concentrate on one of its 9 parts at a time (2 of which are inside the hull itself!). What’s great is that by destroying a part you not only are helping to bring the enemy carrier down but depending of the party you’ve destroyed that puts the enemy team in a specific disadvantage (for example if you destroy the Ammo Warehouse the enemy team won’t be able to fill the ammo of their fighters to the full set). As I mentioned earlier you bring two of your fighter to the match. You can switch between them by docking with the carrier. When docked your fighters get their ammo refilled and their shield gradually recovering. As for the fighters themselves they are fully customisable. Each fighter consists of 12/13 parts (depending on the number of weapons) which you can combine as you see fit. When using the parts in a match that later unlocks upgrades for them and gives you access to new ones. All this give the matches great strategic dept and variety.
– Real player with 176.0 hrs in game
EDIT: Sadly, while this remains a great game, the lack of players online raises a big red flag for a PvP game such as this, even though it is possible to play with and against Bots. If you pick this game up, be wary that you may not find people online to play it with. This is very sad, it’s so good.
This is a great title, which is saying something coming from me - I am not traditionally a huge fan of PvP games, but this does tick the boxes: solid gameplay; interesting mechanics; rewarding intelligent and strategic teamplay.
– Real player with 60.0 hrs in game
Omniblast
This game is an absolute steal. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into this.
At first glance, this game seems like your standard, run-of-the-mill runner - dodge randomly generated obstacles and get the highest score that you can. Controls are simple: A and D to move, Q and E to strafe/blink, Left Shift to boost. I found it easier to use a controller, although Q wasn’t automatically mapped for mine - I’ve published a controller configuration that works like a charm that you can use. You’ve got shields, which are replenished by defeating bosses; health, which is replenished by passing asteroids; and charges for both strafe and boost which replenish over time by themselves. You can adjust the difficulty.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Omniblast is a free to play (but monetised) 2D retro pixel vertical scrolling endless runner. It does have the appearance of an Asteroids/SpaceWar! ripoff but it’s considerably more dumbed down than that.
Gameplay consists of basic dodging left and right, and “boss fights” which just involve dodging stuff for a while then ramming the boss with the “shift” key. There’s a series of upgrade systems and so on, which makes it seem like someone took SpaceWar!, then removed most of the gameplay, then went back and started bolting alternative, less enjoyable gameplay onto the game they stripped down. Essentially, this pig has 6-10 layers of lipstick on it. If it’s not broken, break it, then weld pointless stuff onto it?
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Ring Racer
Ring Racer is a sci-fi endless runner where you explore procedural generated galaxies.
Race on huge orbital spacestracks for fame and glory. You can upgrade your ship by collecting credits throughout the race or use your blasters to clear out space debris. Ships come with a rechargeable booster, but speed isn’t everything. The further you get into the galaxy the faster you will go.
Features
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Unique Flight Mechanic
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Procedural generated galaxies with spacetracks
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4 Spaceships
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8 Unique areas
Note: Mouse only game
Sapper
Sapper puts new, colourful spin on the classic video game genre. In Sapper, you play a small anti-pirate. mine-sapper unit. Cleanse local home vessels and exotic alien craft of enemies, mines, and watch these vast ships ride to safety as you collect your bounty.
A lightning fast, immediate game, with slick scrolling 2D graphics: quick to pick-up, but harder to put down and far harder to master.