New Scientist Australian Edition – 24 August 2019

32 | New Scientist | 24 August 2019

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SPACE stations have been in the air

a lot recently – literally in the case

of China’s Tiangong-2, which

ended its mission by crashing

through the atmosphere last

month. Plans for new stations are

also afoot. NASA aims to build an

outpost orbiting the moon, while

billionaire Amazon boss Jeff Bezos

has the wild idea of moving all of

humanity to Earth orbit.

It got me thinking about some

of my favourite space stations in

video games. They make ideal

settings: being self-contained,

you can roam without running

into artificial barriers that mark

the limits of some game worlds;

the cold vacuum of space provides

developers with a handy excuse

not to build an entire world.

Space stations also lend

themselves to horror. Take Alien:

Isolation, which is set aboard the

vast Sevastopol station and has

you playing as Amanda Ripley, the

daughter of Sigourney Weaver’s

character from Alien. It oozes

retro-futuristic style, aping the

pre-digital designs of the 1979 film,

but there is little time to take in

the sights – you spend most of the

game hiding under tables as an

alien stalks you.

Prey, released in 2017, also

features a space station with

a retro aesthetic. The game’s

backstory involves US president

John F. Kennedy surviving the

assassination that in reality killed

him, then teaming up with the

Soviets Union in a massively

expanded space programme to

combat a mysterious alien threat.

The station is Talos I, which looks

like an art deco skyscraper, in orbit

near the moon. You can explore,

crawl through vents, hack open

locked doors or take a trip through

an airlock for a spacewalk shortcut.

Both titles owe a heavy debt to

the System Shock games, a pair of

1990s releases that are some of the

first examples of the “immersive

sim” genre, in which players get a

wide range of choices and tools,

Alien meets 2001 Space stations make ideal settings for games: they are self-

contained worlds where you can explore every nook and cranny without running

into artificial barriers. They can also be completely terrifying, finds Jacob Aron

“ Playing as an AI may

be a bit passive, but it

is the closest I’ll ever

get to being on a real

space station”

Games

Alien: Isolation

Creative Assembly

On PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox

One and Nintendo Switch

Prey

Arkane Studios

On PC, PlayStation 4

and Xbox One

Observation

No Code

On PC and PlayStation 4

making you feel like you are really

present and have agency in the

game world. By today’s standards

those earlier versions are a little

rough, but a modern, third System

Shock is coming. I can’t wait.

I also have to give a shout-out

to BioShock, the spiritual sequel

to the System Shock games. It is set

in an underwater city rather than

a space station, and is possibly one

of the best games ever.

And while it isn’t immersive

sim, Observation, which came

out earlier this year and is made

by some of the same people who

made Alien: Isolation, puts its own

twist on System Shock. It features

an artificial intelligence, in the

style of HAL from the story 2001:

A Space Odyssey, called SAM

(Systems, Administration and

Maintenance), but flips things by

having you play as the AI. You can

explore the Observation station

by inhabiting video cameras and

spherical robots capable of jetting

through its cramped modules.

It is like being on a more advanced

version of the International Space

Station: the robots are seemingly

inspired by Cimon, a mobile

platform on the ISS.

At first, things seem ordinary, or

as ordinary as they can be in orbit.

But the station is in trouble and

you have to help astronaut Emma

Fisher (think Sandra Bullock’s

Ryan Stone in the film Gravity) get

systems back online. Then an early

twist (and a great reveal) push the

story into 2001 territory.

Playing as an AI does make the

experience a bit passive, taking

orders from Fisher, but as a space

nerd, for me the game’s grounding

in science is a real thrill. It is the

closest I’ll ever get to being on a

real space station, Bezos or no. ❚

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Exploring Talos I, the

skyscraper-like space

station from Prey

The games column

Jacob Aron is New Scientist’s

deputy news editor. He has

been playing video games

for 25 years, but still isn’t

very good at them. Follow

him on Twitter @jjaron