Galactic Arms Race

It is the exact same game in pretty much the exact same state that was free 4 or so years ago. The only thing that they seem to have improved in any way is the UI. All the outstanding issues, such as enemy bases spontaneously spawning behind you exist. They just took what was version 1.1 alpha back then, added some buttons for facebook and whatnot, and slapped a pricetag after changing the versionnumber to 1.0 release. The game disappeared off radar about 4 years ago, with no signs of updates or whatsoever after 1.23 hit (which changed next to nothing, by only adding a pointless arena mode, but took down the official servers). There were talks also of the university where they developed this game actually actively denying them the possibility to go on Steam, or offer the game away, but i can't find the archived version of that. Here's proof of it being just that old, and being offered for free: https://web.archive.org/web/20090719201120/http://gar.eecs.ucf.edu/ As far as the procedural weapon generation, it's in its alpha state still, and nothing has changed for that. There are just a few different subtypes of weapons you can get, of which one in a hundred are plausibly usable. The hands down best weapon types for everything still are the starting weapons, or weapons with even tighter grouping of bullets than that.

[u]Disclaimer[/u]: I was in beta. [u]What the game is[/u]: Old school space shooter but in 3D with evolving weapons and WASD movement. Has a decent amount of ship customization but mainly it is just mindless fun blowing stuff up, getting levels, getting upgrades, and getting weapons. The core gameplay is pretty satisfying and and the music is awesome. It is casual friendly at the start but gets pretty difficult later on. [u]What the game is not[/u]: It is not an in-depth space sim. There is no RPG space-opera story line (although there are structured missions). There are no Eve-Online bottomless skill trees or crafting. You are not going to start a trade empire or negotiate peace treaties with alien races. [u]Bottomline[/u]: Certainly worth the price ($3.99) just for the COOP. The multiplayer is more fun than it should be.

Gotta go out in a BIG BANG!

Not really much going on in this game. Very repetitive and never felt like I was really doing much. Fly around shoot some enemies, destroy their base, and collect a weapon that looks exactly like the one you just got from the last base. Played for a little bit and felt like I saw everything. Multiplayer is also dead so no value there either.

[h1][b][u]Galactic Arms Race - Rating: 6.9/10[/u][/b][/h1] [h1][b]General Impression[/b][/h1] [quote]Galactic Arms Race is a perfect combination of the action and indie genres. The graphics are beautifully designed, also the planets, galaxies, stars, asteroids, enemy ships, enemy stations, etc. are well designed. The atmosphere takes action in the space, but there are a lot of galaxies to combat. The audio is alright, I enjoy how the ship shooting sounds, as well as the background soundtracks. The travel distances are pretty long on all maps, the area of them being the same, but having better enemies, as the game advances, as well as the color of the background. The gameplay is pretty much about having a small ship, which must combat many galaxies, each galaxy having one or more bases of your alliance. Around your bases, there are many other stations, which will camp on their position. The missions will require you to attack them, as well as you must be prepared for enemy ships defending them. The user-interface is pretty well-designed and well-synthetized. The controls are well chosen, so that you can enjoy the game without any complex controls. The engines are solid, I haven’t met any bugs/glitches/lagging/frame drops. The mechanics are pretty nice, everything moves well. Overall, it’s a very challenging but relaxing game, I recommend it for any gamer who likes action games.[/quote] [h1][b]Positive Points[/b][/h1] [quote][list][*]Beautifully designed graphics [*]Good soundtracks and shooting sounds [*]Challenging gameplay [*]Many areas and environments [*]Well designed HUDs [*]Many features in the gameplay [*]Big areas to explore [*]It’s a pretty long game [*]Multiplayer option available[/list][/quote] [h1][b]Neutral Points[/b][/h1] [quote][list][*]The area of travelling per each map is probably too large, this would be fixed by either adding a time accelerator, faster ships or by smaller maps[/list][/quote] [h1][b]Negative Points[/b][/h1] [quote][list][*]The difficulty is unstable on some maps [*]At the beginning, the game is a little unclear[/list][/quote]

I think this game is best summed up as a very competent, fun little time sink. The visuals are far from HD, the RPG elements are by no means expansive or deep, the narrative is nothing noteworthy, but all the mechanics are solid and it’s a great bit of fun. I could easily pick at this game for tons of little issues like the ship sizes being a bit small, the difficulty being inconsistent at best, or the solo campaign being nothing more than a to-do list; but regardless of it’s shortcoming, it has a very rare charm to it, and is a perfect title to pick up on sale and save for one of those gaming droughts.

Galactic Arms Race, Players fly a space ship, destroy enemies, earn money and experience, gain levels, find items, and upgrade their ships. [h1]PRO:[/h1] + Easy to learn how to play it + Achievments for steam + Leaderboard + Cheap game for + Servers for up to 32 players + Challenging shooter + Level up + The galaxy map is based upon levels, so, if you are at level 4, you cannot warp to another sector until you reach level 5 + System Requirements(only 256MB RAM) can be played fro old systems [h1]CONTRA:[/h1] - The graphics are more functional than fancy - free only in 2010 - The game runs on Windows only [h1]CONCLUSION:[/h1] At present it is a fun simplistic 2D shooter, with the potential to have a lot more depth added in later versions

On the first glance its a nice space shooter with cool weapons. Unfortunately after you play for a while you find out its extremly simplistic and boring. - once you get past tutorial you get a cycle of missions: kill 10 aliens, kill 10 pirates, destroy some blob or elite, deliver package to next system; - ship progression is simplistic as every next ship has stats at 150% of the previous one. There is no choice of what you want and your only decision is if you want to upgrade or wait for next one for cash efficiency; - actually you only rarely change weapons once you get something you like, since most modes are pretty situational and eveolving your main weapon is actually risky; All in all its not a bad concept, but for now its more of a demo then a full game.

This game might look complex at first, but it's just shooting colorfull weapons, and is really good at that! This simple game pulls you in, and somehow you'll sink into it way more hours than you wanted. Because It's just that fun. To blow ♥♥♥♥ up, level up and blow more ♥♥♥♥, higher lvl ♥♥♥♥ with even brighter colors!

Very basic and boring.