Cosmoteer

One thing the gaming industry is not lacking right now is more space sims, especially since some of them have huge budgets that would make entire countries feel small. On the other hand, the most important part is to make space feel as big as it really is, and one way to achieve that is by letting players do what they want and encouraging exploration.

Cosmoteer is a top-down space sim with retro graphics, in which you are free to tackle the vastness of space as you see fit. In essence, the whole thing is about building ships from scratch, upgrading them with better parts and using them to defeat enemies. The gameplay is also focused on the crew that runs your spaceships and keeps everything on track.

As mentioned before, you can build your ships using various modules, and better modules become available later on. Naturally, they cost a lot of money, so it’s important to complete missions and hoard resources. On the other hand, you can also play in the creator mode and take advantage of unlimited money to build any kind of ship you want.

The whole ship requires a pretty big crew in order to operate, and every one of them has a specific role in the grand scheme of things. The AI is actually very well-designed, especially since sometimes there are hundreds of simulated people working together. As far as the combat is concerned, the result is affected by the quality of your weapons, as well as their placement in regards to the ship.

Lastly, you shouldn’t expect an awful lot in terms of graphics, but you can tell that the designers have put quite a bit of effort into the tiles and the backgrounds. Every part of the ship has a different look, and it’s nice to see everything come together neatly at the end. The particle effects are a nice touch too, and the soundtrack is not terrible either.

In the end, it’s surprising that Cosmoteer doesn’t get more praise, especially since it features such a refined set of gameplay mechanics and more than enough new ideas. Hence, it deserves a try if you are a fan of space sims.