Starship Corporation – build and design your own spaceship!

Hey guys, welcome back to Withinthegame.com!

 

Today I’m bringing you some info about a game I’ve had my eye on for some time. As I told you in one or previous reviews I LOVE sci-fi. After watching the most recent Battlestar Galactica I decided I wanted a game which had that same feel to it, and whilst looking, stumbled across this.

Starship Corporation by developer Coronado Games puts you in the hot seat in a spaceship design and construction office – you design the layout, placing each room, engines, power supply, water etc. to keep your crew alive and functioning at their most efficient. You can then test this out in a series of engagements, varying from carrying cargo without exploding for no reason, to combat without exploding for a very good reason.

“Starship Corporation puts you in the hot seat in a spaceship design and construction office”

The actual design stage is really fluid, simply laying out rooms onto a grid, toggling between levels and matching up power cables and so on was easy – however I felt at first it was a bit difficult to understand the UI. After paying attention to what changed when I did things, and going through the tutorial I managed to grasp some things and work out others, but it could have been introduced a bit more gradually.

“the actual design stage is really fluid, simply laying out rooms onto a grid”

The testing stage itself I can’t really tell you much about, as it never worked for me, my crew members just stand around and I cannot work out why, all the doors are open, everything is powered, and so on, but still no action. Still the game itself has the enjoyable aspect of I’M BUILDING MY OWN SPACESHIP and when it’s more refined and developed this I can see being a favourite of mine.

You can download a copy of Starship Corporation here.

 

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

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Tom

Planetary Annihilation Galactic War Demonstration

Hey guys,

Just a quick one for you today, I’ve previously reviewed Planetary Annihilation here, and today I’ve got a quick video showing how the single player aspect of the game (called Galactic War) looks.

Apologies for the slightly crackly sound, I’ve spent the entire weekend trying to sort it out and still have no idea why it’s like that, so hopefully I can get it sorted for next time!

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

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Tom

Save the Comet – Orbital Gravity-Defying Fun!

Hi everyone, thanks for checking out WithintheGame.com!

 

Save the Comet is an arcade style mobile Android game developed by MogaMecha that involves the safe guidance of our heroic protagonist, the comet, through a wide and open galaxy filled with perils from infinity and beyond. You have to use touch screen technology to avoid planets and other astronomical dangers such as asteroids and meteor showers whilst draining their energy and stopping your gravitational field from pulling them into your own destruction.

Within this game the main goal is to absorb stardust from spatial objects, which can then be spent on various upgrades. The controls are fairly simple wherein you cannot actually directly control the movement of your comet, but you can use the forces of gravity to change direction, as well as use your finger to move around all other objects that fly towards you with malevolent haste. It would be nice to see multi-touch where the player could use both thumbs to control several objects at once, just due to the fact that currently the game only allows you to control one object at a time which means a lot of passing by planets and such are missed. Despite this, the game plays very smoothly and is actually really enjoyable due to the fact that you can actually experience progression in regards to the appearance of your character and the functionality of the game.

Save the Comet allows you to either purchase points to spend on customising your character and choosing game enhancing upgrades or just play and save up. There are also many achievements to complete which means that you don’t just get stuck in the same old system of drag and move onwards, you can actually choose challenges to take on and try and beat each one. Naturally you end up completing some of them just by playing the game, but there are several which give a decent level of difficulty for the hardcore gamers out there. It’s also includes really crisp visuals and art. Obviously it’s not next-gen graphics or super-realism or anything like that, however it has got a really clean cartoony feel to it that helps to keep you engaged without totally going overboard.

This game is extremely easy to get addicted to and I believe that children and adults alike will find enjoyment in trying it out. It’s a great little game to have on your mobile and it’s definitely got a good few hours of play time dedicated to it. If you love sci-fi environments, completing achievements and classic arcade Android games then I’m sure you’ll love Save the Comet!

If you fancy giving this one a go, you can find it for Android devices HERE

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

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George

Planetary Annihilation – Build and Destroy on an Interplanetary Scale

Hi everyone, thanks for checking out WithintheGame.com!

 

I’ve been marshalling my armies within Planetary Annihilation over the past day or so. In this game, developers Uber Entertainment have created a game of massive scale battles similar to those previously seen in titles such as Supreme Commander. The game itself is still under development, available for early access on Steam, and I’ve been trying this game out to see if it’s as promising as it looks.

