Infinite Space Message Board

Before FTL became the short-form sci-fi adventure of choice for the discerning PC enthusiast, Digital Eel had set up a very effective stall in that particular sector of the internet. The Infinite Space games are among the few ‘coffee break’ games that I’ve ever played during actual breaks from work, back in the days when I sat in an office and pretended to be interested in the kind of water cooler conversations that could drive a man to dehydration. News of a third game is welcome and it has the perfect subtitle: Sea of Stars. Digital Eel are seeking $30,000 via Kickstarter and have had a decent start to their campaign.

(more…)

Before we fell in love with FTL, we fell in love with all sorts of other things that involve spaceships and random encounters, because we’re the sort of chaps who crave excitement and reckon that spending your entire life on one planet is cowardly. Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is the second game I thought of when I first read about FTL – Space Alert was the first – and although most of the similarities don’t quite penetrate to the hull, the randomised galaxy, node-hopping and portion-sized play are common to both. Weird Worlds fits a coffee break rather than a lunch break and isn’t permeated with anxious doom, but it’s worth a look. Particularly for the next 85 hours when it is available at a price of your choosing at IndieGameStand.

(more…)

When we review a game without finishing it, we call it a Snap Judgment. Read why here.
Time played: 3 hours

Portable games are often expected to be light, short-session experiences that you can jump into at any time, understand immediately, and play for minutes at a time. Infinite Space is not that at all. It is a deeply complex RPG with several interacting systems, all wrapped in a not-too-friendly interface. In fact, it's pretty much as baroque as you would expect a game about leading fleets of spaceships of your own design to be.

There's a lot to learn about playing Infinite Space, as evidenced by the fact that Sega has made a second tutorial video for the Platinum Games space RPG.

This video teaches one of the most important techniques in the game: skipping battle scenes. Every action in a ship battle is accompanied by a long sequence in which crew members call out what they're doing and prepare whatever kind of action is to be deployed. It's dramatic, and it lends the game a very "spaceship anime" feel -- but it also takes a long time. So, yeah, you can skip that after the first couple of times.

The tutorial also covers crew battles and, strangely, recalibrating your touch screen.

A portion of a Eurogamer review… At 60-80 hours in length, and given the fittingly near-infinite customisability of your fleet, Infinite Space offers a massive chunk of fun for those who can forgive its foibles, but many will find the barriers to real enjoyment too high due to poor usability. A solid game for many rainy [...]

Did you pick up Infinite Space yet? The DS spaceventure was released from its docking station by Platinum Games yesterday, and so far the reviews are actually better than we expected. We've got two more launch trailers to share with you: one above which seems to be the intro to the game (complete with Star Wars-style crawl and the weird narration we've come to expect from this game); and another after the break which will walk you through the game's battle tutorial.

If you've tried the game out, let us know what you think below. The battle system seems different and the story isn't supposed to be too bad, either. You wouldn't think that an infinite void of open space would have that much going on, but maybe it's worth a shot.

In space, no one can hear your grind.

Yuri chronicles his adventures, and two new videos from Platinum Games' latest.

The folks at Platinum Games give us some essential info for the upcoming RPG.

The captain of the Albatross quickly chats about what it's like to command his first ship.

Ready to leave your boring home planet and take off on a grand, spacefaring adventure in your very own spaceship? Like, with a crew and everything? Sega has issued the North American release date for Platinum Games and Nude Maker's Infinite Space for DS. You'll be able to build onto your spaceship, engage in space battles and do other space things on March 16. There's a new trailer above -- not as far above as space, just at the top of this post.

For some reason, every game from Platinum has been released in the first quarter of the year -- MadWorld in March 2009, Bayonetta in January 2010, and now Infinite Space in March. Will Vanquish debut in Q1 2011?

Take command of various ships and join the struggle for galactic domination.

Infinite Space, the upcoming DS space RPG from Platinum Games, has gotten itself a European release date in the form of March 26th (or as you might call it in Bangladesh, "Independence Day").

Strangely, we still haven't heard an official US date yet -- the closest we've got is Spring 2010, which despite all of the snow you might be seeing lately, is approaching quite quickly. Assuming that the EU and US dates aren't too far off from each other, by the end of March you too might be saying, "I'm... in space!" just like the wince-worthy voice acting we've experienced so far.

SEGA shows off Platinum Games interstellar DS offering with full English voice-over for the very first time.

The latest trailer for Platinum Games's latest, Infinite Space, features some brief clips of the shipbuilding and space combat elements of the RPG's gameplay. It also features voice acting. Yes, those are human voices speaking lines of dialogue from the game. We don't want to make any judgments about the quality of the voice acting, but we can confirm that it is, in fact, voice acting. On an unrelated topic, we'd like to talk about the Nintendo DS's volume slider (and the DSi's rocker switch). Isn't it great how the volume can go all the way down? Why, with the volume minimized, you could enjoy all kinds of interesting games, even if there's some kind of audio issue!

Platinum's DS game hits the US soon. Have a look at the latest footage.

Follow the story of Yuri, a young crewman that journeys the galactic frontier in this and slowly moves up the ranks to become captain of his own spaceship fleet. Using hundreds of blueprints and modules, players will build and customize a huge array of space ships and have over 100 crewmen to recruit. Players will battle their way through space to become the strongest fleet in the galaxy while exploring new planets and solar systems.

Plus one reason we're skeptical.

- 100 unique ship schematics in all - separate modules (rooms), weapons and crew can all be managed - fill your ship with different facilities like engine rooms and research laboratories - over 150 recruits for your crew - each crew member has their own unique backstory, personality, stats and skills - money and reputation levels allow you to recruit [...]