Отзывы

• Aeryn

  Feb 5, 2023

  I loved the original SPAZ. And SPAZ 2 has a lot of cool ideas crammed into it. But that's just it. They're *crammed in*. They're not polished. They're not balanced. And they don't synergize. The end result is the game is a massive grindfest that does an extremely poor job of explaining its systems to you. I think the arenas are meant to show you decent designs, but you can't really use the arena designs at the beginning of the game. Heck, you can't even use them late game if you don't realize that you can order custom parts from the catalog, which is never explained and I only got because I was achievement hunting. Getting to the late game is a chore, though. There's no safe place to learn the game and level up. Try to fight level appropriate enemies, and you'll get jumped by much more powerful enemies that *will* completely destroy you, 75% of the time. And it's RNG. So your best bet is to save scum until you get a fight that won't kill you. This is encouraged, btw, on the death screen. Honestly, if you must play, just... cheat your way through the beginning. The grind isn't worth it. And then you'll get to the point where you realize, suprise, the arena didn't teach you anything valuable, since most of the designs aren't actually viable outside of 1v1 encounters. Especially anything that relies on speed. Everyone and their mother has something that'll halt your movement entirely. Which also makes the "pick up power ups dotted around the map for advantages" system non-viable, since you can't move, and the "retreat to heal your shields" system also non-viable, since you can't get away from enemies, and even if you slow them too, you can't slow all the masses of mobs coming at you. Hangers, which used to be where player ships came from, now are simultaneously the most essential and most useless part of the sequel. Without them, you will die. A lot. Really bad. But with them, your ships will die. A lot. Really fast. Especially the small ones. And there's not enough command points available to bring multiples of the big ones. So in the end they feel like sacrificial trash to get a damage boost at the beginning at the cost of a large drain on scrap. Meanwhile, while you're stuck with 2-4 ships, everyone else brings 8-20 adds for you to fight, which are the large ones, where they are a *lot* more effective in such numbers. Enemy ships can also be bigger than your max limit even past the soft level cap, so the whole thing ends up feeling extremely unfair. Ironically, the part where you fight an exact copy of your build might be one of the easiest parts of the game, since the AI is dumb and if it's exactly the same, at least it isn't stronger. Plus, it doesn't come with swarms of smaller ships. All and all, in the end, I'm just... extremely frustrated with the game. I wanted, and expected, more from a sequel. The highlight is that the characters are back... but it's not that much of a highlight since they were only set dressing on the first game, not the main draw. And some of them that are brought back... you'll really wish they didn't. The story is largely the same story as the first game, except... "what if the BBEG was also an idiot". Base and faction building seems interesting but ultimately serves as little other than a passive resource sink. And even then, Goons only feel like they're part of this game because they were part of the first game, and are *so* much more annoying to manage. I bought this game closer to when it was first announced, played it a bit, and promptly forgot literally everything about it until I picked it up after beating the original SPAZ again. Having thrown myself at its walls, I understand why. At the end of the day, I want my 20 hours back. I feel bad for having played this. So I really can't recommend it.
• gamedeal user

