Project Delta sees you take control of a shuttle craft with the galaxy at your fingertips. Opportunities to trade between planets, mine for resources and become a pirate as you explore the galaxy. But is it worth the trip or is it a wasted journey? Read on to find out.
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There are some comparisons with the classic game Elite. You start with a small craft and must earn money to buy larger ships. In order to earn money there are three methods. Trading resources between the dozen or so planets, mining asteroids requires you to shoot them to a small size then fly over them to collect the resources. Finally there is the pirate method which requires you to attack other ships and disable them, you can then plunder the ship and earn money
Most planets have a store where you can purchase new ships which is essential to progress in the game. A good variety of ships are available and come in various configurations which allow you to build your craft around an attack ship or trading/mining ship design. You can also purchase from a choice of many weapons including lasers, chainguns, rockets and mines which can be attached to your ships turrets or cannons, the number of weapons decided by the configuration of your ship. There are also upgrades available at the ship fitter which allows you to improve your ship such as improved targeting, larger fuel tanks, armour and chargers for your shields.
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This all sounds fine on paper but once you work out the tactics it becomes a very easy task. Trade routes are easy to work out due to there only being a dozen or so planets, resulting in easy earnings early in the game. Mining asteroids is the real cash cow and with no danger you can easily amass a fortune by repeating the process of mining and selling at planets. The pirate route has some dangers but other craft will happily leave you alone until you fire the first shot at them. So you can quite easily play the game and never get into a fight.
The lack of real danger is what spoils the game and it leads to what is essentially a farming game, choose your earning method and rinse and repeat. It is very easy to earn money and as a result you can quickly have a large ship and be invincible. To me the game felt easy and unbalanced and some tweaks to how much you receive from mining in particular is required so you earn much less than you currently do. I would have liked to have seen some mission based tasks such as delivering a package to another planet, with a rival company attacking your ship to try and stop the delivery. This would have added another dimension to the game and more importantly give the game an edge as when your craft is destroyed you start back at the last planet you visited with your all your possessions intact. I would have liked to have seen you start back from scratch if your ship is destroyed.
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There is no real target to completing the game which is fine and has been proven to work in games such as Elite. But you can easily reach the target of purchasing ‘The Boat’ which I presume is the best ship as you unlock an award for doing so. Unfortunately you can earn enough cash to do this in two of hours playing. Once purchased there is nothing else to do apart from earn more cash.
Presentation is done fairly well, the in game menu system works well and everything is clearly presented and easy to navigate. There are some nice touches such as a short description of each planet which helps to familiarise you with the planets. Controls are easy to use and for a game where most of the buttons perform a task, it works very well. Graphically the game is OK, you spend most of your time in space and the galaxy looks good with planets rotating around the sun, colourful asteroid belts and other easily identifiable craft to liven things up. There are a few music tracks which activate when performing tasks such as mining and attacking other craft. They sound good and are not too repetitive.
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Project Delta with some more work could be a great game. As it stands there is around two hours of game time if you play at a reasonable pace. With some tweaks and additions such as the missions and maybe some goals to reach, this could add many more hours and give you a great return on your 240 :MSPoints:. This is a short lived game with lots of potential if it is continued to be worked on.
You can find more information as well as the trial and full versions of the game on the Marketplace.
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