This evil game would have you believe - within its opening minutes - that it has succinctly versed the player in the complexities of space combat. It tells you about your weapon range; it tells you how to move and how to fire. Oh, and it also tells you this is all you'll need to know to avoid pesky instances of explosion. This is a lie. The suggestion that all you need to know is contained within this five minutes tutorial borders on criminal. The manual doesn't delve any deeper.
Infinite Space contains one of the vaguest and psychotic combat systems I have ever had to wrangle with in order to gain entry to the meat of a RPG. Or maybe I've just been mollycoddled by forty-two hours worth of Final Fantasy XIII. As if it wasn't bad enough that the game teaches you next to nothing about the finer points of combat - the combat itself contains a worryingly large dose of luck.
It all essentially boils down to an intergalactic game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Only batshit crazy. You and the enemy have access to three manoeuvres - Barrage, Normal and Dodge. Barrage unleashes three rounds of attacks from each ship in your fleet and inflicts huge damage. A Normal attack fires once and inflicts standards damage. Where things get complicated is when Dodge enters this scenario. If you Dodge and your enemy fires a Barrage, you incur no damage whatsoever. If you Dodge and they fire off a Normal, you will be raped. Also, there's an Awesome Action Bar (naturally). This bar increases over time, starting Green in colour and slowly changes to Yellow then finally Red. When it's Yellow you can either Dodge or fire a Normal. When it's Red you can Barrage.
Now, you're only way of anticipating what your enemy is planning is to keep a constant eye on a small line which surrounds the enemy ship. This shows you the current colour of the enemies Awesome Action Bar. The enemy can see yours. If it goes Yellow then Green, you can safely assume that they've just Dodged. You fire a Normal - they explode. Everybody is happy. If it stays Yellow... then, well... uh. You're fucked. A veritable Schrödinger's Nexus of Quantum Unpredictability tears the universe a new corn shoot.
You could assume they're going to Normal and not Dodge, only to be hit by a Barrage. You could also assume they're going to Barrage and then Dodge, only to be violated by a Normal. Even if you try to be sneaky and use the fact that the enemy can see you Awesome Action Bar to try and trick them, chances are they've been doing the same thing from the start. You could also try and board the enemy ship to Melee them to death, but at that point you're pretty much begging for Lady Luck to squat over your head and piss down your neck. The whole thing quickly derails into an infinite regress of "But if they know I know they know that I know, then they can't know that I know that they don't know"! etc.
It's utterly fantastic. It sounds dreadful. It is. It's also fantastic. It's exactly the way I like my space combat. Simultaneously chaotic and serene. One part The Next Generation, one part Battlestar Galactica. Random encounters can easily last up to twenty minutes as you and your enemy drift across the field - each of you trying to dash in to your optimum weapons range at the most opportune moments and then dashing back out to avoid return fire. All the while trying to predict your enemies response. Each attack is preceded by a brilliant view of your Bridge as you shout commands and the computer spews out indecipherable babble about attack patterns and wave fluctuations - culminating in a biblical barrage of lasers and missiles flying out of your fleet and peppering the hull's of the enemy fleet. Ships don't just explode. They slowly drift off course, slowly crackle with electricity and then shatter into pieces in a huge wave of energy. It's totally the Death Star blowing up, and I'm talking Special Edition Death Star blowing up. With crackling bits of shit.
That's the combat. There's even a game in here. The story - in its overarching sense - is of little consequence. There's a kid. He wants to go space. There's a Mysterious Artifact. Destiny. Mysterious Evil Dudes Being Cryptic In End Chapter Cut-scenes. It's all very fun. On a smaller scale - the game takes more of an episodic approach. This is much more interesting, as it gets all Star Trek again. You show up in a new system. You come across an unknown ship or government. There will be a diplomatic, military or political problem that you will inevitably get caught up in and eventually resolve. Set course for the nearest Starbase, ensign. Make it so.
This really is the kind of thing that should have had the Star Trek license slapped over it years ago. There's the Crew Assignment - where you flex your sexy Captain muscles as you tell people which god-damned seat they're sitting it. Another good thing - you don't have to put the Science Genius in charge of the Science department. You may incur lower stats but there's nothing quite like demoting your Top Super Maverick Pilot to kitchen duty whenever they question your orders in a cut-scene. Oh, you buy and equip modules to increase your ship's stats and add abilities. It's like the Panel System from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days except for the small difference that... uh... yeah - it's like the Panel System from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
So, you've got a fantastically vague and luck-driven combat system; little tutorial; Star Trek worship; deliciously plodding combat and some High Cheese Anime Science Fiction Space Opera Action! "My God!" I hear you not say! "The only thing that could make this any better if the bulk of exploration and character interaction is reminiscent of a text adventure!"
Yup. Good old text. Even though virtually every planet and Space Station looks identical the universe manages to convey a huge sense of scale and diversity. Every system has its own geopolitical idiosyncrasies which you can overhear being discussed by the pissheads down at the local Space Boozer. Not to mention enough frequent muggings, assassinations and alcoholic, disgraced Star Captains willing to impart some words of wisdom (READ: stat increase) to ensure it's worth your while stopping off at every station along the way. Also - Love Triangles! DRAMA!