  May 18, 2016

  I felt the need to expand the review, since there was a lot of complaining going on all over the place, from people that have barely played through a tutorial but presenting themselves as able to properly judge the game. There is also a lot of complaining that it's not SPAZ 1.5. If you've played SPAZ 1, this part is for you, otherwise you can skip it entirely: 1. All resource collecting is done on strategic map now, without pointless grind and a waste of time. There is also no limit on resources you can carry, which is great news. Having to watch how ships mine for ten minutes straight was a chore of SPAZ 1 and I never liked it even 1 bit. All that resource micromanagement never added to the game, since after you've lost a battle or it was hard and led to loss of resources, game STOPPED and you would spend next half an hour collecting resources. 2. Skill trees are gone and replaced with three random skills per level. Some will say, that skill trees in SPAZ1 were great, when they were actually not. You had to upgrade a skill to be able to use better tech, and once you knew a cookie cutter build you could easily blast through the game, or got gimped for a looong time if you didn't. Because of this you could never upgrade everything or try everything in one play (and that is an extremely long time). Game could actually punish you for trying wrong and it did. Skills in SPAZ 2 are extremely helpful and relevant to the player actually making you stronger, and unpredictable pattern doesn't allow a winning level up in each gameplay. With new content, there can be more skills added leading to more variety, without the need to lock them to a path. 3. Blueprints are gone. Finally, for the best. That was another grinding aspect in SPAZ 1. There were barely two viable strategies: blow up the station (if you can, huh) to get all blueprints inside, or spend goons to impove relationship and then REZ to buy it (and then get back grinding goons/REZ back). With ship blueprints, you had to destroy a ship a number of times to get all parts of blueprint to unlock that ship. Incredible chore, cause you either had to be lucky, or repeat a mission to get those blueprints. In SPAZ 2 an ingame economy and leveling up gets you better and bigger parts. You protect transporters in order to get better tech, and upgrade bases. And of course you loot enemies for it as well, even on the battlefield, which is great. 4. Combat is deeper however you disagree with it. Instead of basically an energy regeneration for everything in the game, you now have separate sources to manage. Energy battery can protect your shields from getting down with a boost under heavy fire until enemy need to reload. Boost engines allow you to ram through the enemy or get further away. Energy battery allows you to keep firing and once depleted you have to reload, which also makes it impossible to boost up shields or regenerate them if they are gone. Asteroids protects you from heavy bombs and enemy fire, while can also be used with a tractor beam to damage the enemy. There are powerups on the field, REZ "balls" that might spawn some zombies and barrels to blow up. Battle wagon mode allows to pass weapon controls to AI, which is incredibly useful against small strike crafts, but it uses battery ineffectively which leads to more reloads and decreases survival chances. 5. Mothership is not smaller ships from previous game, those are still here and they're recognizable. How can one describe SPAZ 2? Have you played Mount and Blade? Good, cause the idea behind strategical map, factions, captains and other stuff is basically the same. Economy is real, bases produce stuff, ships transfer stuff, captains trade and fight, zombies infect, bandits mess up. Diplomacy allows for alliances, friendship, bounties and so on. You can even share parts and resources if you need to. You can start a proper faction and take over eventually, but it's NOT easy even one bit since there are lots of threats that needs your attention. In combat you manage a number of ship resources to increase performance, and survive as long as possible until you catch an enemy on reload phase when they are most vulnerable, strip off their shields and ram them to death. :) You won't see it in low level fights, but then it gets important. Ship building is difficult, since parts are hard to find and there's always more you want to install than you can with different strategy involved. In 7 hours I have barely seen any tech at all with 16 level. You can't slap random crap on a ship and win, nope, only in the tutorial. There is nothing in the game that MAKES you waste time on routine stuff anymore and it's awesome! You can attach to you ship a torn apart enemy part on the battlefield any time, or reattach something you've lost yourself. You can even throw it in the enemy with a tractor beam. The game is incredible already, since it has solid well planned foundation and it can only get even better in time with the help of developers and mods. I mentioned it before, that there is only one feature needed - LARGER battles with more ships involved. That is one thing I want to see, something like 10-15 motherships in one intense battle. For the 18$ it's one of the best purchases I've made, besides the.. M&B. *Some small fixes..
• gamedeal user

