Space Hack

I read Excolion writing "torture" and now I know what he meant. This game is hell! Backtracking, backtracking, more backtracking. In 1 hour of playing you spend 50 minutes running between places. Kill a handful enemies and your health is depleted, so you run back to base to heal. Then run back to the "action". Rinse and repeat. Health items you can carry are too rare and health regeneration too slow to allow any fluid gameflow. This is not Diablo 1. Controls are painful, enemies boring, progress punishingly slow and unrewarding, fighting (the core of the game) is a chore, environment unimaginative and unappealing, enemy types are few and even then all look similar. No characters to care about no story beyond "kill the enemy", nothing to make you want continue playing. Yes, the intro and outro doesn't work, but that can be fixed, as leifina described. But, to name one positive: The music is unobtrusive and well done. Resource management is not enjoyable, however. Every shot you fire costs money. The melee weapons don't, but they degrade with each attack, and repairing them cost money. In the end, you lack the funds for repairs, so you just wear them down and discard them, hoping to find a suitable replacement soon. Your electronic items need recharging, which costs more money. And only every fifth enemy or so even drops a handful of change. Never was being frugal so little fun. And yes, just like Excolion, I was so bored by the game, I almost fell asleep playing. I honestly cannot recommend this mess, not even at 90% discount.

I had mixed feelings for this game. Back in my childhood, its name was "Maximus XV Abraham Strong Space Mercenary". I endured to the end, and finished it. The gameplay was fun on occasion but generally too repetitive, the ending was so unsatisfactory. Fast forward to 2019, I dug up this game and tried to play it on my modern machine just for nostalgia's sake. There was a dreadful framerate issue which I had to spend many hours to fix via a DgVoodoo workaround. Then there was the intro and outro video issues as leifina wrote in their review. I just had to watch them manually by going to \data\local\video folder. Seeing from the review, it is still not fixed. I personally have not tried the GOG version but this game is not something I'd put my money on "again". Because I remember that after fixing the framerate issue and finally being able to play the game, I just fell asleep while playing. I'm not joking! For those who wish to do a playthrough, I had played a ranged weapons build and it was not bad. Maybe you'd go for that. But iirc melee builds were more fun. Except when you meet the types of monsters that make you wish you'd gone for a ranged build :)

Graphiquement, le jeu est passable et peu détaillé. Les animations sont ultra-rigides et peu variées. Je donne quand même une mention pour l'animation de votre personnage qui change si il se trouve en "ville" ou non. La bande son est nulle ! La musique est plate et sans saveur. Aucune ne donne envie d'explorer ou de combattre. Durant les affrontements, vous n’entendrez que le protagoniste faire "Ah ! Oh !" à chaque coup qu'il se prends dans sa face d'ahuri ! Oubliez les musiques d'actions ! L'histoire partait d'une bonne intention : un diablo transposé dans l'espace se déroulant dans une sorte de "vaisseau-monde". Hélas, le drame arrive vite dès les premières secondes ; vous ne pouvez pas créer votre héros ni choisir de classe. A chaque montée de niveau, vous aurez cinq points d'attributs à placer dans "dextérité, force, ..." Et c'est tout ! Pas de compétence, pas de coup spécial, ... RIEN. Vous aurez juste des "gadgets" à recharger (faut payer) qui font offices de "sorts". Rien de passionnant et d'intéressant. Le "mana" sert juste de "munitions" pour les armes à énergie. Vos moyens de défenses vont des haches, épées, lances aux armes "lasers" : juste des pistolets et fusils. Du classique au possible ! Mention quand même : un système de durabilité a été mis en place. Mais pourquoi ne pas avoir mis des trucs plus fun comme le lance-flamme ou même la possibilité d’utiliser deux armes ? Ah et l'armure, c'est torse et casque. C'est tout. Gants, bottes, jambière... non, pas de ça ici. L'inventaire : minuscule ! On passe notre temps à retourner à la base pour vendre trois armes. Pas de coffre pour stocker ! Space Hack est un jeu raté ! Vous avez en effet "45 niveaux" mais qui aura la patience d'aller au bout ? La lassitude arrivera très vite puisque vous ne faites que courir de portail en portail sans réel but à faire des quêtes sans intérêt. Je déconseille vivement ! Je vous recommande plutôt Space Siege dans le même registre : bien meilleur !

Imagine releasing an ARPG, which has less mechanics than Diablo 1, but in 2005. What you get is Space Hack. The only choice of what to do with your character is where you dump the attribute points you get per level up. The only real choice is whether you want to go melee, ranged or "spells". Spells in quotations, because they are provided by a separate item type, gated by the attribute that is equivalent to Intelligence. Going melee will make the early stages of the game literal torture as you will have to wait for your health to regen after every few enemies because you have no other option but to tank hits. As for "itemization", there are only 2 rarities. White and Blue equivalent from Diablo. Again, nothing else, making the game wholly uninteresting to play, as you've seen literally everything the moment a first blue item drops. Combine that with absolutely repetitive, stretched out maps which take forever to clear, basically no story to speak of and gameplay that does not change in the slightest from start to finish and you got a stinker. There are no skills or anything engaging at all in the entire game. You will only derive some enjoyment out it if you want to mindlessly click with your brain off for several hours. I finished it for the sake of it, but the game is most likely not worth anyone's time. 3/10.