According to the developers Space Pirates and Zombies, in the distant future, what the “greens” are so afraid of happened – in a thoughtless race for technological progress, humanity turned its home planet into a giant landfill. It became absolutely impossible to live among waste, so people remembered their old dream – to conquer space. Soon after the first interstellar ships began to roam the expanses of the universe, a universal mineral called “rez” was discovered, from which you can make anything you want – from the lining of a space battleship to the aielle on the ceremonial uniform of its captain. The closer to the center of the galaxy, the higher the concentration of rez, the more people want to fill their holds with the precious mineral for free.
Gradually, humanity colonized most of the galaxy, but even in the future, the rulers did not come up with a reliable way to govern the state – the great empire fell apart into separate systems, in each of which people were divided into two warring camps. Peaceful settlers mine rez and engage in scientific research, and the remnants of the military fleet earn their bread and butter in another way – by charging bribes for the use of stargates. Although these guys really don’t like each other, things don’t go beyond small skirmishes, and in each system parity is maintained with a slight advantage of one of the parties.
And then we appear on the stage – those same Space Pirates. Having changed their mind about working for their uncle and desiring wealth, the team of adventurers decides to set off on a long journey to the center of the galaxy, where there is so much rez that there is enough for everyone – no one will leave offended.
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Even though SPAZ It looks very simple at first glance, it will take a lot of time to study all the intricacies – the developers have devoted a whole chapter out of four available to the training mode. The player controls a huge starship (mothership), on which you can travel around the galaxy. To move within the star system, smaller ships are used, one of them can be steered as you please, the rest will act according to orders. You can set the behavior style of each of your allies. It’s very convenient and distracts from unnecessary microcontrol – for example, we order one pilot on a fighter to cover the rear, and entrust the second with a cargo ship and order him to collect resources left over from destroyed enemies right during the battle.
Rez obtained from the wreckage is used as the main currency, and can also be used to build and repair ships. Before exploding, the downed ship throws out several escape capsules with the crew (goons) in different directions – this is another type of resource. You can pick up people and force former enemies to work for you. However, nothing prevents them from being used for mutually beneficial barter – the military, for example, is always happy to accept a dozen or two thugs in exchange for unhindered passage through the interstellar gates. The last resource is data, which, like rez, can be found among enemy remains. Thanks to them, the player grows in level, receiving experience points that are spent on researching new technologies, and at any time you can reset one of the development branches and invest the freed points in another. This happens without any special frills: we added five points to the line of engines – we began to fly faster, we upgraded our shields – now the enemy will have to work hard to break through them.
Our fleet is located in the mothership’s hangar. Here you can select its composition for the upcoming battle, change equipment and weapons. To unlock new equipment, you need to buy the corresponding diagrams at military or settler stations. But ship blueprints “drop” only from defeated enemies, and from each one you can pick up documentation specifically for this model. Therefore, in order to develop, you must constantly defeat opponents stronger than yourself, otherwise you won’t see new corps, and without them, victory will not shine. Vicious circle. There is a constant race for technology, because a new ship allows you to defeat a stronger one, which, in turn, can compete with an even tougher enemy – and this continues until the available hull models run out. And there are many of them: there are small and nimble fighters, there are slow but capacious barges, there are huge battleships comparable in size to an orbital station. Despite the large selection, each has its own application, therefore the fleet must be armed in accordance with the tasks. I hasten to disappoint fans of large-scale space battles – no more than four combat units fit into the hangar. But you really want to control not just a couple of spaceships, even huge ones, but a real armada! It’s strange that the developers introduced such a restriction – otherwise it could have turned out to be a real strategy with arcade elements, and not vice versa, as it is now.
The battles resemble a mixture of arcade battles from Space Rangers (fans of this wonderful series will immediately notice where the ears “grow” from in many aspects SPAZ) and mass executions of the incoming evil spirits from Alien Shooter simultaneously. Laser flashes sparkle, something explodes loudly, rockets fly along intricate trajectories – at first it’s all impressive. But after a couple of hours it turns out that the battles are terribly monotonous. And indeed: we flew into the sector, met the enemy, shot, collected trophies, waited for the next wave of enemies, shot again, collected – repeat until either the player or the mission scenario got tired of. Despite the apparent variety of tasks, almost all of them boil down to the banal “kill them all”, and visually any battle is a jumble of multi-colored flashes, in which it is difficult to make out what is happening and who is defeating whom. Add to this the absence of any markings on the controlled ship, which makes it very difficult to recognize in the heat of battle. You have to constantly make unnecessary maneuvers in order to somehow understand where the “ward” is now. Plus information about the enemy in the corner of the screen is not the best idea. Yes, you can find out the state of the enemy’s armor and shields, but constantly looking away is inconvenient and there is no time. A large selection of weapons (in addition to lasers and missiles, there are drones, mines, super-powerful bombs and even a boarding party) does not save you from boredom; anyway, to win you do not have to be sophisticated in tactics – it’s enough to stupidly call out to opponents one by one. Paradox – in a game that is called an arcade, its non-arcade part turned out to be head and shoulders above. No, the battles are not bad, but they are too similar to each other, and sometimes last too long. Soon you even discover that discovering new types of hulls, studying equipment and reading story inserts is much more interesting than fighting.
Where are the zombies?? There’s nothing wrong with them – final part SPAZ will be entirely devoted to the fight against an alien race, such local tyranids. Settlers and military will forget past feuds and unite against a common enemy under our wise command. You will have to clear the galaxy from the invasion of space parasites in a new strategic mode, where you will be able to manage not only your fleet, but also the development of entire star systems. This must be done wisely, otherwise zombies will again capture the systems that were recaptured with such difficulty, and constantly returning them quickly gets boring. To be honest, this mode looks rather sluggish; I want to go through the fourth chapter just to find out how it all ends.
Space Pirates and Zombies, Of course, it’s not ideal, but… It’s interesting how that huge ship over there will behave, for the creation of which we only need to find a couple of drawings, and whether it will be able to defeat the enemy planetary station alone. SPAZ There is always something to surprise the player, unless he gets so bored with arcade battles that he decides to spend his time on something else. And if the developers develop the project, at least slightly increase the size of the fleet and add online battles, then SPAZ It’s unlikely they’ll call it an arcade again.
Pros: stylish and atmospheric picture; large selection of ships and equipment; the game is deeper than it seems.
Cons: monotony of battles; boring strategy mode.