You are a prisoner, traveling across
the galaxy to fulfil the whims of an
HR computer that might eventually
grant you your freedom. You get
across the map with an FTL-style
interface, and while most locations
are enemy spaceships
that you can board,
loot, and escape, there
are also stores, asteroid
ranges, and deadly
hazards to be aware of.
Mostly, though, your
time is spent navigating
ships in first-person,
looking for specific
items to progress, then escaping
before you’re killed.
Your character has perks, both
positive and negative, and if you die,
you play as another criminal with
different perks. Negative perks might
be your character coughing every
now and then, attracting enemy
attention, or being more easily
detected by security cameras and gun
turrets. A positive perk might be
better aim, or a higher chance of a
critical shot. The ships are partly
procedurally generated—the maps of
the different vessels you’ll board staythe same, but walls, enemy locations,
obstacles, and more will change each
time. This means you can roughly
learn where you’re going on each
ship, but that you can’t really be
certain of what you’ll go up against.
While there is a
stealth element to Void
Bastards, and you do
have some silent
weapons, it’s mostly
about shooting weird,
British aliens in small
corridors and rooms.
The standard
immersive sim
elements are here: You can hack
turrets to fight on your side, or shut
down security from a terminal on the
ship. You have a dart gun.
The crafting system in Void
Bastards is excellent, and I say that as
someone who usually loathes boring
equivalent systems in other games. If
you want to make something specific,
a location tool in the game will tell
you which ship on the map will grant
you the parts to make it. Everything
you craft is consistent between
deaths, so the penalty for dying is
usually just being further away fromyour main objective. You could die a
whole bunch of times and not reach
your goal, but in that time your
armory can grow exponentially. It’s a
neat and rewarding power curve.
Here’s the problem, though—I
only intermittently enjoyed Void
Bastards’ actual combat. The tools are
great, and often fun to use, but the
enemy types are mostly a poor fit for
what you have in your inventory.
Some are deliberately overpowered
and meant to be avoided, which is
fine. Exploding enemies that
sometimes sit behind doors and blow
up before you ever see them are not
favorites of mine, though.
It’s the NPC barks that really turn
me off the enemies in Void Bastards.
One of the basic enemies shouts
“surprise, buttface!” whenever
you’re caught by them, which I just
can’t stand, and the game is rife
with enemies barking irritating
British things.THIEVES IN SPACE
Sometimes the game does capture
the thrilling feeling of being a thief
who grabs the objective, gets caught,
then escapes in a hail of gunfire.
Mostly, though, I found firefights just
a bit of a slog, with some levels
jam-packed with enemies.
It’ll take around 12-15 hours to
finish a single run, and even after
doing that, you can carry on
unlocking stuff and taking on harder
enemies. I’m considering another
run, even though I spent so long
sighing at enemy barks, or getting
shot at by inexplicably placed turrets,
or getting too close to exploding
enemies without realizing it. There’s
just something very compelling
about arriving on a new ship and
finding that next thing you need
that Void Bastards nails.NEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
BioShock-y FPS
where you steal things
from spaceships
EXPECT TO PAY
$30
DEVELOPER
Blue Manchu
PUBLISHER
Humble Bundle
REVIEWED ON
i5-3570K, 16GB RAM,
GTX 970
MULTIPLAYER
N/A
LINK
http://www.voidbastards.com71
A slightly messy
first-person shooter
elevated by some
excellent weapons and a
gorgeous art style.VERDICTSometimes the
game does
capture the
thrilling feeling
of being a thiefE
ver since BioShock Infinite released and Irrational in its
previous form went away, I’ve gladly played any games that
offer a comparable experience. That is, a first-person shooter
where you have more at your disposal than just cool guns.
Void Bastards is described as a strategy shooter inspired by
System Shock 2 and BioShock, and it features the talents of some former
Irrational staff who previously made 2013’s Card Hunter.FA RC E ’ SC A PE
Get bombarded by British jokes and annoying enemies
in the repeating corridors of VOID BASTARDS. By Samuel Roberts
SHIP SHAKERS My favorite tools in Void Ba st a rd s
GERMSPIKER
Poisons an enemy,
which slowly
depletes their
health, and can be
used in stealth.RIFTER
Manually teleport
your enemies. They
can’t shoot while
you’re deciding
where to put them.UNSTABLE
KITTY
Enemies will shoot
at this, and when it’s
destroyed, it leaves
a nice big explosion.CLUSTERFLACK
Fires out a
near-unreasonable
amount of cluster
bombs. Throw it,
run away.STAPLER
The version of the
shotgun in Void
Bastards fires
staples, and it’s a
treat to use.REVIEW