  May 19, 2016

  If you're hoping for combat similar to SPAZ 1, I'm sorry but you're going to be disappointed. While there are some faults with this game, I can easily overlook them for how cheap it is, and how much time I believe I'll be getting out of it. (As a rule of thumb, you should always cut 1/4 the hours of someones gametime out, they can gain time being tabbed out or just accidently leaving the game up.) Pros: • Star Map is fantastic, it reminds me of Mount and Blade Warband. There are people everywhere with their own motivations, • Combat is really neat, but is different from SPAZ 1. Its more broadside pirate-like combat now. Also, being able to ram your way out of a bad situation feels amazing. Your ship parts are VERY important. • Built in option for hardcore players to reset via lore-friendly means. Many people like punishment, and this allows that. • Game looks very nice, especially when a multi-party battler takes place. • Ship building has been fixed, before it was a very tiring system to work with, but this has since been changed. • Strike Craft can now be customised, and are based off of the "main ships" that were your controllable ships in the first game. A nice nod to those who have played SPAZ 1. • Bandits can now "evolve" by stealing parts off of those who they'ved defeated, making some insignificant, and others very formidable. • They've made it harder to take out starbases, which makes a lot of sense. Before you could basically just roll up and blow it out of the sky, or place an incredibly small bounty on it and watch it get blown up by the dozens of captains swarming at it. Now there are penalties for placing bounties, and captains want much more for the risk to be worth it. Cons: • The default controls feel really bad to a lot of people. However that can be fixed: Options > Gameplay > Relative Controls. • You can easily outrun high-load missiles, but some NPC's like to just sit inside them and die (Gravity, Zombies, ect.) • Weapon and Armour Systems can be hard to understand.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 26, 2016

  I want to preface this review by saying that not only am I a big fan of the original SPAZ, I also respect and admire MINMAX for experimenting with their original model and stepping outside the box for their sequel. That being said, I think they stepped out of one box and into another. SPAZ 2 retains the charmingly witty-yet-stupid writing and dialogue of the original game that reminds of a Saturday-morning cartoon. The aesthetics have also remained the same; blurry textures composed of screamingly high contrast colors that bore into your retinas. On top of that, the from-scratch gameplay is also retained from the original game, where you start with practically nothing and build your empire on top of that. Aside from the actual space combat, these things define SPAZ pretty well, and if that's all you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. This is all SPAZ 2 has in common with the original, however. In the transition to 3d, much has changed. You now get to fly and build the mothership, you are now the biggest fish in the sea. Right Hooks and Tugs are tiny compared to the hulking, glorious piece of junk that is your ship. You start off with a scaffold looking like it was built entirely out of old bicycles by an inpatient from a mental hospital. Over the course of the entire game, from start to finish, you will upgrade from bicycles to smashed car-shaped objects. This modular mothership, along with the ability to establish and govern starbases, seems to be giving us what we didn't have, and wanted in the original SPAZ. An interstellar empire. Flying the Clockwork. AI that don't run face-first into the enemy's largest ship and die instantly, wasting thousands of Rez. Actually, that's still a thing, but they only waste small amounts of scrap instead because they're only piloting small fighter ships. This lends a much more strategic feel to the game. And I'd call that an advantage. However, much was lost in the transition: First of all, everything feels like it's about the same size. Gone are the days of warping into a battlefield and attempting to take down a ship 20 times your size with bombing runs. The smallest mothership is maybe 1/4 the size of the largest. Heck, even space stations just look like circular, spinning motherships that can't move. Next, ship design doesn't matter as much. In the original, when you were restricted to chassis with a set number of module slots and module types, you knew exactly how your