Space Pirates and Zombies 2 blasts off properly
Mount & Blade with spaceships
Spaceship-building shoot-o-strategy sandbox Space Pirates and Zombies 2 today officially launched, following eighteen months in early access. No, don't mind the name: this is an interesting game. You build your own spaceship, right, by snapping together bits and pieces. So far, so spaceship. Then you set out to stay alive in a post-spacezombie apocalypse, however you can. Find resources, claim territory, build bases, salvage, trade, befriend factions, break alliances, and shoot spaceships... all while 200 other AI-controlled captains do the same. A bit like Mount & Blade with spaceships.
So! Build a spaceship. Similar to Captain Forever, you get to build ships as you please by snapping together weapons, engines, and everything, then the physics engine figures out how it'll fly. Build a ship as agile, lumbering, or deadly as you dream. Next, space.
SPAZ 2 (yes, I know) follows on from the first game, with the spacezombies gone but the galaxy trashed and exhausted. You and those 200 other captains are all trying to get by however you can, building up your strength, working with some folks, and fighting others. Action is top-down on a 2D plane with plenty of pew pew and some lurid laserblasts. I welcome colourful space.
I've been watching SPAZ 2 from the sidelines during early access and think I'll finally have a go now it's properly out. Early birds, what have you made of it?
Space Pirates and Zombies 2 is out now for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It costs £15 on Steam and GOG.