Developer: nornware AB
Publisher: nornware AB
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Space Beast Terror Fright – Preview
The gaming industry is currently flooded with Early Access games. Sometimes it’s good to get feedback from your community, and it’s nice to know that some developers take that feedback into account. Space Beast Terror Fright is one of those games. It aims to be an extremely hard arcade-style, rogue-like perma-death first person shooter and currently, it’s a diamond in the rough.
In Space Beat Terror Fright, you play as a Marine or group of Marines. Your goal is to infiltrate an alien-filled spacecraft, download as many DataCores as possible and then destroy the whole ship and escape in time. The mechanics and controls are pretty simple, you have your basic movement keys, left click to shoot, right click to use and tab to activate infrared vision so you can see the aliens better. Currently, there are only 2 weapons in the game. There is the rifle and the shotgun, which are both pretty self explanatory.
When first playing the game, you’ll soon discover that it’s pretty terrifying and you’re never save wherever you are on the ship. The levels are completely randomly generated and they’re scattered with aliens, DataCores, blast doors and sentries. Sentries are extremely useful and only require a 1 time activation in order to make them operable, they will then shoot anything in sight. Blast doors can be opened or closed at will, allowing you to zone out aliens and forcing them to take another route, but be careful because they will break through the doors eventually! Doors and sentries alone won’t stop them either, they can make their way through the vents in the ceiling and drop down in front of you when you least expect it. Constant movement and good team coordination is the key to success, because the aliens will one hit kill you!
Downloading DataCores can also be useful to you and your allies. Sometimes, they will give you upgrades in the form of infrared vision, mapping, sensors, aim assist, activation speed and some others. At first, downloading DataCores and activating sentries will take about 10 seconds, but this can be decreased to less than 5 seconds as you find upgrades. The sensors will warn you when aliens get close and infrared vision allows you to see them easier. Mapping is pretty straightforward as well, it will map the level for you as you move through it, if you get multiple map upgrades it will also show you where the DataCores, sentries and blast doors are.
So the goal is to download all the DataCores, after that destroy the ship and escape. Well, almost! Once you collect all DataCores, you’ll have to go to the power reactor of the ship and disable all coolant cells, which makes sure the power core will overheat and explode. Once all cells have been disabled, you have just over a minute to get back to your safety pod where you were dropped from, or else you’ll go down with the ship. This isn’t an easy task at all if you don’t have mapping, so try to remember where to go to avoid disaster and doom your team!
Once you beat a level, all of your experience and upgrades will be saved, allowing you to access them for future levels. Once you die however, you’ll lose all of your progress.
That’s pretty much it in terms of gameplay. It’s currently very fast paced, super intense and it truly delivers a “terror” atmosphere but it seems that quite a few things are missing. Turrets being permanently active once you activate them is pretty overpowered, it would be better if they had some sort of timer. More guns and objectives would also be nice, since you’ll be trying to complete the same objectives every map but simply with another lay-out. It would also be a cool idea to not be able to have the infrared on permanently, something like a timer or a battery that you have to recharge once in a while would make it a lot more dynamic, because it forces you to find your own objectives.
In terms of graphics and sound, S.B.T.F. (the acronym for the game) isn’t really anything special, but it does fit the game quite well strange enough. It seems like the developers wanted to go more to the old-school arcade style of first person shooter, a bit like how DOOM used to be. The game is extremely dark, making the atmosphere very cramped and scary, because you won’t see the enemies coming that easily without infrared vision. However, once you start shooting and activating turrets, the game gets quite “flashy”. It’s pretty cool but it gets very tiring for the eyes when you play for a long period of time, especially when you’re constantly using your infrared vision. The game even gives you an epilepsy warning when you launch it and the options menu also allows for decreased muzzle flash and other things.
Conclusion
Space Beast Terror Fright was a blast from beginning to end. It’s a very fast paced shooter in a cramped spaceship filled with aliens that jump on you from nowhere, what’s not to like?! There’s a singleplayer, co-op and an online mode (which is heavily in progress so don’t expect much). When in singleplayer, the game is very hard the first mission, but once you get to know the game and get your upgrades, it starts to grow on you. However, the field where S.B.T.F. truly shines is its co-op. It’s extremely stressing to play it with friends, especially when you crank up the difficulty, and when you hear your friend shooting from across the hallway, you know trouble is coming your way.
Space Beast Terror Fright - Preview,
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