The year is 1983. Space is being conquered by man. However Xanadu, a research space ship that was searching the far edge of the explored universe has sent out a distress signal. Called in to help them fix their engines and get them back home, you soon find the crew to be missing and an even larger mystery surrounding the circumstances in this first-person indie horror adventure.
A James Kolchaka/Pixeljam joint production, Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork gives you just the right mix of retro-shooter action, platform stomping, and Saturday morning cartoon. Its difficulty is definitely old-school, but it's bright, bouncy, mindless, and completely unashamed of it, making for fun sci-fi shenanigans.
If you're a Gratuitous Space Battles nut then chances are you've got the various expansions already and are likely to do the same with this one. If you haven't tried the game yet, The Outcasts is a good starter DLC once you've exhausted the base content; the Outcasts' unique modules and ship aesthetics add a bit more unique flavor.
Described as a "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" by its developers, Subset Games, you won't be doing a whole lot of boldly going where no one has gone before in FTL: Faster Than Light. In fact, most of your time will be spent directing crew members and putting out engine room fires. But scifi strategy fans will love every minute of it, even with the hardcore difficulty.
Let's not mince words. Tyrian 2000 was the best PC shoot-em-up of the 90s, and it still holds up remarkably well today. Originally developed as shareware by Eclipse Productions and published by Epic Games, Tyrian 2000 is now available as legit freeware, and every fan of space shooters should check it out. The amount of customization, the hilarious but loving prose, the gorgeous VGA graphics... all of them come together to make a true classic.
Across the universe, no matter the time period or location, delivering the mail is a rough job. Take the poor sap in charge of the space-based mail delivery station Meteor Mail, for example. (It's you, by the way.) That lonely technician has to fire packages from one end, then tweak the exact position of gravity orbs to thread each delivery through worm holes, asteroids, roving pirates, and other obstacles. But, if it were easy, we wouldn't have the delightfully challenging puzzle game that is Meteor Mail, so from adversity comes entertainment!
One the surface, Gratuitous Space Battles, from Kudos developer Positech Games, looks like your run-of-the-mill space RTS, something in the vein of the Homeworld series or Star Wars: Empire at War. But when that glance turns into a longing stare, you'll realize it's very different from both of those series and isn't really, in fact, a real time strategy game at all. Gratuitious Space Battles has a whole new system of gameplay going for it that, in many ways, feels more like a tower defense game than anything else.
Developed back in 2003 by Moonpod Games, Starscape may be considered an "oldie" by the gamer crowd, but it's a goodie. Launched as a shareware game without the distribution support that it has today, Starscape flew under the radar, gathering a respectable following slowly but surely. Today, it's been finally starting to hit the major distro sites and people are either discovering or taking a second glance at this little space shooter/strategy game created half a decade ago.
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