![]() ![]() To keep all the various buildings operating efficiently, you will need to hire a suitably skilled workforce to ensure they are all ticking over. ![]() You’ll be able to research new buildings and other structures as you play, and as your spacebase becomes more advanced. Different terrains will yield varying resources, which can later be used to manufacture parts in your factory. You can build discos and other entertainment for your guests on the fun deck, as well as terraform and grow resources on the bio deck. To kick things off, you’ll need to build such things as recycling and communication centres, as well as a Berth which acts as a central hub for all visitors. These start off fairly straightforward and each one layers on some complexity in terms of new buildings and items to get to grips with. The campaign is the game’s main draw, and consists of ten missions which each carry a series of objectives for you to complete. You can choose from two other narrators, but VAL remains my firm favourite. The bitchy commentary is reflective of just how little it thinks of humans, which you’ll be constantly reminded of. ![]() It’s a genuine delight to see all the weird and wonderful aliens go about their business.Įveryone’s favourite sharp-witted robot turned narrator, VAL, is back and just as sarcastic as ever. This further enhances one of the joys I found when first playing Spacebase Startopia, which was easily keeping an overview of what is happening on your station, as well as zooming in close to some of the rooms and watching your guests in action. On the plus side, you now have greater control over how to view your alien leisure centre thanks to the free camera option, accessed by clicking the left thumbstick down. This setup may well work on PC, but on console the reduced controller accuracy makes using your cursor utterly frustrating at times.ĭespite these issues, the game is perfectly playable, but these problems make the control setup of a game such as this more difficult than it ought to be. It’s also quite easy to lose items, and it isn’t easy to find them again. system the game uses in order for you to move units and buildings (by packing them and unpacking them) again feels over complicated. That means taking notice of guest polls, which show what’s going well and where your station is failing.The C.R.A.T.E. They build rooms and take out the trash automatically, once you’ve set up the right amenities to enable them. Each of your three decks has bulkheads that you pay to remove, letting you expand into bigger facilities, offering greater varieties of both habitat and entertainment for your expanding clienteleĪll that footfall naturally generates rubbish, disease, and eventual dilapidation, something your team of maintenance droids, called fuzzies, are there to fix. When visitors are happy you also earn prestige, which lets you unlock new rooms, and harder to please aliens, both of which allow you to create bigger, more intricate space stations. Create the right biomes on the bio deck and entertainments on the fun deck, and your xenomorphic clients will feel happy, gracing your station with more energy, which flows freely when they find themselves in a good mood. ![]() The sub deck takes care of essential support systems like comms and storage the bio deck is an arboretum that you can terraform to suit visitors and grow useful resources while the fun deck is for discos, casinos, and arcades.Īll those features are built to service the demands of your alien guests, each type of which has their own preferences. You do that by building facilities on the station’s three floors. Once again you take command of a doughnut-shaped space station that you need to make comfortable for a variety of aliens. That meant juggling entertainment, environment, and food sources to make your station appealing to as many different extraterrestrials as you could. It required you to set up and support habitats to attract a range of alien species, each with its own needs and proclivities. Originally published by Eidos, back before they were bought by Square Enix, Startopia was an amusing and surprisingly complex base building game set in space. Hot on the heels of Evil Genius 2 though, the sci-fi business simulator has been resurrected by German publisher Kalypso, for both PC and console. There have been so many unexpected comebacks lately, for even the most obscure video games, that it’s almost impossible to be surprised anymore, but obscure 2001 non-hit Startopia is certainly not a game many would’ve been expected to see again in a hurry. Spacebase Startopia – what an odd game to bring back (pic: Kalypso)Įarly 2000s business sim Startopia is the latest retro strategy series to see an unexpected return, in what’s basically Theme Spacestation. ![]()
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