““Space Empires V” is a community driven game that puts players’ in total control of their universe,” said Don McFatridge, President of Strategy First. “Malfador Machinations’ are committed to their fans. This game is completely customizable by the players’ themselves. “Space Empires V” will give all space strategy enthusiasts exactly what they want - action, excitement and the ability to make the game their own.”

“We’re thrilled to bring “Space Empires V” not only to fans of the previous games, but to an entire new generation of gamers,” said Aaron Hall, President of Malfador Machinations. ““Space Empires V” is our most beloved title, and our entire team is working hard to stay true to what makes this franchise so great.”

The game is scheduled for release in early 2006.

If you didn't catch our story earlier about Flatspace 2 releasing today then you can head on over there by clicking here. But to go along with the story, we now have four new screenshots in our database. Take a look!

]]> Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:46:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_space_hack_pc http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_space_hack_pc http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_space_hack_pc# This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Chuck Landry.

Space Hack is a new budget-priced hack-and-slash RPG game in the vein of Blizzard’s famous Diablo titles.  Rather than magic and dungeons, Space Hack opts for the futuristic sci-fi setting of a prisoner-filled spacecraft that has crash-landed and being overrun by aliens.

Rebelmind is a small Polish developer, and due to some spotty translation I’m not entirely clear on the storyline for Space Hack.  But as far as I can gather, Maximus XV is a huge cargo ship that transports biospheres.  Now, I’m not sure if these biospheres are prisons or if prisoners simply are put to work on the ship, but the end result is the same nonetheless – the spacecraft is filled with prisoners.  One such prisoner, cruelly named “Space Hack” by his parents, is an ex-military man who must save everyone else when the ship gets sucked in by a black hole and crashes.  Your job is to get through all 15 of the ship’s biospheres (now overrun by alien hordes) and reach the only thing that can save your fellow humans.

For a ship full of inmates, things get organized into a society rather quickly after the crash.  You’ll start off in an enclosure in the middle of a forest environment, where the humans have erected a makeshift headquarters.  From here you’ll receive your quests, find shops and a medic, and use the teleporter to travel quickly back to an area you’ve already been to.  You’ll come back here quite a bit, as it’s the only place to purchase health packs.  You’ll also need to frequently barter for better swords, guns, armor, and other special upgrades because your inventory space is very limited.

Combat is incredibly straightforward.  You can play the entire game with nothing but the mouse and the “H” key for health.  Point and click where you want to go, and click on a target to attack it.  It doesn’t get any simpler than that, folks.

The action is presented in from an overhead view similar to many RPGs that came before.  You can rotate the camera and zoom in and out using a mouse wheel, but the camera is always fixated on Space Hack.  You can choose to attack your enemies with swords, a bow and arrows, or firearms.  There are several variations of each which require you to have different skill levels before you can wield them.  As you stomp forward in the game, beating mercilessly on aliens, you will gain experience and with each level increase you’re given five skill points.  You may choose to disperse them as you wish between Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Knowledge, depending on how you want to focus your skills.

All in all, the creators of Space Hack claim it should last about 50 hours of solid playtime.  Normally that’s a good thing, but in the case of Space Hack, I must say I can’t imagine having to play it for that long.  After less than an hour, I could already tell it was going to be incredibly repetitive (and five more hours didn’t change that impression).  Now, I understand all about retro gaming, “getting back to the roots” of old school gameplay, but some things are better left in the past.  Space Hack is just tedious after 30 minutes.  The entire game seems to consist of pressing forward through horde after horde of bug-like aliens until you run out of health packs, then backtracking to headquarters to sell your excess inventory and stock up on more health packs only to press on a little further.  Repeat ad nauseam.

The controls are actually over simplified.  When all you have to do is click to fight, walk, change weapons, make purchases, etc., it gets old very quickly.  As simple as the controls are, the game is actually still tough, but not in the good way.  Rather than having an actual challenge, say, figuring out a strategy or finding the key to a puzzle, the biggest strain will be on your patience.  It’s just annoying to have to backtrack.  It would have been nice not to need to return to base so often, but you’re never well-enough equipped to advance very far in one run.  They try to alleviate some of that by letting slain aliens occasionally drop items, and you’ll run into field after field of green, pod-like alien incubators that you can strike in the hopes of finding either money or a health pack.  They may as well have made them crates, and we all know no game is fun that makes you bash endless seas of boxes only to find an item in 1 out of 10 of them.

The graphics in Space Hack don’t do anything to advance the genre, either.  They aren’t bad, especially at the maximum resolution.  You’ll see some real-time lighting, full shadows, and some special effects, but the textures are kind of soft looking.  Even with the effects, the game looks like it was made a few years ago.  The polygons that show, for instance, where sand ends and grass begins, are completely flat.  There’s nothing but the drawing on the flat ground texture that changes sand to grass.  Don’t expect bump or normal mapping or any of that flair.  On the plus side, the game was deigned with the intent of being able to run on older machines, and because of that, it should run decently on a system equipped with a GeForce 2. 

I keep trying to remind myself that Space Hack sells for a cheap price at $20.  And at that price, it really isn’t all that bad of a game.  It’s not that it does anything wrong (even the repetitiveness was likely intentional) because it’s not trying to be anything groundbreaking.  Personally, I’m not entertained by its gameplay because it takes little to no focus or attention to play through it.  But where’s the fun in that?  This is probably one I’d only recommend to players with old machines who can’t upgrade and are bored playing web-based flash games.

It’s simple…but too simple.

The graphics aren’t groundbreaking, but they aren’t ugly either.

The squishy sound of pulverizing an alien is cool, but only the first 100 times.

It’s better than hitting a penguin and seeing how far it goes, but not much.

I don’t foresee anybody playing this twice. No multiplayer, either.

]]> Tue, 24 Jan 2006 11:54:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/space_hack_goes_gold http://www.gamebump.com/go/space_hack_goes_gold http://www.gamebump.com/go/space_hack_goes_gold#

“We are very pleased with the North American version of Space Hack. The game was very successful in Europe and we know that with its highly addictive gameplay, it will do very well over here.” said Andrew Sher, CEO at Meridian4, “We are looking forward to its online and retail release in the coming months.”

Space Hack will be available on November 15th, 2005 in all major retail stores at $19.99 and is rated Teen by the ESRB.