Starship Inspector

Review

The quadrant is in danger; the powerful Taros have all but enslaved the entire sector. Your objective is to reach as many Gates as possible, assemble a crew, upgrade your ship and spank the Taros’ botty ending their tyranny.

On the main menu screen, you’ll find New Game, Tutorial, Options, Stats and Quit. Selecting Tutorial will take you over the aspects of the game. Selecting a New Game will open a screen where you can choose and Customise your Starship, Select Campaign and Select the game’s Parameters. There are three Starships to choose from to begin with: the Independence Medical Corvette of the Alliance faction, the Nirvana Escort Corvette of the Bugzers, and the final option, the Endeavour Cargo Ship of the Trade Federation. There are other factions (Devastators, Harmony, Pirates) each with multiple Starships to choose from once you have unlocked them. There are also three Rare Starships which you’ll unlock after defeating them in battle. Once you have your ship you can then name and colour it and there’s a Random option if you can’t decide.

Each of the starships have their own different Weapons, Crewmen and Droids, and while they may share some of the same System Controls, there are some slight differences to begin with. The game parameters consist of Campaign (Free, Time Limit, Catch, Stealth), Difficulty (Easy, Hard, Expert), Map Size (Small, Medium, Big, Huge), Morale (Enabled, Disabled), Stress (Enabled, Disabled). There are five campaigns in total but only two are available to you from the start; you’ll have to unlock the other three.

After you’ve decided everything, hitting the Ready button will take you into the game. Your Starship will take centre stage in the middle of the screen. In the top left corner is your crew members, and top centre is where your resources (Credits, Platan, Rockets, Substance and Moral) are displayed. Below your resources is the name of your starship along with its Power status. Bottom centre is where your System Controls are displayed, and the bottom right corner is where your Droids and Weapons are situated. Top right corner is Monitoring, Jump (View Map) and Options.

Selecting Jump will display the quadrants map and the Gates which you can travel between as you make your way through the quadrant. To move from one Gate to another will cost you one to three Platan units, depending on the distance between each Gate. Sometimes there are icons beside the Gates, which will indicate things such as Neutral, Hostile, Distress, Trade Station, Objective, Nebula, Boss, Starting and Ending Point. Clicking on one of the Gates will display a small amount of information on that Gate: the name of the Gate, how much Platan it costs to reach the gate from your current position, whether or not you have visited that Gate before. Not all details are displayed; you’ll have to visit in order to find out what exactly is at a Gate.

At some point you’re going to run into some unsavory folks who start a fight (or you could start it; either way it’s everyone to battle stations!) Just like your ship, the enemy's starship will display all the ship’s compartments: Bridge, Weapons, Medical Bay, Cargo Hold, Workshop, Engines etcetera.

Right clicking on a compartment of an enemy’s ship will allow you to see your options, fire at them, and teleport your crew members over to attack from within. You’ll be able to command your crew to move to compartments to maintain them. Your crew will need to make repairs to your ship from any damage it sustains. Fires need to be put out before they spread; you can help put out the fires by sucking all the oxygen from out of the compartments. This can be done by opening the bulk head doors and the doors which lead to wherever the fires are taking hold. However, no oxygen means no breathable air for your crew, so once the fires are out, you’ll need to close the bulk head doors so that the oxygen replenishes.

Sometimes before you can totally finish off your enemy they may try and bribe you to let them live. They’ll offer some credits, platans, rockets or something else. So, it’ll be your decision - do you take the offer or do you send them to oblivion and take the rewards you would have got from defeating them anyway?

As you progress through the quadrant, you’ll come across Trade Stations, where you’ll be able to spend some of those credits you’ve earned on items like Platans, Rockets etcetera. You can also buy upgrades, new weapons and other modules for your ship. Eventually (if you make it that far) you’ll find your objective and will be required to take out the Boss of the sectors. This will be more difficult than normal encounters as the boss consists of three ships, and he’s given my botty a bloody good spanking each time I’ve found him so far.

In the options are Sound and Music Volume Sliders, Ship Dodging Animation, Show Hints and Language (English and Russian).

The game is in Early Access and so far, it seems to run well. The only thing I have had problems with (and this could be me not doing something right), is that when I wanted to fire a single rocket, I would fire the first rocket, and then it would continue firing until all of my rockets were gone. I was unable to stop them firing continuously, and because of this I got through like thirteen rockets and then I had to spend any credits I earned on more rockets, which were then used up as soon as I’d fired the first one at a new enemy. Other than that, the game runs well, looks good, and is quite enjoyable to play.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!  

Starship Inspector Steam Store Page