own ships worked, and their strengths and weaknesses. When you looked at an enemy ship, you could distinctly see what modules were attached to it (unless it was cloaked), and you knew how those weapons would affect your fleet. What weapons a ship had often determined whether you'd try to take it down for its blueprints, or flee with your tail between your legs. Now, you pretty much slap whatever module will fit on your mothership and has the most stars. Because of the randomness of parts, both in terms of their perks (the bonuses they confer to your ship, like shield strength, speed, health, etc.), and in terms of the weaponry on them (cannons, beams, the works), both when you're scavenging, and when you're shopping at space stations, it's very unlikely that you're going to find exactly the part you're looking for. I get what they were going for here; you're a scavenger among scavengers. It's not about what you want, it's about what works. But, that being said, it isn't very compelling. The chances of me finding a part that: a) looks the way I want it to look, b) has a weapon that I want on it, and c) has the bonuses that I want (which I don't even keep track of anyways), is almost null. The chances of me finding *multiple parts* that I actually want are nonexistant. This results in your mothership EITHER looking like a piece of trash, that has EITHER nice weapons OR nice stats, OR a mothership that looks nice and is completely worthless in terms of battlefield effectiveness. Yes, that was a nested either-or statement. And, usually, what ends up happening is you get a muddy mix of all of these things. The end result is that you don't feel like the ship you're flying is *your* mothership, even though you built it piece-by-piece. It feels like you just cobbled together what the game gave you and now you're flying it around. And, all of these things would be fine if they took advantage of the things they gained; We're in 3d now. There's a lot to explore, right? Not... Really. You still fly your ship in 2d, while asteroids hover tantalizingly over and under you. You still effectively fight in 2d; you can't go over or under an enemy ship. The battles are more bland than the original game. Explosive barrels don't matter as much, and neither do asteroids. They feel much more staged, 2-4 ships warp in, 1-3 ships warp out. The outcome is largely determined by your stats, and who warps in with you. Positioning can matter, but ships are so random and cobbled together that it's hard to tell when you're facing directly into an enemy's broadside, or if the other side is even worse. You can't "get used to" an enemy faction. You can't take advantage of a ship's slow turning speed and its blind spots. You really can't dodge missiles anymore. There is no longer a cloaking system (except for in the star map, where it doesn't really matter), and "big" weapons like Mass Bombs don't feel as significant. That's what it is. A lot of elements have lost their character. Rez is no longer the rainbow-colored candy it was, now it's just a generic purple blob that you pick up. Finding a new color of Rez stone felt like moving to a different level. Things are worth more now. Ships are bigger. Now it's just numbers on a screen. Goons have gotten even less important. You no longer scavenge for rescue pods, or steal from hotels; just numbers on a screen. You need to maintain a minimum number of goons, and you shouldn't have too manygoons. Finding the last blueprint to a weapon you really want is no longer a thing. Sometimes you stumble across a part that has a unique weapon on it, and you get to use that one part, and you will never find that same weapon ever again. And if you do, it's going to be on a worthless part. The game feels smaller. You can cross the whole starmap in a matter of minutes, faster towards the start of the game and slower towards the end (the opposite of the original game), and you probably won't be attacked. It's not a bad game. I just don't see why I would play it over the original SPAZ, which has much more crisp, interesting RPG gameplay and gunplay. Or Istrolid, which offers the modularity and customizability of SPAZ 2 with much faster, more satisfying top-down gameplay. Or why I would play it over Dreadnought, or Fractured Space, which are full-blown third person space shooters with interesting tactical gameplay and the advantage of other players. SPAZ 2 seems to be a mashup of various genres, and sadly, it doesn't work, at least not for me.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 4, 2016

