Pluto Space Quest

Traveling to other planets is still a rather distant dream, although we are getting closer every day. However, if we do manage to get there one day, it would most likely not involve solid fuel rockets, because we would either need an awful lot of it in order to make it, or we would need a lot of time to get there without it, like Voyager and other space probes did until now.

Pluto Space Quest is a casual simulator which allows you to see whether you’ve got what it takes to make it to Pluto, which is now regarded as just a regular brown dwarf at the outskirts of the Solar system. Naturally, whether Pluto is a planet or not is of no importance to you, because the distance is the same and you’ve got to make it there using only a rocket and your skills as a pilot.

The difficult part is not the journey itself, however, because anyone can just accelerate and keep a straight up trajectory until you reach the destination (although that is obviously not the case in real inter-planetary travel). Instead, the game challenges you to make it before the fuel runs out and by avoiding a variety of objects on your way there, which is much easier said than done.

Naturally, it would get boring to just keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same rocket, which is why the game puts a wide variety of upgrades at your disposal. In fact, without these upgrades, your ship is barely able to make it past the first few checkpoints. Besides the engine, you can also upgrade the body, the booster, and the head of the rocket. You can also increase the amount of fuel the ship can carry, as well as a few other helpful gimmicks.

As far as the technical aspect is concerned, the game holds its own, and you can really have fun with the slightly realistic physics engine that governs the movement of the rocket. As such, steering is quite difficult to achieve and it is pretty much impossible to do anything once you run out of fuel, because the ship goes into freefall and every command you give is useless.

In the end, Pluto Space Quest can be tons of fun under the right circumstances, although it doesn’t take too long to unlock the best upgrades and complete the challenge. However, it looks and feels great, so you can at least enjoy the experience while it lasts.