The Spatials Review

Welcome to the year 5781, where we need someone to run the space station in the new planet system we’ve just discovered, just like back in 1990 when we needed someone to run Theme Hospital. Will you take that challenge in The Spatials?

Firstly, I am going to apologise if this review seems out of order, or slightly crazy, but unfortunately that's the main impression I got from The Spatials, semi-organised chaos. I promise it won't be as crazy as Saints Row, but it isn't certainly as straight forward as Frogger.

You manage a team of 5 people, all of which seem to have their set skills, namely a Strategist, Scientist, Diplomat, Doctor and Engineer. Respectively, these guys have skills such as shooting, recharging your weapons, immobilizing enemies, healing the team and throwing in grenades. So with the formalities taken care of and a slight background given into the space-based sim, lets crack on with the game and zoom into hyperdrive.

Even with a robot acting as your tutor, I found the whole “build a station” idea complex from the start. Faced with a UI containing so many buttons and no logic as to what order to press them, I breathed deeply in my spacesuit. After several space minutes, I finally constructed a barracks for my team to sleep, followed by a warehouse for all the resources I am told I am going to collect.

You quickly run out of your starting resources and have to explore other nearby planets and complete quests to gain more resources. Other items you gain include tech tree points, which can be spent to expand your knowledge in your society, opening up the opportunity to build more things that you have no idea what they are used for. This concept continues as you learn more, build more, then attract more visitors.

Combining elements of The Sims, Theme Hospital, and possibly a bit of Command & Conquer, in some ways there are too many elements to fit into a game. Usually its great to have a lot of imagination, but in this case, there may be too much which pushes the mechanics of this game out of the solar system, into the unknown.