ELEMENT SPACE

It’s your turn to save the galaxy

Three years after the end of the Galactic War, there is a fragile peace. But when that calm is shattered by a deadly terrorist group calling itself Tempest, Captain Christopher Pietham (that’s you) and his small chosen squad of brave comrades must fight to protect the entire galaxy from catastrophe. Luckily, they have super-powerful space guns – and lots of them.

As a turn-based combat game, most of Element Space’s action takes the form of head-to-head confrontations with the enemy on a grid space. Each member of Captain Pietham’s team is equipped with different skills, and during fights you need to call on their strengths to turn the battle in your favour. The eight recruitable companions all have discrete skill trees, allowing you to pick the right one for the job at hand. Likewise with 32 weapons you’re able to select the appropriate tool for the job too.

Each round grants every character two action points – one primary, one secondary. These allow you to make one attacking move (for example, firing your weapon) and to reposition a team member behind new cover objects (all of which offer varying levels of protection) to improve your situation. The turn-based system works well and provides ample opportunity for strategic thinking, but it doesn’t really offer anything new to the RTS genre.

MAKE YOUR MOVE

Between battles you’re able to move around levels, pointing and clicking to get your squad to run in the direction you want. Unfortunately, this system is slow and frustrating, and something that could easily have been rectified by allowing use of the analogue stick to control your fighters.

Alongside the action you’re given occasional dialogue options. These moments allow you to form the values Pietham holds and, as a result, shape the Galaxy’s view of him. Do you want to be pro-debate and democracy? Or do you favour the way of bullets?

Sadly, there is no voiceover, although a decent sciencefiction soundtrack does swell and fall in line with the action unravelling on screen. It’s just about enough to mitigate the missing voice track.

And really that’s Element Space all over: by no means a bad game, but one that offers little in the way of ambition or unique ideas.

VERDICT

Transposes the turn-based shooter into a futuristic setting competently, but ultimately is far from essential. For genre completists only. Rebecca Stow