Now, I’ll say this right away: you can strap giant rockets to asteroids and fly them into your enemies base. You read that correctly, giant rocket powered asteroids as weapons. If this doesn’t immediately make this game one of the best things you’ve ever played then I don’t think we can be friends.

In all seriousness though, this strategy game has you choosing a starting location on a planet, building up your base with resource gathering structures and producing an army in either land, sea or air and heading into battle with your opponent. It’s fairly standard RTS (Real Time Strategy) procedure, but what makes this game unique is the ability to actually see the entire planet you’re on.

This gives a huge sense of scale, and when you tech up enough you can actually take off and land on other planets and expand there, leading to some very complex supply lines of units and teleporter buildings and so on. It’s a fantastic idea, taking the concept of world domination to whole new levels.

The game looks good, with almost cartoony graphics, and an extremely cool view of the solar system you’re in if you zoom out enough. The graphical settings on ‘full’ look much the same as on ‘medium’ but rendered the game unplayable despite the insignificant improvement, and my computer being quite a powerful gaming rig.

With the game being still in development there are bound to be bugs like this along the way, I myself encountered the game crashing in a particular incident every time it happened, and occasionally my mouse input would still produce the slight glowy circle that happens when you click on something, but nothing would be selected, nor could I change map position or anything. That being said, it’s not an officially released game yet, so these problems will hopefully disappear with time.

If you want to check the game out you can find it on Steam here or from the developer’s website here. It can be pricey normally, but I managed to snap it up during the magnificent Steam sales.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom

Cobalt – Shoot to kill, jump to kill, roll to kill!

Hey there,

Today I was going be reviewing a horror game, but even in the bright sunlight of the middle of the day I chickened out the first time something scary happened, so instead I’ve got a cool little retro influenced game called Cobalt from game developers Oxeye Game Studio for you. Describing itself as “a game about cyborgs, weapons and super slow-mo evasive manoeuvres, including combat rolls, rail slides, rocket punches and wall jumps”, Cobalt is a side scrolling action game where you play a robot, with multiple weapon types, armour types, upgrades and the like. It includes a cool slow-mo feature when danger is near your robot as well, allowing you to do some really impressive things like punching rockets back to the enemy, or rolling to dodge bullets.

“you face endless waves of enemies and upgrade yourself in between each wave for maximum destruction!”

From the start menu to the little bits falling off my robot as I took damage (one eye fell out, then bits of armour, then a limb, and eventually I was left with just a brain in a glass case with helicopter rotors on top) this game is full of polish and detail, and the 80’s style art and soundtrack are very high quality. Additionally, the gameplay itself is very well planned out, starting off with the very basic movement and shooting which just works – it sounds simple but I’ve played many games where it was awkward or clunky, Cobalt has it down perfectly – to the more advanced techniques such as timing a punch whilst rolling to fling yourself higher, or clinging to a wall to hide and prepare a sneak attack for extra damage.

It’s very easy to get into, as you can play using a gamepad, which I think fits this style of gameplay much better than a keyboard and mouse. I haven’t had a chance to test out the multiplayer feature (although I’m going to be trying out later with WTG’s George), but the single player alone has kept me interested for most of the afternoon – particularly the ‘survival’ mode, where you face endless waves of enemies and upgrade yourself in between each wave for maximum destruction!

There’s a cost to pre-order, €9.95 – which will go up to €19.95 on release according to the website – and you have to register an email address to create an account, even if you want to play offline, which some people may not like, but overall this game is an absolute gem which I will definitely be looking forward to spending more time on. The Alpha is available right now and is free to play so try it out! The fast and frantic gameplay, combined with the possibility to stealth your way through if you choose to makes this a fun, exciting, and slightly nostalgic game which I’m expecting to go a long way.

EDIT: after watching WTG’s George run through the tutorial and a few of the challenges we went into a multiplayer session… and promptly died. We restarted and died again. And again, and again and again. This game’s multiplayer is HARD, man, HARD. The deathmatch was frantic and confusing but in a good way as only this type of 2d side scroller can manage, and the wave survival mode was unbelievable with us only getting to wave 2. Just 2. It was brilliant fun though, so another well polished, fantastic addition to a game which I already had high opinions of.

You can find Cobalt  for download HERE.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom