Absolute Territory

Absolute Territory is a space combat sim very similar to old & good Wing Commander games. Since this is a work of a one talented dev, it does lack certain additions, that you might expect in story driven space sims, so don't expect: - quirky wingmen - larger-than-life villians - ham-fisted romantic subplots (although I'm just about two hours in, so there might be tragic backstory further down the line, who nows?) What you can expect is very solid dogfighting (with multiple playable ships), excellent performance, and good graphics (hint: go to settings and make sure graphics quality is set to 'beautiful'; in my case it was autoset to lowest, for some reason). There's also a mission editor and steam workshop support - though right now editor is inactive, so can't comment on it. The game UI might be a bit better, and it would be great to have some sort of game encyclopedia (what is the Order, exactly? What are the capabilities of Drosophila fighter? etc), but all in all, I'm very happy with my purchase. While there were new space sim releases recently, it's been a while since we had a new mission based Wing Commander / Freespace / Tie Fighter like game.

The developer spent several hours working personally with me to successfully fix this bug, and I'm flabbergasted by that level of support. I've left my original review up, but just on that level of support, I'm reversing my review to a solid positive. ORIGINAL: I spent an hour fighting with drivers and controls and USB ports just to make the game let me use both my HOTAS and my mouse at the same time. With HOTAS plugged in, the game won't register any mouse clicks, even in the menus. Sorry mate, but if it takes an hour to flail at the configuration and the game still won't work, I can't recommend.

An absolute (pun not intended) nostalgia trip, Absolute Territory is a game that hearkens back to the old days of X-Wing/Tie Fighter and Freespace, back when those games were commonly made. While not a very long game, it scratches the space dogfight itch like I haven't felt in a while. Really there's only two things I'd request be added to the game: - More missions (and it seems like that's being done through the steam workshop) - Missions that contain large fleet battles, if it's possible. It's one of the major things that has pulled me into games of this genre, being able to be just a small factor in a massive battle and be able to influence the events in a critical way. Having massive battles to be able to be part of would have me sink way more time into this game. Awesome game, and I hope that more content of the sort above could be added on.

Games by a single developer are always going to be about balancing priorities. This game's priorities are squarely on the fundamental mechanics of what makes a good Space Combat Sim, largely to the exclusion of all else. The arcade tuned newtonian physics feel great. Ships have real weight and momentum. You will likely get heavy usage out of the slide mechanic. There are lateral thrusters as well, which I found a little too weak to get heavy usage out of but there is one mission in particular towards the end that would be nearly impossible to complete without them. The tactics and maneuvers you've learned from other games in the genre will all work here, and are essential for success. You will have wingmen in some missions, but have no ability to command them for tactical advantage. They will do good damage if they can stay alive and will provide essential distraction for the enemy, but that's not a given as they often charged headfirst into enemy formations and got themselves shredded. Mission design is squarely in the domain of early Wing Commanders--waypoint, dogfight, waypoint, asteroids, and some escort missions. Peppered throughout are few much more creative missions I quite enjoyed, though note these seem weighted towards the latter half of the game. Some missions have a configurble ship and loadout. There are several pilotable ships in the game and they all feel pretty distinct. When offered, the weapon choices can noticably affect your tactics as well. Balance is good overall. At medium difficulty, most missions were quite easy, a few took a couple more tries, and then one came along that I attempted over 16 times until I just dropped the difficulty and moved on. Difficulty is highly subjective of cvourse, but nonethless I didn't find that satisfying. There were no other strange spikes, however. The input system is pretty robust, allowing full mapping of your HOTAS, gamepad and mouse/keyboard, along with configurable deadzones. It even allows one level of shifting that allows you to get all the commands you really need onto a standard PC gamepad. This is a HOTAS game, through and through however, so while a gamepad certainly works, there's much more enjoyment to be had with a full setup. There's a level editor too that will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played Wing Commander Academy. The triggers system is simple to use with a basic set of conditions to play with allowing some surprising creativity, but make no mistake this is not FreeSpace's FRED, for better or worse. Graphics are sound are very basic. Models are generic and have a very "asset store" feel to them that doesn't convey any flavor. There are only three music tracks--menu, combat and not-combat which are pleasant enough but also very generic. One unexpected surprise is the doppler shifting of the sound effects, this actually adds a lot to the experience and I don't know if this has been done before in this genre. The complete lack of flavor is noticeable in every aspect of the game, however. We know nothing about the factions we are fighting for or against, mission briefings are static text with workmanlike writing. The story is minimal. But again, that clearly wasn't the focus here--it was on getting the basics right. And other indie space combat games that have come along that have more flavor have missed the mark on these, which rather invalidates the whole endeavor. Overall, I definitely had a good time with this game and would certainly recommend it to genre fans. I think it's worthy of support due to it's active & responsive developer, and commitment to the fundamentals that will hopefully pave the way to more ambitious titles from this developer in the future.

