Gratuitous Space Battles

 iOS
Metascore
tbd

No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
Buy Now
Stream On
  1. TouchArcade
    May 16, 2012
    80
    Worth obsessing over if you love numbers, tactics, collecting and crafting.
  2. 148Apps
    Apr 16, 2012
    80
    The gameplay manages to be deep yet accessible, and will draw the player in for hours.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
tbd

No user score yet- Awaiting 3 more ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. RandomLetters27
    Apr 4, 2014
    10
    This is exactly the strategy game I needed.
    Immersive but not frantic, consuming my thoughts when I'm not playing, it places me in the role    This is exactly the strategy game I needed.
    Immersive but not frantic, consuming my thoughts when I'm not playing, it places me in the role of calculating fleet admiral, watching all my careful preparations shred my laughable foes, or crumble into ruin as all hope slips away due to some unforgivable flaw in my grand design.

    The concept here is that you design the ships that you take into battle, arrange them and issue high-level orders, and then turn your fleet loose against the enemy. The battle then unfolds with the ships maneuvering and firing for themselves, based on the weapons and systems you gave them, and the types of target priorities you assigned. The result is that battle highlights your choices and ship designs more than clicking around and micromanaging. There is plenty of micromanaging to do with ship design and pre-battle orders, and it is the unleashing of that careful planning that provides the main interest, triumph, and occasional wide-eyed disappointment as you realize that it's time to go back to the drawing board and add some new offensive or defensive module to your ship designs. Though it's far from a perfect comparison, I would liken the feel of this intensely strategic yet hands-off-in-the-thick-of-it battle system to the feel of one of the favorite games of my youth, Ogre Battle. Watching your hand-crafted fleet perform brilliantly brings pride and satisfaction in your personal armada.

    As you complete missions against AI fleets, you are challenged to replay those missions with smaller, more efficient fleets to earn Honor points, which can be used to unlock new modules for ship design, which will offer new types of weapons, defenses, engines, crew quarters, etc and allow you to design even better fleets to meet new challenges, and so on. This collecting/unlocking/customizing mechanic was a big draw for me.

    Different missions present different challenges and variables that will cause you to custom-design new ship types to adapt and take on specific roles. Survival missions offer a lengthier test of your best fleet composition, pitting you against endless waves of enemies in a quest for high scores before your inevitable demise. This endgame content really challenges your command of the game's systems and tactics.

    Graphics are detailed 2D with beautiful backdrops, great variety of ship designs among diverse alien species, and wonderful weapon effects that really place you in the thick of a vicious (gratuitous?) space battle.

    If you are the type of space admiral who wants to contemplate the merits of how best to clear a path for your armored beam-cruiser while fending off fast-moving enemy fighters long enough to move your long-range missile frigates into position without enemy countermeasures disrupting their guidance systems, and you want your success to be visibly conveyed in bright laser flashes and concussive explosions, then this is the game for you.    … Full Review »