Space Siege Review

Another fairly negative review of GPG’s Space Siege comes from bit-tech.net, who gives it a 5/10 (I think).

So, the gameplay is static and staid and the graphics are apparently unalterable and uninspiring making Space Siege a game as seemingly bland as they come, yet there may be one saving grace for the game yet.

Co-op. We love co-op games and it’s the one, lone reason that everyone in the office is visibly vibrating in anticipation of Valve’s Left4Dead or why I still play Serious Sam regularly.

Space Siege has a separate campaign for cooperative gaming, allowing up to four players to play the game together and progress through new and interesting levels as they fight back against the alien enemy.

It should be great. It should be fun. It should be excellent LAN material and that was exactly my reasoning for pressuring both Harry and Richard into playing some of the co-op campaign. Unfortunately, I just ended up regretting the fact that I had wasted both their time and mine.

The problem with the co-operative game is the same as the problem with the singleplayer game, except here it is compounded by the fact that you can’t die and have access to all weapons and upgrades at the start of the first mission. Thus, there’s no real sense of achievement or progression other than salvaging enough parts to put a damage multiplier on your rocket launcher every few save points.

The formula is still the same, but worse. You walk into a room, this time with your friends, and you all stand still and shoot until either you die or the enemy does. You carry this on until you run out of luck, at which point you’re separated from the group and sent back to the last save point. There are usually four or five per level, but they’re so spaced out that they are useless.

Within the first few battles your group is spread out. One person dies and is respawned a good few minutes walk behind everyone else, then by the time he catches up someone else is in the same trap. The whole thing becomes more of an endurance marathon than a satisfying game experience.