SpaceRoads

[h1]Introduction[/h1] I didn’t enjoy SpaceRoads nearly as much as I thought I would. As the “reboot of a remaster”, it brings nothing new to the table apart from 3D acceleration. It is the Steam debut of Wurd Industries, so I was aware that there might be technical issues and an unpolished overall gameplay. Lack of experience was taken into account and I shall do my best to offer suggestions on what could have saved SpaceRoads or at the very least, make it at least partially enjoyable. [h1]Story[/h1] I wasn’t joking when I mentioned that SpaceRoads is a double remaster. As another reviewer pointed out, this title shares direct lineage to 1993’s SkyRoads but that game was by itself, more than just inspired from the relatively obscure 1989 Kosmonaut. MS-DOS titles which I admit that I have no recollection of. I’m not THAT old, alright? It’s just that it’s been a long time since I played a title belonging to that Operating System. Originality is out of the question, but that didn’t bother me as much as the lack of a first person perspective. If you’re going to emulate the feel of the old school games you’re inspiring yourself from, finish the job, don’t just go halfway through. Ambiguity I can understand (in the appropriate subgenres) but half measures are less tolerated. So obviously, no story whatsoever in SpaceRoads. How hard could it have been to offer a text wall with some bla bla bla in it? Do I look like I’m straining a muscle here? I can come up with SOMETHING in less than five minutes. I like to think that indie gaming in our day and age can move past the “no questions asked” phase that marked the classic arcade era. Even some of those coin-operated cabinets had some flimsy storyline present in their games. Okay, we’ll adapt and use our imagination. John Doe is a test pilot on a vessel which depletes its fuel supply far too soon. It’s the future and fossil fuels are still a thing for some reason while this space ship prefers to jump rather than fly. Don’t ask why, just move with the flow. Five worlds are being “visited” in SpaceRoads, but at least three of them are tracks orbiting similarly looking planets. The other two are represented by a volcanic environment and a temperate climate. What’s truly baffling, is how they all have the same surface gravity and pressure. Missed chance to tweak at least the jumping parameters, Wurd Industries… [h1]Graphics[/h1] The graphics engine could be Unity or something else. It never gets credited and I couldn’t find any information in that regard. What truly counts, is that the performance was stable and I never had any issues with the frame rate or resolution scaling. Heavy use of motion blur prevented me from taking nice screenshots during the actual platforming activities though. And no, there aren’t any options for turning the off the effects. Lens flare gets in the way sometimes, but the blur was still the bigger eyesore in this case. No settings are being displayed at all and the whole control scheme just revolves around the directional arrow keys for throttle/deceleration along with hitting “Space” for the actual jumps. It looks half decent most of the time, so SpaceRoads gets its redeeming points from that perspective. Judgging the low quality textures on the ship during the unskippable intro sequence, I’m starting to understand why the first person/cockpit mode was probably scrapped. [h1]Audio[/h1] Ironically, the sounds were on par with the visuals. They offered an adequate arcade feel to the game and I could only complain about the songs resetting abruptly upon mission failure. As in, missing a jump. That will happen quite frequently. No story means no voice acting either. It really didn’t matter and I’m glad that we're spared of any annoying sounds since this particular genre never shines in the audio department. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] You see the platform(s) ahead of you? Jump on them. Rinse and repeat until the finish line. Racing? You’ll witness more racing in a smartphone “game” than in this title. Boredom doesn’t even have time to settle since frustration has already entrenched itself from the beginning. As if the gameplay wasn’t challenging enough, the aforementioned fuel tank acts as an alternative timer as well. You think that you’re saving that precious fuel by going slow? Wrong. You think that by jumping less, you might finally reach the last checkpoint with more than mere fumes in the tank? Wrong again. It’s like whatever’s powering the vessel, is simply evaporating instead of being consumed by the logical combustion process. A twisted joke indeed, getting forced to repeat a stage because this so-called piece of high-tech equipment is in fact a rustbucket which ran out of fuel during the mid-level section. No autosave either, so good luck getting past some of those stages through natural game progression. A saving grace comes in the form of previosuly unlocked content. The dev team probably understood how frustratingly hard it would have been for players to experience their project, if they had to unlock one level at a time. You can access all those 17 stages currently present in-game from the get-go. The garden world remains the best looking, if still just as cruelly difficult as the rest of the environments. Trial & error will get you through in the end. If that’s your idea of fun, be my guest, have at it. Personally, I've had my fill of SpaceRoads for the next couple of years, thanks for asking! Edit: Trading Cards have been added. [h1]Verdict[/h1] I would have ALMOST recommended SpaceRoads until I noticed that the developer didn’t even make the minimal effort of creating some measly Steam Achievements. For real, Wurd? I get it that Trading Cards are now Valve’s decision based on how many units you’ll be selling, but you couldn’t even offer some Cheevos? Don’t even get me started on the price tag. If some of the issues I mentioned above will get straightened out, I will reconsider my rating. For now, I suggest you steer clear of SpaceRoads since I can think of literally hundreds of Sci-Fi arcades that might be considered worthy alternatives while also being more than just remotely fun at the same time. [h1]Strong Points[/h1] + Level design. + Steam Trading Cards. + Pleasant visuals and soundtrack. [h1]Weak Points[/h1] - No Steam Achievements. - Unbalanced difficulty. - Repetitive. [b]Rating 55/100[/b] [quote]This review was submitted for [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/_YoloArmy]Yolo Army[/url], through the generous contribution of [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/mofoswaginess]Mofoswaginess[/url] and the Steam Curator Connect program.[/quote]