Ceres Demo

The idea of space doesn’t require a lot of creative work to be portrayed as exciting, because almost everyone sees the cosmos as a magical place filled with possibilities. Hence, space sims need to focus more on the gameplay aspect and let the players take advantage of the freedom. Games like Freelancer and Elite got it right, but they also lacked a few elements that might have made the experience more enjoyable.

Ceres is a combination between what everyone loved about Homeworld, Elite and similar games, with the added benefit of being able to control more than one spaceship at once. Not only that, but it is also possible to customize every ship under your command, together with its crew and the tactics they employ once a battle is imminent.

The game is in both parts a simulator and a strategy flick, because it can hardly fit into one category. As such, while you do have complete freedom to look and go everywhere in the solar system, the movement is done like in a traditional strategy game, by selecting the desired units and clicking on a point on the map. A few RPG elements are included as well, such as NPCs that give you missions, character perks and abilities, as well as a lot of dialog.

Since you have to select a supreme commander for your future ship at the beginning of the campaign, the game provides you with a couple of different choices, such as bounty hunter, gearhead and helmsman. They each come with a different set of attributes and skills, plus a couple of perks that provide you with bonuses in certain situations. Hence, you can choose a specialization right from the start and stick with it.

From a technical point of view, there are a few things that might benefit from a bit of improvement, such as the interface and the camera control, although they are by no means bad. Other than that, the graphics are nice and the environments are quite moody, which is always a good sign in space sims. The only minus is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be all that much content as of yet, level design-wise.

When it’s all said and done, Ceres has what it takes to make it in the big league if the developers keep improving it. Hence, this might be a space sim to keep an eye on in the future, because there aren’t an awful lot of those lately.