Imagine a game which was the dogfighting and missions from wing commander, but without the fmv or cutscenes... Absolute territory aims to give you the best recreation of that dogfight feeling from those wonderful old games, but with modern graphics and performance. It's a very fun game to play. The missions are all very similar to those you would get in wing commander or x-wing, and the weapons and sounds are all very familiar. The developer is super cool, and is always looking for ways to improve the game. Grab it, play it, and feed back what you'd like to see!

For those of you who have played Wing Commander or Freespace or any of its clones, Absolute Territory should be quiet familiar: it is basically Wing Commander (the first one) without any talking heads. You have all the expected conventions, from the DF/IR/HS/FF missiles (even the missile names stayed mostly the same!), to "sliding" (i.e. keep flying in one direction while point your nose in a different direction), from nav points to asteroid areas. From energy management (more power to shields!) and minefields, from escort missions to fighter sweeps, everything from Wing Commander is there. The title of the game appears to be a reference to an empire's fanatical zeal to defend its border from encroachment of "The Order". There are minor changes. There are now directional side-thrusters for strafing that doesn't involve sliding, and afterburner fuel is fixed and does not recharge (for 4 out of 6 crafts available, though to be fair, the Afterburner fuel is pretty generous if you don't abuse it, but the speed it achieves is a bit underwhelming). There is also speed match targeting that lets you follow a target at requested distance (close, medium, far). Also, you can target subsystems on the larger ships. However, it doesn't tell you if the target can be hit from your angle or it'd be obscured by the hull. There is also energy allocation. Leave it on default, or allocation extra energy to shields, engines, or guns. Or combinations. It's up to you. The basic gameplay is the same from decades ago: your fighter is protected by a regenerating shield and some armor. Lost both and you die. Kill the other guy(s) before they do the same to you, by using your various guns and missiles. Guns mainly differ in trading range and damage in exchange for energy drain. Missiles range from no-lock-on but brutish to nimble but weak to medium but require special lock-on (front aspect or rear aspect depending on model). The briefing is text screens only, no graphics at all. Plot is pretty cliche... Encroaching enemies must be dealt with. Frankly you should just play the classics, if you can, as there's no story here, just action, and more action, with half of the HUD elements unexplained, and no manual or reference in game, just tutorial missions (available in the sim, or play through as a part of the campaign). There is a mission editor, so you can create your own missions, but that doesn't really help that much, IMHO. If you can get this for say, $2.50 then it's worth a try if you need that old WC itch scratched. Else, I'd say skip this one and play the classic like Freespace.

I played with a keyboard and mouse mostly, as this had some difficulties with my Hotas joystick. Slogging through the tutorials is a tough one, but you can skip it for the campaign. They are just too slow. An odd musical choice for your normal in flight trips, but combat music is a bit better and faster paced. Combat itself wasn't that great. Your enemies will primarily stick to the tactic of turning around and shooting at you, so you rarely experience something like a dog fight. Just wasn't really my jam.

This game is fun to play. Space combat feels nice and engaging, not too slow, not too fast. The developer is actively improving the product and looks into player feedback. Still, lots of things to be done. - Controls are not very well-defined, and many players will need remapping. - Tutorials have bugs. You can easily break them by doing something unexpected. It would be better to disable actions that should not be used instead of warning players not to use 'em. - Flying backwards is complicated. Pain when hitting large targets. - Missiles behave strangely. Player ship may outrun its own missile. - Asteroid fields look nice but hitting asteroids is creepy. (Updated on 11/3/2020)

This is an unfinished game. If you thought you were going to purchase a game with full campaigns, think again. This is nothing more than an technology demonstrator. The so-called "campaign" consists of two missions whereas even the tutorial has four. There is zero actual game play, just tutorials. I finished all of the content in under 30 minutes. Not worth more than $5 in my view. Pity because it has the promise of fulfilling the gap left behind by Wing Commander. No doubt this is the part-time hobby of a solitary developer not a professional team.

The main meat of the game, the space dogfighting, is nailed down pretty well! Controller support is well done, easy to learn and intuitive. There are some minor issues with tutorial texts changing too quickly, but it still did a good job teaching me how to fly. I would encourage the owners of this game to leave some reviews, this game definitely deserves more visibility than it has! Here is a thorough video review, where I analyze the game from a gamedev perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HljzAhgKfZ0