  After playing this game for 19 hours learning all about the game since this is the first spaz game i bought i came into a troublesome bug that the dev team replied quickly and did thier best to help fix this problem but sadly couldnt due to it getting corrupted and the bug not able to be replicated. So the devs sent me a fixed version of just past the mission where it bugged out and gave some recources for lost progress after they did that i had to write this review and just say thank you to the devs for thier support and keep building an amazing game have a nice day :D
• gamedeal user

  Sep 13, 2016

  I can't describe how much I love this game. There is an amazing amount of polish and balance, from the visuals and the strategic depth, all the way to the raw and dirty visceral depths that combat can descend to. Let me tell you about the combat; It is good. My most memerable battle so far was a 2v2 where I aided a weaker captain vs a bandit, only for a high level bandit to join in. Bandit capital ships are weaker but they have an insane number and reserve of strike craft, which increases by level (not fighters, those are different). My ally engaged the motherships while I thinned the swarm but he was being overwhelmed, so I rammed the strongest enemy and kept thrusting to push him away (ramming is a big mechanic, more on it later). Freed to 1v1, my ally succeeded in destroying the first pirate, but at high cost; his shields down, his nose and two wing modules torn off and floating free, a core destroyed and his health but a sliver. Sensing blood, the swarm of strike craft pounced. There was nothing I could do to save him. He exploded magnificently, destroying many of his attackers who were too slow to flee. The remaining pirate and I circled while exchanging broadsides, each deadly piroette bringing us closer to a field of asteroids. His strongest weapons were on his nose and he fought to bring them to bear. I, meanwhile, was slightly more manoeuverable and clung on the the relative safety of his rear, while picking of the remaining swarm. Our shields failed at the same time. Shields, armour and hull are not just 3 interchangeable stats in SPAZ2. Shields are the most familiar, a flat, regenerating, protective field. Armour is different. Every single non core piece of the motherships have their own armour, some of which is shared to the core. If a part loses all its armour, it is torn off, and sometimes destroyed. Hull, or health is only relevent to the cores of the ship and when that is gone; boom. So unlike other games, it isn't destroy shields>armour>hull with various piercing weapons, it is shields>tear them to pieces or shoot straight for the core. We tore each other to pieces. I took his right wings out but clipped an asteroid at speed, destroying my left. Caught against it, he was able to bring his nose to bear, shreading off my remaining wings and one of my engines. Now he was more manoeuverable. In despairation, I boosted, smaller asteroids tearing into my hull until I placed a large one between us. Frustrated momentarily, he stopped and reloaded. Seizing this last opportunity, I came out of hiding behind him, my last weapons pounding his engine, trying to even the score. But it wasn't enough. He began to turn and rained fire on my last engine. Before I could be left helpless, I once more boosted, this time straight at his exposed engine, knocking it into the void while my nose crumpled and exploded. Both helpless now, no engines, but still he had weapons and he slowly, ever so slowly, turned to bring that hateful nose to bear. With nothing left, I had a moment of inspiration and grabbed the astreroid chunks with my tractor beam. In space, surrounded by the refuse of awesome technology, I beat him to death with a rock. A narrow victory, I collected the refuse of our 4 ships to just bearly rebuild 1, and then jumped to the void. All actions described above REALLY ARE IN THE GAME. If two things collide, they do armour type damage (very weak vs shields, weak vs hull) to eachother based on their mass and speed. If you can get an enemies shields down while yours are still up, boost at him/her, smash their bits off! Beware of ramming with your shields down, as you can wreck yourself. Finally, you can rebuild your mothership WHILE IN COMBAT. A wing came off? Try and grab it before it goes to far, and reattach it! Enemies powerful weapon came off? Remove your own and replace it! Did I mention I love this game? Also, there are so many viable ways of building your mothership, and none are perfect for all situations. I keep parts in storage to swap forms when dealing with different kinds of threats (General flying, starbases, pirates, mining) but my general form is the ION shield ram: Huge shields/thrust and some ION weapons or lasers to take down shields so I can ram them. It is weak to strike craft and starbases however, and is hard to mine with.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 29, 2017

