Space Pirates and Zombies 2

Title says it all - there's very little game here. The lore's fun. The characters are fun. The dialogue entertains. Took me about 8 hours to beat the main campaign on "Expert" (Insane wouldn't add anything but annoyance, as there are no tactics here). SPAZ 1, by contrast, took me about 32. You pilot around a lego mothership on a sector map that's in many ways similar to Starpoint Gemini Warlords. Encounters are real time affairs with up to 4 motherships - usually 2v2. You eventually get up to 4 satellite ships, which're all too small to differentiate in fights, but which do at least half of the killing. Go from Point A to Quest B a few times, enjoy the dialogue, and you're done. That's it. That's the whole game. To anyone having trouble with the scaling, the trick is to race through quests until you can build your own base (starting your own faction - it'll be the second base you build in the main campaign) and bribe a Wingman with a vastly higher threat level than you have to join you. The bribes are very cheap. Then let him go in and be your bullet sponge / kill everything. Anything you do would only put your ship at risk, and even maxed out it's kinda tissue paper. I would go to the restroom, get coffee, etc., while wingy mopped up. Collect blueprints from defeated satellite ships until you can build some nice ones, and invest in those when you level up. After your wingman power levels you to ~80 threat level or so, go kill zombies. If a base is too hard to kill, pick a fight with some ships nearby first to lure them away from the base. If your wingman's still in good shape, kill the base. Repeat a few times. gg

This game has a slow-ish start, as you get familiar with the ship, the galaxy and the many activities constantly evolving around you. SPAZ2 mostly keeps you pointing in the right direction, but you still need to find your own way towards joining a faction, balancing out between fighting, digging, scavenging and annoying your neighbouring factions. The ship you fly is based around cores. The starting ship is long and thin - but as you gain levels, you can add more cores in any shape (symmetric or asymmetric) and optimize many aspects of speed, maneuverability and power generation. Around the edge of the cores you can plug in different weapon systems, each of which has different abilities (shield, armour and hull damage), power usage and range. Tinkering with your load out, switching between lasers, shotguns, remote drones, flak systems and many others, to build a monsterous dreadnought or a speedy hit-and-run corvette, is a ton of fun. Plus there is a plot about the demise of the previous galaxy, the remnants scavenging around this one and something about the rise of a new zombie apocalypse.

I played a lot of Spaz 1 and I really loved it. I used to play Realspace 3 over and over because I love that style of gameplay. I went into SPAZ 2 hoping for something similar, but with better graphics and new mechanics. From that angle, you probably won't find what you're looking for. SPAZ 2 is it's own thing. Even if you set a top-down view and tire manually, it's nowhere near as smooth as it was in SPAZ 1. I found in SPAZ 2 a new genre I also liked. I found that the combat is no longer the highlight of the game despite being extremely beautiful. Activate battlewagon mode, ram the enemy once to break the shields, and watch as colorful explosions occur. The highlight of this game is it's ability to let you play as long as you want with any strategy you might have. For exemple, I had finished a normal playthrough, and wanted to try becoming a major force in the Universe by myself; no allies allowed. Sure enough, after a lot of hard work I could win a fight against their capitals, and I established myself in the middle of the universe. I slowly expanded until my many bases became the meeting spot for all captains without factions. By trading with my bases we got along to the point where they would actively defend my bases despide not being in my faction. I kept expanding, slowly reducing the forces of the other factions. I looted everything, and donated the parts to neutral captains who did not have good standings with me, mostly because I killed the escape pods of the enemy factions to reset them to neutrals. Long story short, you can try to find any playstyle you want, it's awesome, it has a lot more selling points than SPAZ 1 despine not being a direct sequel gameplay-wise. I highly recommend it, even more so now that it's on sale.

First things first: This isn't Space Pirates and Zombies 1. Sure, the original Clockwork Crew is still around, everyone is still chasing the Rez, there's piracy and zombies galore, and several of the old game's ships make a reappearance as deployable strike craft, but the core gameplay mechanics are vastly different. It's a sequel in name and lore only - if you come looking for more of the same, you'll likely be disappointed. The sequel is a bit of an eccentric mixture. A bit of Mount & Blade, a dash of Captain Forever, a pinch of Pirates!, with a few Lego bricks thrown in for good measure, coated in lurid neon colours and garnished with a grandiose orchestral score. Ships are constructed out of blocks that form the frame and provide attachment points for various noses, engines and wings, which come in different sizes, manufacturers and weapon loadouts. Everything simply snaps together. Parts also break loose under fire, so it's not too uncommon for half a ship to go missing under heavy fire. The flying parts can be reattached during combat (a bit tricky, depending on your layout and what went missing) or afterwards, should you survive the fight. I'd say fiddling around with your spaceship's layout is about half the attraction. Fooling around in the sandbox, screwing around with the AI captains, stealing them from other factions or extorting them for fun and profit makes up the other half of the attraction. Just keep in mind that they can basically do the same as you, and don't be surprised when you get bounties on your head and your stations and end up being shaken down for money and parts while limping home from a battle. TLDR: Combat is fun and colourful, the strategy/sandbox layer is rather interesting if you liked M&B, difficulty level is adjustable, voice acting and music are pretty good, and the german translation is excellent. It's not the space game to end all space games, but it's jolly good fun for twenty bucks.