Space Pirates and Zombies

You go from solar system to solar system and from planet to planet, and all you do is fight and mine. Well, not really, you'll also upgrade ships and play with all kinds of setups. You're always in action or close to it, and because it's a pretty fun and addictive game it can really hook you up. I'm a bit of a sucker for bright colors and this game provided those in spades in an aesthetically pleasing way. You can customize your universe, but if you choose from a medium one and up, you'll have a lot of grinding to do until the end of the game. Pros: pretty colors, overall fun and keeps you engaged. Cons: it can get grindy. Rating: PEW! PEW! PEW! http://pixelloot.com

SPAZ is ... 2-D top-down space pirate simulator, with procedurally generated galaxy and random events. While the story is pretty much static and thin, the game may look fantastic to some - and dull to other. It all comes down to a thing, if you like: a) upgrades, ships, asteroids and zombies b) fantasy real-time space battles with lasers and shields c) futuristic ambient space then you will fall in love with it, as me!! It reminds me of TYRIAN, with a touch of strategy and a "go anywhere" style. The game is definitely not a space simulator however, so don't seek for any realism - for that you want to check Kerbal Space Program - another masterpiece. There are also few mods around, most notably BigFightforBEEF, which will massively enhance amount of the upgrades and change the direction into higher tec - better. In contrast, the vanilla game upgrades give more varienty rather than power, meaning bigger hulls gives bigger slot which gives bigger firepower. There is probably just one thing I dislike with vanilla game, the size of hangars. Friendly AI is pretty much useless and giving them smaller ship robs you more than brings any benefit. Also, whilst the game is somewhat easy to modify, its not open and devs don't help mod makers much, so at current state the game is already asking for rewrite as Free Software because it misses online potential! Overall its one of the games I have really enjoyed playing in 2015, its very stylish and easy on grey cells. There is very little place for the math and all the freedom to fire lasers. =)

The mid game of this is incredibly fun and worth playing. That's it though. The early game is a insanely slow and the end game is so easy you may as well be asleep. Early on you lack the technology to hit anything, resulting in running after somebody aimlessly for what feels like an eternity, only to have to do it again for the other half dozen ships in the system. In the end, you have gourmet technology and can blow up just about anything quickly and easily... resulting in also a boring play. In the middle is where this shines and if that's for you, then fantastic. This needs polish. Bad.

This game is nothing special : there is no real strategical thinking needed to win or anything a simple greedy "make experience, go on" strategy works, I'm a bit disappointed.

I wanted something similar to Space Rangers, sadly I didn't find it here. The battles are nice and its fun upgrading your ships but it's not what I was expecting, there are only two factions and no independent ships or trading like Space Rangers had. it's a good buy with the discount, but I wouldn't buy it on full price otherwise.