FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light Price (at time of posting): $10 or $9.99 Style: Space Sim, Strategy, Action, Single Player, Roguelike Developer: Subset Games Released: 14th Sep 2012

Description

FTL: Faster Than Light is a single player space sim that is somewhat roguelike. Roguelike is a sub-genre of RPG (Role Playing Game) where almost all elements are random, death is permanent and gameplay is turn-based. FTL is somewhat roguelike because only some of the elements are random, death is permanent and gameplay is real-time (as opposed to turn-based). Strategy is key when determining how to upgrade your ship so you can beat the game.

Gameplay

As for the object of the game: you are carrying information that can help keep the rebels from taking over the galaxy. Fight your way through 8 sectors of space and deliver the information to your superiors. Then destroy the final boss to save the galaxy from oppression.


Plan ahead and upgrade smartly. You can upgrade all of you ship's systems (engines, weapons, shields, etc.), but you need to buy power bars before you can give life to your upgrades. Buy weapons and drones from stores, but make sure you have enough explosives and drone parts or you'll find yourself defenseless. Oh, and DON'T run out of fuel. You are screwed if you run out of fuel.

You'll eventually unlock more ships to pilot (9 in total), each with strengths and weakness. Recruit crew members from 7 different races (also their own strengths and weaknesses) to man your ship. Any way you do it, this game is HARD (even on easy). You will need to find that perfect balance to even MAKE it to the end, let alone beat the game.

By the way, the screenshots in this post are low quality to keep the file size small. The actual game doesn't have mind-blowing graphics, but it does have a crisp look.


Review

Meehandlebars Rating: 6 I like this game. At least I did the first dozen time I failed miserably (on easy, I might add). In fact, i would have give this game an 8 a few weeks ago, but replayability just ran out for me. This game is space Oregon Trail, but instead of picking a profession, you are picking a ship. And when you get to "Oregon," there is a giant that is trying to kill you and take over the US. I have to admit that the game is designed extremely well. Complicated enough to make it challenging, but not so complicated that it's impossible to learn. Now, let's talk about the randomness... This game is  random. (how random is it?) It's so random, that over the dozen times I've played (and failed), I have found new weapons, drones and augmentations that I hadn't seen yet. OK, I so badly wanted to beat this game (and couldn't) that I cheated. I used a hacking program to alter my stats and gave me unlimited resources. Without this, I would have given up before acquiring the necessary skills to beat this game properly. Play this game if: You want to relive Oregon Trail, but give it a different feel or if you like space sims. Don't play this game if: You have to beat games, but have no patience, or if strategy sims with RPG elements aren't your style.

Unsalted38 Rating: 8 A bit of disclosure is needed here. I admit to wanting to design a game strikingly similar to FTL for a while now. Pretty much it was going to be FTL with more of a story and less turn based gameplay. Nevermind, I'll never actually get to make that game so let’s talk about this one! Check the description for the details about the game itself, but in a nutshell this is a tightly packaged highly focused character building space game version of Oregon Trail. It excels in so many areas I feel I may be missing some, but here is a short list: Perfect tutorial Perfect interface Genius power management Unforgiving randomness The last point on my list seems negative, however it’s really refreshing to see truly random events. Modern games are using advanced AI to adjust the difficulty dynamically (think Left4Dead series) but if you stop and think about it, life is rarely that dynamic, and as a human we are conditioned to prepare for most eventualities. Going back to FTL, I've had games end in as little as 10 turns due to a random collection of events; either I wasn't prepared to handle missiles or invader hoards or a combo of the two. One game ended when all my crew was killed from putting out fires, then the invaders and my last crew got hit in route to the med bay by a random missile hit. I just sat there in my chair in shock. How could I be mad at the game, it hadn't “cheated” me, just tossed an odd setup of an enemy I wasn't entirely ready to defend against. What I don't like can be summed up into two points. First, the game is amazingly hard. On easy. Beating this thing is really saying that you have invested hours into mapping out all the paths and ship setups to find one that works with your style of play (I’ll be impressed BTW). On the other hand I can report that this doesn't stop you from replaying the game but it does discourage you a bit. Second the story here is as weak as the IP laws in China. Then again Oregon Trail didn’t have/need a story but with a game this good I wished it had something else there to bring me into it a bit more. Maybe that’s modern games influencing me, but I've had several games that were repetitive yet I kept playing just to see how the story played out. Far Cry 2 and Vietcong come to mind. These negatives can be summed up as subjective, so your mileage may vary. Play this game if: You like Oregon Trail You like classically straightforward space games Resource management sounds exciting You like a challenge Don't play this game if: Graphics are a major component to your game purchase decision You appreciate stories in your games

Links

Get the game: http://www.ftlgame.com/ ($10)
Get the game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/ ($9.99)

Information about the game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light

Strategy Guide: http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light_Wiki