  [h1]Quick note[/h1] The mixed rating is because the devs could not add multiplayer into the game due to major issues. The devs made a fairly long detailled post about this, but it was removed. So here's the short version for wy it was cancelled : After updating the game engine (Unity),the devs realised that unity completely changed how multiplayer works, thus all work done on multiplayer before that was lost. They wanted to upgrade to the newer engine to improve performance and the long term compatibility with the new systems coming in the next few years. (Performance was indeed much better after the upgrade.) They then tried to start over the multiplayer work but had several issues doing so. After trying to work around the problems for over a month, they made no progress at all with multiplayer. Eventually, the devs took feedback form the players about that issue. Most agreed to scrap multiplayer in favor of adding more content to the single player experience istend. At that point multiplayer was scrapped. That's about it. Some details are missing here but this is what hapened in a nut shell. Anyway, on to the actual review. [h1]Intro[/h1] This is one of a kind game that should NOT be left under the radar. Space Pirates and Zombies 2 (Or spaz 2), Is a game with many different gameplay elements in one game. If you played the original spaz, this game is quite different form that game. In this game, you control a fully customizable mothership with Elsa has her captain trying to earn a place of power in the galaxy. Homever you are not the only one... There are other 199 captains roaming around. They follow the same rules that the player does, with few exceptions. The game is also very well polished, more so that you expect. Go to the ---TLDR--- if you just want to see pro/cons of the game. [h1]The meat[/h1] The major gameplay element is the starmap screen, where you can plan your destination and interact with several things like other captains, resources zones, starbases and other events. All traveling/resource gathering is also done on the star map, greatly reducing the grind you usually find in X4 games. Starbases is where you can use scrap (in game currency) to buy much needed resources like Rez (Think of rez like Gas) or buy parts for your mothership. You can also battle in the arena with preset ships for rewards and improve relations with other captains. (More on that later) [h1]Ship customization[/h1] You can fully customize your own mothership using the loot you find or buy them at shops. You want have lot of projectiles weapons? You can. You want be a carrier type mothership with lots of drones? You can. You want go nuts with a lot of missiles? You can. You prefer using beam weapons? You can. The way your ship handle in combat depends entirely on how you build it. Want to go fast? Use more engines. Want a better turn rate? Use more wings. Want to have more shields? Use more noses. Finding the parts you want may be hard, but there is a VERY helpful catalog system where you can order parts form and getting them delivered to you directly. [h1]The Captains and Factions[/h1] Your actions can cause a captain to like or hate your guts. If a captain likes you, he/she is more likely to help you in battles and gives you better prizes when shopping at his/her station. This also work in reverse, of course. If a rich captain really hates you, you can expect a bounty on your head. While captains that are friends with you will not try to collect the bounty, the others will. You can also put a bounty on someone else if you want. There is 5 main factions in the game that you can join after building relations with other captains of that faction. At that point you can have your own starbase in the faction you joined if you spend time gathering resources and build a station for your faction. Stations is like a bank where you can drop resources and parts for later use, also a good source of passive income. Each factions specialize in something, giving a specific bonus for parts they sell. (like Speed/armor/shields and power.) Some weapons type can only be found in a specific faction. You unlock the ability to form your own faction and build your own empire of imbeciles and simpletons with you has the leader later on. [h1]Space Pirates and Zombies?[/h1] Now you may wonder, what the heck the *zombies* in the title mean? At some point in the game, the zombies will make a appearance. How they show up depend if you play the campaign or the sandbox mode. They do what you expect them to do, no much else to say... Oh and try not to get infected, wash your hands often. [h1]Combats[/h1] Fights will usually happen vs. bandits, captains, starbases...and Zombies of course. The combat is done in a 3D Arcade shooter style with the option of a top view or behind your mothership with the ability to switch at anytime. Up to 4 captains/zombies/bandits can participate in a battle, ending in 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2 and 1 vs. 3. Combats are fairly fast,with lots of effects form fired weapon and usually quite hectic. You and other captains can also have smaller ships (Called Strikecrafts) to aid in battle. And yes, those are also customizable. You can unlock more type of strikecrafts by collecting blueprints in battle. Collecting more for a already unlocked ship will eventually make it more powerful. If a mothership gets damaged eneuf, the ship may lose parts of itself. Attacking a specific part of a ship for a while will eventually break it, this is userfull for 2 reasons : weakening the enemy ship and extra loot after a battle. Some weapons are better that other to break parts. [h1]TLDR (Pros and Cons)[/h1] Again, most downvotes for the game is because multiplayer got scraped. Even so it still got it's perks, the game do not deserve to be brushed aside just for that reason alone. Ok, starting with cons because i prefer a good end. Cons : 1.Lack of diplomacy options for factions. The core is here and it works, but is missing things like trading/no-agression and a few others. 2.The story leaves something to be desired. 3.Modding is not possible. Offset by using the various sliders in sandbox mode that changes how the game plays. 4.Too easy/quick to become the *Biggest fish* in the galaxy. 5.I wish you could build more that starbases in the galaxy map. (Like building on resources zones to speed up the gathering rate for example.) 6.Can be confusing to play for the first time. (Don't Skip the tutorials the first time you play.) Pros : 1. Good customizations option for your mothership and your fleet. 2.Devs being very informative,you always knows what's hapening and are constant to fix minor/major bugs really quickly. 3.Great replay value, thanks to many sliders(Or mutators) in sandbox mode. Over 50 new options was added in 0.9.1, for a total of 73 different tweak possible so even more changes is possible now.) 4.The grind is minimal, making the game fun form the very start to the end. 5. A Fairly deep Captain relation system. 6. Be free to play YOUR way, even in story mode. 7. There's no games comparable to this. Closest being the mount and blade games. But it's still a completely different game. 8.The galaxy feels alive, thanks to the many other captains roaming around. (200 including you) 9.Early access done right. No really, it's one of the best early access progress i seen, check the *Major Update Stockpile.* in the forums to have an idea on how much it progressed. If you like space battles with tons of customizations options with great replay value, you will love this game.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 4, 2017

