Cellblock Squadrons

People who break the law are usually imprisoned and sentenced to spend a certain amount of time behind bars, deprived of their freedom. However, that doesn't mean they become completely useless to society, since there a variety of ways they can contribute to the outside world, except if they are truly dangerous and no one would risk giving them access to anything outside the prison walls.

Cellblock Squadrons is a fast-paced space sim that presents a different take on the subject, as well as a more interesting view on the prison situation. You also get to pilot a variety of spaceships and wage war on a powerful alien race, using deadly futuristic weapons and plenty of courage to do so. However, that doesn't make you any less guilty of the crimes you've committed back on Earth, it just decreases your overall debt.

In order to know what these crimes are, you need to pay attention to the plot, which explains everything as you go along. For starters, it talks about how all the nations on Earth came together under one single state, in an attempt to better organize themselves against the alien threat that loomed over them. Despite that, there were still rebels that fought against the unification and continued to do so even after it was already too late. Your character happens to be one of these rebels and the punishment for them is to become a pilot and lead the somewhat suicidal fleet that greets the aliens when they try to attack Earth.

As you get into the game and the auto-pilot is deactivated, you immediately notice that the controls are very sensitive and they require good reflexes in order to be able to control and steer the ship properly. Whenever enemies enter the equation as well, it becomes even more difficult to properly follow them around and shoot them down, considering the fact that there is no up or down and every direction is open at any given time.

On the other hand, you quickly get used to it after a few minutes of practice, not to mention the fact that you are rarely alone and there are a couple of wingmen always joining you in the mission. Thus, they can absorb some of the damage, as well as deliver a few hefty blows to the alien ships, in order to make it easier for you to bring them down as quickly as possible and with minimal losses.

Overall, Cellblock Squadrons is definitely not a brilliant game, but it does manage to be different from the rest of the pack and deliver a slightly unique experience. Moreover, it looks rather well from a visual point of view, even if most of the environments are actually bright spots and far away planets.