it makes it kind of predictable.
outrun the Rebel Fleet and deliver crucial information to a Federation base at the end of a webway of space sectors. You tell your crew to man weapons, shields, engines or helm, direct them to repair damage, fight off invaders or put out fires, and you reroute power between the ship’s systems to keep everything running. You can pick up scrap, weapons and new ship systems to fit to your ship, and find new companions to add their skills to the crew.
VERDICT: It will probably rock the world of some young person who never played Zelda Ocarina of Time but for a jaded veteran like me it’s just another adventure game. 3/5 TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT 2 Publisher/Developer: Namco Bandai Rating 16 Platform: PS3, Xbox360, Wii U. PLOT: The sequel to the highest rated Tekken game of all time sees the player compete in a fighting tournament as part of a tag team of characters as opposed to the standard lone warrior format. During the fights you can swap one character out for another at any time to let them recover health and use them to deal extra damage during special moves (though some may call that cheating.) GOOD POINTS: You begin with 50+ characters, (You start with 46, you have to unlock some) all the characters from every edition and even some alternates have become characters in their own right. Characters are all unique and have definite individual play styles to them. A button basher will not have a chance against a practised player which is a major change for this franchise. Breakable terrain has been worked in; you can smash characters through certain walls, break through floors or boot your opponent off balconies. One of my favourite “Tag” combos is that whenever you kick someone off a balcony your view switches to that of your other character, which is lying in wait for them as they fall through the air.
BAD POINTS: There are flaws with this game, you can get trapped up against some non breakable terrain, and the story mode is just an enhanced tutorial. The mini games that I enjoyed on the previous games are gone, but they did keep the horrible buy-clothes-for-yourcharacter function from Tekken 6 that just destroyed the game experience. My character should only lose in the rare circumstance the other guy is better, not because he is wearing a stupid looking hat! Also the boss character on the arcade mode is ridiculously hard, beatable but hard. VERDICT: There is a lot to enjoy in this, but the lack of a cohesive story, the idiotic costuming and the techno may put some people off. It simply doesn’t have as many play options as Mortal Kombat but if you’re not an MK fan or you just want a bog standard fighting game to play when your mates drop by, this will do nicely. 3/5 FTL (FASTER THAN LIGHT) Publisher/Developer: Subset Games Rating: None (Probably G) Platform: PC, Mac, Linux. PLOT: You’re the captain of a Federation ship, with a vital mission to
GOOD POINTS: Retro charm, lovely music, strangely addictive, “just one more hyperjump” feel, fun and challenging battles and resource management. Each game is randomly generated so you never know where the next jump will take you. BAD POINTS: Bloody difficult or downright unfair sometimes, the retro style will turn a lot of people off it. It’s not a hugely deep game, there’s no real plot beyond “Get to the exit and avoid dying”. VERDICT: While it’s no epic space opera, it is very fun, very easy to learn and as the sectors are randomly generated each time, it has a lot of replay value. At about €10 you can’t go wrong. 4/5