Infinite Space is exactly the way a Space RPG should be - an exhausting, maddening Sci-Fi Oregon Trail. You may not be able to contract Dysentery but you're just as likely to be sent to a Game Over for not being as psychic as the game demands. By taking the opportunity to shit on you as frequently as possible, the game achieves that rare act of making you feel like a self taught, balls-to-the-wall military genius whenever you pull a victory out of the bag. Even if it was all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Infinite Space contains one of the vaguest and psychotic combat systems I have ever had to wrangle with in order to gain entry to the meat of a RPG. Or maybe I've just been mollycoddled by forty-two hours worth of Final Fantasy XIII. As if it wasn't bad enough that the game teaches you next to nothing about the finer points of combat - the combat itself contains a worryingly large dose of luck.
It all essentially boils down to an intergalactic game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Only batshit crazy. You and the enemy have access to three manoeuvres - Barrage, Normal and Dodge. Barrage unleashes three rounds of attacks from each ship in your fleet and inflicts huge damage. A Normal attack fires once and inflicts standards damage. Where things get complicated is when Dodge enters this scenario. If you Dodge and your enemy fires a Barrage, you incur no damage whatsoever. If you Dodge and they fire off a Normal, you will be raped. Also, there's an Awesome Action Bar (naturally). This bar increases over time, starting Green in colour and slowly changes to Yellow then finally Red. When it's Yellow you can either Dodge or fire a Normal. When it's Red you can Barrage.
Now, you're only way of anticipating what your enemy is planning is to keep a constant eye on a small line which surrounds the enemy ship. This shows you the current colour of the enemies Awesome Action Bar. The enemy can see yours. If it goes Yellow then Green, you can safely assume that they've just Dodged. You fire a Normal - they explode. Everybody is happy. If it stays Yellow... then, well... uh. You're fucked. A veritable Schrödinger's Nexus of Quantum Unpredictability tears the universe a new corn shoot.
You could assume they're going to Normal and not Dodge, only to be hit by a Barrage. You could also assume they're going to Barrage and then Dodge, only to be violated by a Normal. Even if you try to be sneaky and use the fact that the enemy can see you Awesome Action Bar to try and trick them, chances are they've been doing the same thing from the start. You could also try and board the enemy ship to Melee them to death, but at that point you're pretty much begging for Lady Luck to squat over your head and piss down your neck. The whole thing quickly derails into an infinite regress of "But if they know I know they know that I know, then they can't know that I know that they don't know"! etc.
It's utterly fantastic. It sounds dreadful. It is. It's also fantastic. It's exactly the way I like my space combat. Simultaneously chaotic and serene. One part The Next Generation, one part Battlestar Galactica. Random encounters can easily last up to twenty minutes as you and your enemy drift across the field - each of you trying to dash in to your optimum weapons range at the most opportune moments and then dashing back out to avoid return fire. All the while trying to predict your enemies response. Each attack is preceded by a brilliant view of your Bridge as you shout commands and the computer spews out indecipherable babble about attack patterns and wave fluctuations - culminating in a biblical barrage of lasers and missiles flying out of your fleet and peppering the hull's of the enemy fleet. Ships don't just explode. They slowly drift off course, slowly crackle with electricity and then shatter into pieces in a huge wave of energy. It's totally the Death Star blowing up, and I'm talking Special Edition Death Star blowing up. With crackling bits of shit.
That's the combat. There's even a game in here. The story - in its overarching sense - is of little consequence. There's a kid. He wants to go space. There's a Mysterious Artifact. Destiny. Mysterious Evil Dudes Being Cryptic In End Chapter Cut-scenes. It's all very fun. On a smaller scale - the game takes more of an episodic approach. This is much more interesting, as it gets all Star Trek again. You show up in a new system. You come across an unknown ship or government. There will be a diplomatic, military or political problem that you will inevitably get caught up in and eventually resolve. Set course for the nearest Starbase, ensign. Make it so.
This really is the kind of thing that should have had the Star Trek license slapped over it years ago. There's the Crew Assignment - where you flex your sexy Captain muscles as you tell people which god-damned seat they're sitting it. Another good thing - you don't have to put the Science Genius in charge of the Science department. You may incur lower stats but there's nothing quite like demoting your Top Super Maverick Pilot to kitchen duty whenever they question your orders in a cut-scene. Oh, you buy and equip modules to increase your ship's stats and add abilities. It's like the Panel System from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days except for the small difference that... uh... yeah - it's like the Panel System from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
So, you've got a fantastically vague and luck-driven combat system; little tutorial; Star Trek worship; deliciously plodding combat and some High Cheese Anime Science Fiction Space Opera Action! "My God!" I hear you not say! "The only thing that could make this any better if the bulk of exploration and character interaction is reminiscent of a text adventure!"
Yup. Good old text. Even though virtually every planet and Space Station looks identical the universe manages to convey a huge sense of scale and diversity. Every system has its own geopolitical idiosyncrasies which you can overhear being discussed by the pissheads down at the local Space Boozer. Not to mention enough frequent muggings, assassinations and alcoholic, disgraced Star Captains willing to impart some words of wisdom (READ: stat increase) to ensure it's worth your while stopping off at every station along the way. Also - Love Triangles! DRAMA!
Infinite Space is exactly the way a Space RPG should be - an exhausting, maddening Sci-Fi Oregon Trail. You may not be able to contract Dysentery but you're just as likely to be sent to a Game Over for not being as psychic as the game demands. By taking the opportunity to shit on you as frequently as possible, the game achieves that rare act of making you feel like a self taught, balls-to-the-wall military genius whenever you pull a victory out of the bag. Even if it was all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
