In case my slew of articles from PAX Prime hasn’t already made it evident, I was a little busy this year. I had a full plate full of scheduled appointments, but that didn’t stop me from searching out other cool looking games. Such a game was StarCrawlers, by Juggernaut Games.
Let me preface this by saying I love old-school games, be they platformer, racer, brawler, puzzle or RPG. That said, StarCrawlers is not an old-school RPG per se, but rather one influenced by them. The mechanics are a mix of old and new, and the polish is great. The game looked quite pretty when I played it, sort of a mix between Half Life and Final Fantasy in terms of execution. You navigate in first-person perspective, able to look around your environment, and when you encounter enemies it switches to turn-based fun. The game uses the mouse and keyboard very well, and once I got the controls down it was super intuitive.
As you navigate, foes will appear on-screen and hunt you down. Once in combat, by using the mouse you can select from a variety of attacks to incapacitate them and take them down. In the PAX build, I mostly faced off against menacing robots, who did their best to tear me apart with gunfire and missiles. I was able to select from 8 classes, and ended up with an interesting team. One of the more noteworthy characters, the Hacker, could charm foes mechanical and living. Another, an engineer of sorts, could pick locks that got in my way.
Which brings us to another facet I liked – the game is constantly providing branching options. Stuck at a door? You can blow it open, melt the control panel or hack it. Each has pros and cons, and your decisions seem to have immediate consequences.
Though I’m sure there will be other features and classes in the final build, the game already seems pretty packed with content. Which is good news, since Early Access rolls around November of this year! I was really impressed with StarCrawlers, and look forward to seeing what the final build plays like. Until then, enjoy this lovely trailer.
