Space Crew Review

It’s the year 2159.  It is your job to defend the  Earth from an alien race known as Phasmids. You are in charge of the “United Defence Force”. In other words – your Space Crew! I mean sure, that might sound a little cliché but this game actually comes out and delivers on the concept. 

Space Crew starts you off with a crew of 6.  You have the Captain of the ship, your handy dandy engineer, the navigator, security, and your gunners.  As I mentioned before you and your crew are in charge of defending the earth from the Phasmids, a threatening alien race bent on destroying the earth.

As a simulation game I was curious to see how the missions were going to be handled, if there was some sort of storyline to the game. It turns out that you’re just doing a bunch of tasks that vary from handling cargo drops to eliminating Phasmid forces.  There is no real story to follow which comes off very bare.

It does also get pretty repetitive towards the end game. In the beginning it can be pretty challenging handling the tasks thrown at you, especially when you’re underprepared. Once you finish these missions you earn credits to spend on either ship or crew upgrades. You can customize your crew with outfits that will change their stats. Those stats consist of armour, movement speed, vacuum resist, and radiation resist. It’s important to keep up with your character because permadeath does exist in Space Crew. It’s always great to have this feature in strategy games like this because it makes your choices and decisions matter. You mess up and you lose all the work you put into a character. You’ll have to hire a new recruit and build them up from scratch.

The strategy portion of the game is where Space Crew shines the brightest. You have weapons, shields, engine, and gravity – the four main components that keep your ship running. When doing missions you’re frequently attacked by Phasmids and when I say frequently, I mean frequently. It’s important to divert energy to sections of your ship you believe need the most attention. You need to be careful though cause there’s always going to be a trade off in doing so. During and after battle your ship will receive damage. The damage can be serious such as radiation leaks and problems with the Oxygen. You can use the credits you earn to upgrade your ship to prevent these things from happening.

The down side to Space Crew is it’s control scheme though. Its controls will feel awkward when you try to pinpoint enemy ships and cargo to track. It feels like at times I’m fighting with the camera.  Directing crew members however is a easy task to handle. 

Graphically the game is appealing and the soundtrack is something you would expect out of a sci-fi series like Dr.Who or Startrek. Who could’ve guessed, right?

Conclusion

Space Crew is a challenging simulation game at first but with enough practice and time out into it can turn into an enjoyable experience.  It’s an in-depth strategy concept will actually take some time to get use too. Dedicate enough time into it and it will pay off.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.