Beyond Space Review
PROS
- Tight dog fights
- Customisable controls
- Good range of ships and upgrades
CONS
- Awful voice acting
- Dreadful story
- Made our iPhone 5S uncomfortably hot
VERDICT
Beyond Space puts all of its eggs in the wrong basket, focusing on it hackneyed story rather than its enjoyable combat.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
The game which Beyond Space wants to be and the game which Beyond Space actually is are two entities light years apart. Developer Bulkypix clearly intended to make an expansive space drama filled with intergalactic and interpersonal conflict. What they actually made was a good space shooter, weighed down by an overly verbose story and horrible voice acting.
Max Walker, the star of Space Beyond, is an unfortunate soul. Despite being a talented fighter pilot, he is the ugliest man in the galaxy with nonexistent interpersonal skills. This is never directly stated, of course, but the horrible 2D character art, stilted voice acting, and dreadful dialogue fill in most of the blanks.
Max is not the game's only charm vacuum. Most of the characters and dialogue suffer from the same lacklustre voicework, padding out cut scenes that add nothing to the actual game. Between every mission, and halfway through many, the action pauses as the overblown story plays out in toe-curling fashion.
It's a shame, because when Beyond Space abandons its misguided attempts at being an epic space odyssey worthy of Kubrick himself, it reveals itself as a good space shooter.
The combat sections, which involve piloting a starship through hostile space, are incredibly responsive, offering a good range of configurable controls for all players. Vast and attractive arenas offer a host of objectives, most of which revolve around fast-paced dogfights that utilise all of your ship's manoeuvrability, thrusters, and weapons. The only ability conspicuous by its abscence was a brake control, leaving us rocketing past enemies we were pursuing rather than sitting on their tails.
Starting with a single craft, you quickly unlock multiple upgrades and a host of new fighters. While these can be purchased through IAPs, each completed mission unlocks plenty of new upgrades to keep you advancing and interested without the need to invest.
Beyond Space's 16-mission campaign offers more than enough of the good stuff to keep you coming back. You just have to ignore all the fluff around it that detracts from the overall experience.
Screenshots
$2.99
