Review No. 74 Space Engineers (Alpha) - PC (3+)

Strong Points:
Great damage system
Weekly updates
Workshop contains easy download mods and worlds
Designers listen and act on community’s wants and wishes
Dedicated servers
Growing a lot of support even though it is in alpha
Video Tutorials on the YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceEngineersGame)

Weak Points:
Bugs (as expected, it is an alpha)
No pressurization
No food or water option (for immersion nuts)
No random generation for asteroid shapes (Position and ore are though)
No setbacks when using drones over ships

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:
World Wide: October 23, 2013

Controls:
Full list of customizable controls in game

For those of you who have not read Harry’s first impressions of Space Engineers (http://gamesappsandreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/first-impressions-space-engineers.html), I will give a little intro to the idea, style and purpose of the game.  If you have read the first impressions, I am the annoying friend ;-) 

Space Engineers is an alpha sandbox game set in a small asteroid field. It is being developed by Czech company, Keen Software House (KSH). There are two modes Creative and Survival. There are three different things you can build: small ships using 1/3 of the length of a regular block in every dimension, large ships which use regular blocks and is mobile and stations which are basically static large ships.

The range of blocks is good. There are lots of blocks with lots of functions from refineries to a grinder block to a med bay to a missile turret, your station or ship can do a whole lot of stuff. You can easily make a ship that does all of that, but generally people don’t. They want a ship with a singular purpose, whether it is mining, military, an exploration vessel, industrial... the list goes on.

Creative allows, as you would expect, unlimited resources and quicker building. But also, it has two extremely useful, less expected, features. The first is symmetry and, wow, this is useful. I always find myself making irregular, skewed ships in survival because I learned to play before survival was released. You can have symmetry on every plane: Y is represented by red pane going the length of the ship, X a green one and Z is blue. The other feature is cut, copy and paste. I had Martin thinking I was magic a week ago, because he didn't know about it (hehehe). This is useful for when you want to fill a hanger or create a duplicate. This game mode is the one you will use when designing a ship or working on a concept you thought of.

Survival is, in some people’s opinion, the way to play. With survival, you have to place a block and then weld it up with components to complete it and make it functional. This takes time and makes you almost ‘bond’ with your creations rather than just trashing them in some lost battle for the sake of it. Also, Survival is a lot more fun when doing it with other people, knowing you are putting the effort in for others and making a difference to them makes it more worthwhile.

All in all, the best thing about this game is its potential and what you get from it. I know I am not the only one who has thought about how awesome it would be to have my own custom design space ship in my early childhood. This game brings that dream as close as it can realistically get. That is why I play and why you should.

Before I end I will notify you that Space Engineers is on its way to Xbox One so if you don’t want it on PC due to memory or other reasons you can still get it! (soonish).

PS. Hope everyone reading liked it (I guess you did If you are reading this).

Rating: 89%

Thanks for Reading, Oli 

Updates: due to the game being in alpha, it is updated every week with lots of new features and improvements. You can get the full list of updates either in the Steam page or on the Space Engineers website: http://www.spaceengineersgame.com/news.html