  All in all I have to give the game a recommendation. It was fun, and I played through it to the end, which is "good enough" for me. But much of what else I have to say about the game is going to be a critique. People aren't kidding when they say the game isn't really SPAZ. The top-down arcade action, the desperate resource harvesting, and the panicked tactical withdrawals are all missing. The combat system is totally re-worked, and all the nifty ship designs from the last game come into play as highly disposable fighter craft. Which is all fair enough, but the elements that replaced the old SPAZ could use a LOT of work. Nearly everything falls short of its potential. The meat and bones of the game, its combat, is very straightforward when applied to bulky motherships. The player who warps in with the best mix of weapons, stats, and/or backup wins. There's very little room for tactical nuance, although a clumsy player can easily ruin their battle by failing to get close enough for some of the shorter-ranged weapons. There are obstacles scattered around the battle void, including the inexplicable exploding canisters from SPAZ 1, but they're very easy to avoid even in the heat of battle and didn't once contribute to a win or loss during my run. Fighting ships is fun, but fails to stay fresh and exciting the way it did in SPAZ by slowly introducing new models of bigger ships. The second most important component is building and maintaining the mothership, and this is where I think the developers really dropped the ball. Assembling a ship out of boring same-y blocks is dull, and combing the galaxy for pieces that have the right weapon, look, or quality is tedious. Rather than giving the mothership turret or weapon slots, like the strike craft, weapons are built into the wings, nose, and engine pieces. There are no utility or equipment slots. The game incentivizes you heavily to maintain a big, blocky craft, and cores are all one size with no weapons, They could have done some very impressive things with the mothership construction, and instead it's mostly a matter of sifting through starbases to find the wing turret you want (ideally in the right faction too, because otherwise it just looks ugly). One aspect I did like was the presence of numerous other starship captains, all with their own allegiances and numerous options. Character portraits were colorful, and their AI behavior generally made sense. The only complaint I have about this system is that a battlefield with four players is quickly exploited by the player to fight frequent 3-on-1 battles, especially when the zombies show up. Ganging up on extremely powerful captains is a fine way to take them down, but since tactical combat is stunted (as noted previously) ganging up on enemies soon becomes the "main" tactic. You search out a zombie ship and try to catch them alone or while their friends are occupied. Friendly ships jump in and fill up the battlefield in your favor, and the enemy's fate is sealed. I would prefer to outfight opponents like I did in the original SPAZ, but alas, that's not feasible. Finally, the writing is good. I found it bizarre at first that the characters had synthesized voices, but the charming bickering and the random tidbits of humor did a lot to keep my interest going until the end.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 25, 2017

  Yes, this game is completely different than SPAZ1, and the devs said so since the beginning. Most of the negative reviews are from people that wanted another SPAZ1 and feel hurt because the devs didn't listen to them and decides to create something new. SPAZ2 is a great game, and once you get the hang of combat you just can't stop playing before you conquer the whole galaxy. Not to mention the constant updates, with the last ones focusing on replayability and sandbox personalization. 8/10, for now.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 30, 2017

  ++ Vast sense of freedom, exploration and management. ++ As easy or as difficult as you want with easily changed settings. ++ Easily accessible and yet deep tactical combat and ship design which strongly impacts the way you fight. + Good sense of humour and teasing among the main cast. - Voice acting is wooden at times although Jamison is amazing. (FYI This comment was posted a few days after the voice acting was implemented.) === After I finished SPAZ 1, I was thirsty for more and sought out the developers to see what they were working on next. The scope and sheer enjoyment of the first game proved they knew what they were doing. With SPAZ 2, they have once again delievered. I bought the game as soon as it became available for purchase and I'm usually against pre-orders and early access. Despite my usual wariness, MinMax delivered once again. I'm having so much fun!