Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars

As much as I would like to recommend 'Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars', I just can't. It's a really fun game overall, but sadly there are 3 issues that keep me from giving this game a positive review. My first issue is its monotony. There's only [i]one[/i] map, and it plays nearly the same every single time. It has its contents randomized for the most part, but it won't take long before you'll constantly encounter the same things over and over again. It would've been so much more fun if we were able to customize matches more. Like being able to configure the countdown timer, loot drops, playable race, quests or enemies. Or just have more maps. My second issue is that this game apparently doesn't have any help or guides at all, either in-game or externally. No information on the many vague and grindy achievements, or even for just general gameplay. What types of enemies are there, what do they do and where do I encounter them? What items are there and what do some items even do? I've searched all over the place for answers, but came up empty. You simply have to figure all of this out yourself, which is often guesswork, completely accidental, like shooting in the dark or straight up near-impossible. My third issue is that this game is [b]way[/b] too randomized. From the locations of stars and nebulas to your active quest, and from the enemies you face to the loot that drops. You have next to no control over the game you play. One game everything goes your way and you steamroll the map, but then another game becomes short and miserable because you're stuck flying an absolute piece of scrap getting one-shot all the time.

This series rocks. I've been playing it since the first one, and it's only gotten better and better. There is a noticable improvement here, I'm just not sure how big it is yet because I haven't played enough of it. Today I played it with my Hebrew student, and during Israeli Independce day, I was in the stars. I fought. I traded. I discovered. I ugpraded my ships and expanded my flottila. I ecsaped. Oh boy did I escape. What I did not manage to escape was the doomsday device I activated to eliminate a band of ravaging insectoids that came do devour...well, everything, with extremely fiercome ships. Oops! It was a hell of ride, Digital Eel, thank you for making such a thrilling, evocative, detailed magical game, one that to my eyes, ignited the roguelite revolution, together with Spelunky, Binding of Isaac, and Faster Than Light.

This is the third in a series of FTL ripoffs, ditching FTLs awful retro pixel graphics for awful untextured low poly graphics. I guess that's technically an upgrade? March through a bunch of procedurally generated "content" with no clear aim apart from dying and doing it all over again. As usual, developers really need to learn that procgen is not content. On a technical basis, you've got fixed resolution here, pretty bad graphics, and if you have a 4K monitor, the game is unplayble because the developers don't know about UI scaling, so the menu renders offscreen and you can't even mouse to the "start game" button, so that's a tremendous failure right there.

A simple 3D version of Infinite Space 2, after getting used to the sometimes quirky interface it quickly felt familiar again and gave me the same joy as the second game. I did notice that rare events occur much more in this one, but that keeps things interesting.

I've played this game since its release back in 2015 and also the previous versions. This one is quite entertaining and fun to explore and collect things. My standard mission usually involves making alliances, equipping myself with good weapons and of course the much needed cloaking device so you can pounce on your enemies. My favorite is trying to kill the Kawangi. Cloaking devices and long range weapons! The fighters are not very powerful, unless you have the Garthan carrier and equip it with the Urluquai fighter squadron which can be usefull to swarm an enemy ship. Its a great way to waste time i just wish you could make the missions last a lot longer.

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Meh, what a pity. Loved Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. Why they went with a fiddly 3D map is beyond me. Waste of time and space trying to work out where you are and the closest destination. Also, in battle sometimes ships don't fire despite orders. This sequel is a messy attempt from the devs who could have put their time to other projects rather than this garbled wreck of a game. Very disappointed. I'll just go back to the first two instead as they are exactly the same in many respects, with less frustration.