Developer: Forge Reply
Publisher: Forge Reply
Platforms: Playstation 3, Playstation 4
Tested on: Playstation 3
In Space We Brawl – Review
When you hear the word multiplayer the first thing that springs to mind is online play. Space We Brawl goes back to the roots of multiplayer and lets you play with up to four people in the same room. This way you don’t have to rely on connectivity to be able to play.
Story
There is no storyline in the game but you are piloting a spaceship and your job is to blast other people’s ships to bits. In the mean time you need to avoid collisions with meteorites and attacks from other pilots and aliens.
Graphics
The graphics in the game are really flashy. You can tell the different players apart from their colour: red, green, blue and yellow. When the match overview comes up to show who has won, you’ll also notice that the amount of eyes they have is also the number of the player. A nice little touch.
The stages all have their own feel to it thanks to the main colour pattern. There are however some concerns when it comes to the background. When you play, debris and other junk will clutter the battlefield. In some stages the background also has animated objects. This makes it difficult to tell the foreground and backdrop apart. What is also difficult to tell apart is which glowing objects are upgrades and what objects will damage you.
Sound
The soundtrack of In Space We Brawl is really energetic. Some weapons have a really nice sound effect, the laser being my personal favourite. When you start a game, you hear a voice counting down. The voices of these countdowns can be changed. Bear in mind that this is a party game, and depending on the group of people you are playing with, you might not hear a lot of the soundtrack.
Gameplay
In Space We Brawl has a tutorial in the form of challenges, twenty-one missions, all with different objectives you must achieve to gain your rank. Completing certain challenges will grant you new ships and secondary weapons which you can use in the tournaments or championships. Though the idea is good, seeing as this is both a tutorial and a means to earn new items in the game, this is also flawed. The person who completed these missions will have an advantage on the other three people who haven’t. When you’re ready to challenge some friends, you can take your pick out of two other modes.
Tournament: In Tournament you can brawl with up to three other opponents for a specified number of matches (from 3 to 10). You also have the chance to set up bounties to gain extra points for each kill, and split the players in two teams.
Championship: In Championship you’ll brawl until one of the players reaches the target score (from 3 to 60 points). You can decide to divide the players into two teams. Here too you can pick whether or not you want bounties to come into play. After you’ve chosen your match setup, when you’ve enabled bounties, you can press a button on the D-pad. Every button is colour-coded to match another player. It is possible to give a player multiple bounties, to make the target more valuable. On the other hand it’s also possible for you to put a bounty on your own head.
Next up is the choice of ship. Every ship has different stats, which means you can choose a ship that fits your play style. Do you want a fast ship with lots of energy so you can use your secondary weapon more often, or would you rather want a vessel which is more bulky and can take more damage? What comes next is the secondary weapon. Do you want a laser canon, or would you rather have a shotgun? Or maybe a weapon that can hurl meteorites at your enemies, using the harsh environment to your advantage? When every player has made their decisions it’s time to pick out the battlefield. There are eight maps available, each coming in three sizes and every size has its own set of limitations apart from the size. Some will be littered with space rubble, others will spawn aliens faster, others are ravaged by black holes.
The game can become chaotic at times. The control scheme is simple, but it doesn’t aid the chaos during matches. L1 is shield, R1 is boost, L2 is secondary fire and R2 is regular fire. Both shield and secondary fire will deplete your energy and when you are out of energy, you’ll be vulnerable to attacks. The range of your primary fire is really small so you’ll be using your secondary fire more often than not, which will make it more difficult to defend.As for movement, you can move your ship with the left joystick while you can aim both your secondary as primary fire with the right joystick. Some secondary weapons require you to control your projectiles to the target. This is most likely because these weapons are really powerful. But paying attention to both your ship as the surroundings as well as your enemies just to make the shot, is a real feat.
Killing the most players and winning the rounds doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be crowned the winner automatically. When the game is over, points will be distributed amongst all the participants. This makes it entirely possible for the player who didn’t get a single kill to win the game. A bit of a kick in the nuts to the player who tried their best to avoid debris as well as attacks from aliens and other players, only to have their victory stolen right from under their nose.
Conclusion
In Space We Brawl is a party game, in which the matches will soon erupt into chaos. Focussing is really difficult when there’s so much going on, especially when it is entirely possible for a player to die to the environment. The most hilarious part of playing a match is the ending, where the player who thinks they have won is gloating while the rest of the players burst into laughter. Another player was crowned the winner because they had gained the most achievements for killing the most aliens or blowing up the most meteorites.
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