Spacepunk Survival is a first-person shooter, in the style of early Doom or Wolvenstein, set on the Lapetus Station, a facility overrun with alien creatures.

Spacepunk Survival is a first-person shooter, in the style of early Doom

There is no story as such, and the station just provides a backdrop to an arena shooter.

The objective of the game is simple, survive wave after wave of aliens. It can be played as a solo or as multiplayer, though I couldn’t find anyone to play with. The game apparently scales the difficulty depending on the number of players.

You have a HUD which details things like health, which secondary special weapon you have, as well as how much money you have made with each kill. This can be traded in for better weapons and ammo.

The area is fairly large with rooms to explore. The environment is quite dark creating a feeling of claustrophobia. The colour palate uses mostly blues and greens, except for the monsters which are mostly an unusual shade of brown.

Talking of which, they appear very two dimensional. Not sure why, as early versions of Doom were able to give the impression of three-dimension opponents.

Gameplay is further complicated by the fact that as you run and blast, the stations central power source will decide to overheat, which gives you only a limited time before it blows and takes both you and the aliens out.

The dark corridors and rooms pay homage to a retro-futuristic aesthetic

The games dark corridors and rooms pay homage to a retro-futuristic aesthetic, providing a similar ambiance and experience of much older games.

Without a story and without online players to engage with, Spacepunk is reduced to killing wave upon wave of aliens to buy better gear to go round and do it all again.

5

Charles Packer