Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander is all of your favorite science fiction TV series rolled into one neat, pixelated package. After contact with Earth has been lost, you have to build up the eponymous space station to what might be the last, best hope for mankind. Wage war against the ghastly Chruul, forge temporary alliances with yucky space pirates, build, research, live long, and prosper. No idea how to fit in an obvious Star Wars reference, but you probably get the point. Yes, the point you get.
Thankfully, all of this goes beyond mere pastiche. You cannot deny that there are tons of references here, right down to the names of crew members, but Halcyon 6 is very much its own thing. And that's a good thing, too, because otherwise it would distract from the fact that this is such a great game. If you forced me to put a label on it, I'd probably call it a 4X roguelike with turn-based RPG battles.
There's a strategic layer which has you improving your space station, delegating your fleet, and watching your little empire grow. Your actions and a bunch of random events might lead to tactical spaceship battles. There's something rather satisfying about big ships duking it out in space. Special kudos to the sound design: while the pixelated graphics cannot convey the sheer size of these battles, the sound effects sure do. Massive, booming explosions reverberate throughout space. Yes, I know that's actually not scientifically possible, but we're in soft sci-fi land here, so hand in your disbelief and enjoy the wooshes and booms and other explodey noises. Furthermore, ships don't just trade lasers and rockets and whatnot; these battles are a bit more tactical, with conditions that can be caused and exploited, skills that put your own crew at risk, and generally more decisions to be made than merely "where to shoot."
Ground battles work in a similar way, but feel less bombastic. With up to three crew members - use some redshirts if one of your precious officers is not around! - you get up close and personal with various space nasties. Some of them can be encountered on your own space station, since you actually didn't build that place yourself, but merely settled in after the previous owners left. So there's a lot of excavating to do and lots of interesting stuff stuff to find in the bowels of your own home. It also leads to a bunch of random events - which oftentimes feel like random Star Trek plots, good and bad.
You'd think that all of these different elements would not fit into one neat package, but somehow, developers Massive Damage made it work. There's even a nice sense of progression to it all, gently ramping up the scope of your adventure. One minute you're exploring space with a lone spacecraft. Three hours later, you command a fleet, exterminating other factions, and generally kick space ass in your particular sector of the solar system. It feels like one big adventure. May the giant space squid be with you.
You can purchase Halcyon 6 from Steam and GOG (coming soon) for $19.99. For more information, visit the game's website or follow developers Massive Damage on Twitter.
from IndieGames.com http://ift.tt/2cmKuvg
via IndieGaming, visit and read the original first posting to get complete and more detail about this article, support the independence Gaming , Enjoy
Post a Comment
This blog needed you to understand the word spam - never spam on this blog, although i will not moderate all of it, but you will learn it yourself, educate yourself