An exceptionally wise man once said, “[The] only question I ever thought was hard was, ‘do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?’”. That exceptionally wise man is, of course, none other than “Weird Al” Yankovic. Specifically, the quote in question is taken from the lyrics to his massively popular parody song, “White & Nerdy.” The only reason I elected to mention that set of lyrics is because they seem fitting considering the game I’ll be reviewing for you today. The title in question is known as Space Crew. It comes to us from the dynamic duo of Runner Duck Studios and Curve Digital.

Before I truly begin discussing what Space Crew brings to the table, however, I’m obligated to get a couple of disclaimers out of the way. Firstly and most importantly, the version of Space Crew I played for the purposes of this review could be altered in certain respects by the time the game’s release date rolls around. These respects could include such things as the absence of any bugs or glitches I mention having encountered throughout this article provided Space Crew’s developers plan to release a day-one patch to address such issues.

Secondly, if the name Space Crew sounds familiar to you, I suspect that may be because I’ve already covered my thoughts on the game’s free demo. I’ll do my best to avoid repeating what I said there, but be forewarned that there will likely be at least a few instances where I can’t get around the need to reiterate something from my earlier piece.

With all of that stuff out of the way, let’s begin. Those of you who are unfamiliar with Space Crew’s predecessor, Bomber Crew, may very well be relieved to find that Space Crew devotes quite a bit of time during your first few missions to providing tutorials and making sure you’re comfortable with every mechanic you need to know. For example, you start from the absolute basics by learning how to launch your ship. Once you’re out in space, you’ll then learn how to tag nearby objects for such purposes as navigation and combat.

Space Crew’s tagging mechanics operate in virtually the same way as they do in the game’s predecessor. You’re still required to tag navigation objectives in order to get where you’re going, and you still have to tag incoming enemies because your gunners won’t be able to fight them off if you don’t. However, there is one notable change to this mechanic in that your ship’s captain won’t need frequent navigation heading updates from another crew member to keep the ship on its plotted course.

Instead, you’ll usually be able to see your objectives from a distance as soon as you enter tagging mode. Destinations could be such things as space stations, planets, moons, or so-called “jumpgates” which, when used, expeditiously transport your ship to a designated point deeper in space. You can reasonably think of these jumpgates as having the same effect as using your ship’s titular FTL drive in Faster Than Light, albeit with one significant and particularly important difference.

This difference dictates that although utilizing jumpgates doesn’t require an amount of whatever your ship uses as fuel, the act of going through a jumpgate does require all power from your ship’s other systems to be temporarily re-routed to your engines. This means that other onboard systems like weapons, shields, oxygen generation, and gravity generation are momentarily disabled as soon as you begin charging your ship’s “hyperdrive” system and will remain out of commission until you’re successfully on the other side of your targeted jumpgate.

This small hiccup in power routing normally isn’t an issue unless you’re actively in combat when you try to go through a jumpgate. While you’re not being pursued by any enemies, you can fully prepare to jump through a gate in a matter of three to five seconds. However, when you find yourself in combat, your ship’s hyperdrive system will take longer to charge based on how many enemies are nearby. In larger firefights, this could mean you won’t be able to jump for upwards of two minutes or more.

In that case, you’re significantly better off waiting and continuing to orbit the jumpgate until you’ve shot down every enemy fighter in your vicinity before even attempting to use the jumpgate to escape. That’s because with your ship’s shields and weapons lacking the power necessary to function, you won’t exactly survive long enough for your hyperdrive systems to fully charge. That is, at least until you upgrade your ship’s reactor so that it can output enough power to the engines to prevent this dilemma in the first place.

That leads me to one of the aspects I quite like about Space Crew. When on a mission that has multiple paths to or from your objectives, you’ll often see these paths marked in such ways as “safest route” and “fastest route.” As you might imagine, these markings serve as helpful indications as to how you might get to where you’re going more expeditiously, depending on whether or not you’re looking to take a risk for the sake of speeding up your commute.

Having said that, it’s definitely worth remembering that just because a jumpgate is designated as the “safest route” near your location, that certainly doesn’t guarantee that this path is completely free of hazards. There’s always the risk that you’ll run into some enemy fighters, and/or perhaps an asteroid field that can mess with your shields.

Personally, I’m a particularly risk-averse person, which has meant that I’ve stuck primarily to the routes the game tells me are less likely to end in my ship being blown to smithereens. The way I see it, whichever space station is awaiting my return likely won’t mind waiting a little while longer if that delay guarantees the survival of my crew and whatever we may have initially been sent out to retrieve. That brings me to another aspect of Space Crew that I’m quite glad to see compared to its predecessor.

Namely, I’m pleased to report that Space Crew offers more mission variety than Bomber Crew. Admittedly, I’d like to think I understand why Bomber Crew‘s missions could start to feel same-y after a while. After all, there’s a lot less you can do with a World War II-era aircraft compared to a fully-upgraded space-faring vessel in the year 2209. Essentially, you have several more options open to you in Space Crew than simply “fly here, bomb this, maybe take some reconnaissance photographs, return to base.”

For example, one of your earlier missions in Space Crew will task you and your crew with reaching a scientific outpost on or near one of the outer planets in the solar system. Your goal is to rescue the last remaining astronomer aboard that outpost with mere seconds to go before it explodes. In my opinion, Bomber Crew doesn’t offer missions with that kind of action until you get to Operation Chariot. Again, I’m exceptionally pleased to see that Space Crew builds in such a way upon the foundation constructed by that which came before it.

Honestly, I can’t think of much I dislike about this new title. I absolutely adore the first game in this franchise, just as I equally adore Faster Than Light. When these two formulae are combined as expertly as I feel the duo of Curve Digital and Runner Duck have done to create Space Crew, it’s likely to constitute a recipe for quite an enjoyable game.

While I’m sure there exist some detractors out there who will state that Space Crew is just Bomber Crew with a different coat of paint (which is not entirely untrue), I feel that Space Crew is so much more than that. Throughout my time with the game, I haven’t thought for a second that it rests on its laurels or attempts to ride Bomber Crew’s or FTL’s coattails to any degree of success. On a final note, even if you’re not familiar with Faster Than Light or Space Crew’s predecessor, if this review has inspired you to give this new title a try, I wholeheartedly advise you to make it so.

A PC review key for Space Crew was provided by Curve Digital for the purpose of this review.

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Space Crew

$19.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Expertly Builds Upon its Predecessor's Foundation
• Offers More Mission Variety
• Doesn't Feel Nearly as Samey as its Predecessor Could

Cons

• May Not Appear at First Glance to Offer More than its Predecessor
• Certain New Mechanics May Prove Off-Putting to New Players