Eterium

Herrlicher Wing Commander-Clon. Zwischensequenzen sind etwas trocken, aber durchaus kurzweilig.

I participated in the Kickstarter campaign and was glad to see the game completed, even though the creator explained the difficulties in getting it out. This is an indie game, so the production valules are pretty low; no voice acting, minimal interface and maybe a few too many similarities to early Wing Commander games. I'm especially not sure I can forgive the lack of a "save game" option on the carrier. Combat tends to be boom and zoom, with enemy ships within firing distance only for a couple seconds, so much so that I gave up on Veteran difficulty and started playing on Normal. And yet, I'm enjoying the game more than I did my last few space simulators, like Starpoint Gemini, Rebel Galaxy and Space Pirates and Zombies. Piloting a nimble fighter is so much more personal than driving lumbering battleships and using 2D mouse targeting to aim at in 3D space (think about it, a mouse pointer to aim cannons makes no sense)! Also, the Wing Commander-like mission sequence is much more focused than 1000 samey randomized encounters in a free-roaming galaxy. I'm aware of the existence of much more refined space combat games out there, like the very old but incredibly sophisticated - and difficult! - I-War, not to mention more modern examples, but this project is a work of love and, considering the low price, well worth the admission ticket. I'd say play it on Normal difficulty, with a good joystick. and enjoy the ride. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Ship fires automatically constantly for no reason. My controller works fine with other games. Also, the keyboard controls are godawful. Couldn't even play it.

A space combat game but with controls so wonky I struggled to make it through the tutorial mission. It uses mouse and keyboard and it's one of those games where crosshairs moves gradually towards your cursor, but it was painful to actually get aligned to anything I was aiming at. Might be better with a joystick but after dying on the tutorial mission a couple times I gave up.

So... Here's the thing: the gameplay is fine. I have a few quibbles that are specific to this game like the enemies being able to outrun your laser shots making them useless unless you are into bumping range (I relied a lot on FF missiles for this and because seekers have ridiculously short range) but the rest are things I could say of some Wing Commander games. The main thing being of course that the gameplay feels rather simplistic compare do Freespace or X-wing, as does the mission design which is 90% patrol missions that consist in going to nav, kill stuff, rinse and repeat. The in-flight graphics are nice and clean with some really pretty skyboxes. The character art however is rather amateurish and kills the vibes a bit for me, considering the old WC games did compensate their simplicity in gameplay with vibes it's a rather big caveat. The game is delisted but keys can be found on eBay for cheap, and of course it's technically possible to install the demo if you want to try it without even spending the few Euros necessary for a key. Stick support is limited to one device with maybe a rudder, so you'll need some software to use a separate throttle if you have one.

Now when i got this game orignally I had very low expectations. What could you expect from a indie space sim... All of my assumtions were wrong. The gameplay is fun exciting and actionpacked. Yes the combat system is realtivly crude but there is enough of it to make it fun. This game only every lets you fly there is no walking around as a space man and playing space chess against a alien. but thats not the point of the game. its for the space combat and boy is it good.