Developer: Team Jolly Roger
Publisher: Team Jolly Roger, Advanced Interactive Gaming
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Worbital – Review
Warfare, in most games this is done on a small scale while in other games you commandeer whole nations, but an idea like having planets destroying each other hasn’t been used in recent memory. Instead of having countries duke it out, you will have a war on a far larger scale. In Worbital, you take the battle to the galaxy and will have planets fighting against each other for resources and the ultimate goal: survival.
Story
The story commences on a planet called Terrene. This planet is suffering from resource deprivation for which immediate actions need to be taken. When the current leaders, Rem, Sane and Lume search through the archives, they find blueprints to colonial machinery from their far ancestors, who once colonized this planet as well. From this information we can presume that the Earth is no longer inhabitable, if it is still there in the first place. Because Terrene is orbiting quite close to the sun, you can assume that many planets already got consumed by this gigantic fireball. In the prologue you develop a Terrene colonizer cannon and send Sane and Lume, your two commanding officers, to take over a nearby planet. However, this is only the beginning as there is a war for survival brewing and some people will stab a knife in your back for the greater good. The story is just amazing and grabs you from the very beginning to the bitter end. The main campaign splits into the three factions of Terrene, Lucid and Celestials and you will go through each faction’s storyline to play the events through their eyes. Overall the flow is just perfect with the story progressing before, during and even after the mission.
Graphics
Worbital uses some very nice hand-drawn graphics to present the game to you. Because the game is set in space, you can expect a dark background with many colorful planets filling your screen. The utilization of several bright color pallets is a good move by the developers because space can be very dark and boring, but when you are firing lasers and cannons that light up the sky and explosions filling the vast nothingness, you get some nice scenes.
Sound
Many will say that in space no one can hear you scream, causing most space trips to be silent or with an eerie soundtrack. Worbital opted for a warmer music that is quite catchy. Given the stress you get from high-risk galaxy battles, it is good that there is a soundtrack that calms you down. Each of the many weapons used in the game possesses unique sound effects, which is very handy when your opponent launches that devastating nuclear missile and you have to respond immediately.
Gameplay
Worbital is a tactical game in which you take warfare to a whole new level. If you ever fantasized about blowing up entire planets, this is your chance. The game starts on the Terrene planet, where leader Rem Amashyo is figuring out a way to sustain life on the planet given that its resources are running out at quite a quick pace. Rem and her commanding officer Sane Armiger find old blueprints from the colonists that originally travelled to Terrene for a better life. Now they re-invent this technology and Rem sends Sane and his right hand Lume to a neighboring planet, starting the campaign of Worbital. You might think that in the galaxy your only enemies are hostile aliens, but you are wrong: none other than your former inhabitants turn against you for their own selfish reasons. Because of the overpopulation some only see a solution in the massacre of many innocent civilians. The campaign mode is split up in three sections: Terrene, Lucid and Celestials. Terrene is the story of the original planet that is searching for a way to improve life and sustainability, Lucid only cares for its own greater good and the Celestials just want peace. Each campaign is played per level, and you may freely switch between the campaigns whenever you want, so you can fully complete a storyline or try to complete each level per faction first.
To finance this warfare, you have various sources of income. Passively, you gain a small amount of funds, which you can increase by attacking planets, refining them on your own or colonizing other moons. With this currency you may invest in building weapons or defensive structures. In the beginning you can only build the basic tier weapons, but after some research and investments, you unlock better and more powerful weapons to destroy the opposition. Building space is divided into eight slots, and as the planet spins around in orbit, you must take into consideration that some weapons will take some time to be able to lock on while others can be used all the time. This mechanic means that you need to keep your eye on many factors and you have to bear in mind that you can hurt yourself due to the gravitational forces that planets have.
Now to win, you must destroy the planet and in order to do so, you must carefully calculate gravitational fields, weapon damage and placement to be able to greatly damage your enemy. To destroy the opposition, you must hit it where it hurts: the planets core. While smaller planets and moons don’t take much to be destroyed, normal planets can withstand a lot more abuse. Another nice feature is that the damage caused by weapons differ depending on the range: at close range everything is very powerful, while the longer shots travel, the less damage they will do. Overall, this game is highly realistic.
The only bad thing we can come up with is the murdering difficulty of the AI. This has been confirmed around the board that the computer-controlled opponents are a bit too good and this will give the game quite a high initial learning curve. However, because of its highly addictive gameplay, you will come back time after time.
Conclusion
Worbital is a highly enjoyable videogame that combines fun mechanics with interesting physics, all in a concept that many could only dream off. Blasting through planets with powerful lasers, nuclear missiles and the impressive storyline will have you playing for quite some time. Although the current AI. is way too powerful, nerfs will probably happen in the future to make the campaign playable for those who rather enjoy a casual experience.
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