For a uncomplicated repetitive game its extremely addictive, maybe thats where simple beauty lies in this game. The atmosphere to the game is great, the graphics look really colorful, the combat is frantic and fun and the universe you explore is massive. Plus you get to unlock tons of cool stuff to have a laugh with.

Awesome top-down shooter space game! Free space to fly with highly customizable spacecraft. Lots of tech-tree skills to upgrade and tons of weapons, ship components, hull to discover. Gorgeous graphic makes combat seem so cool!
Definitely a masterpiece for a 2-man work!

Generally review:
+Gorgeous graphic
+Random generated space system and events
+Highly customizable space ship
+Various skill trees
+Command a whole fleet with tactical view
+Fractions, and more, such as zombies and bounty hunters


超棒的俯視射擊太空遊戲！高自由度的太空世界與完全可自訂的太空船，大量可升級的科技樹技能與多樣武器裝備等待發掘，而精美的畫面讓戰鬥看起來更加酷炫！
以兩人開發的遊戲來看絕對是一款佳作！

簡評:
+精緻畫質
+隨機生成的宇宙星系與事件
+高度可自訂船艦
+多樣技能樹
+使用戰術地圖指揮整個艦隊
+派系勢力，還有殭屍和賞金獵人

完整的中文心得與介紹
http://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Steam/M.1407589912.A.759.html

Delivers that old-school skill based freeflying space shooter gameplay (say that three times fast) just like the developers wanted and manages to combine it with fast paced naval style tactics in a 2 dimensonal battlefield to keep things interesting. On top of that they shift gears at the end game and throw in a light turn based strategy system on top of it.

Resource mangement can be a grind and a drag at times as your progress comes to an almost literal deadstop because your enemies are simply way too strong for you to even make a dent in their armor. Time has to be spent collecting resources to build ships while buttering up the factions for each system you visit for the tech upgrades they have unless you want to blow their stations to pieces so you can just take it instead, either way you're going to have to stop and smell the roses a few times, more than a few if you lose a lot of ships.

The plot is a throwback to the classic days as well, no "deep" triple A slop here, just a decent story to keep the action going with a predictable unfolding if you pay any attention at all and a great ending to lead into the second game which I am now highly anticipating. Overall an excellent title for anyone who likes classic action, tactics and maybe a small sense of conquest and conquering at the same time.

SPAZ is a gmae which I can heartily recommend based on a few short facts.

1. The game's graphics are beautiful with a unique and disticive art style and lots of interesting and diverse weather conditions.
2. The ship designs are distinctive with their own mix of strengths and weaknesses and each has fully customisable loadouts to better suit whatever your style of play.
3. The game is long. Very long in fact but still manages to make each system feel unique and mysterious.
4. I controls are natural and destinctive with hotkeys that allow all sorts of game changing things to occur including ejecting cargo, jettisoning spare crew and releasing the ship's armour all of which improve the handling of the ship.
5. It's cheap and worth every last dime you drop on it.

If you like exploration, space combat and custom ships then you can't go wrong with SPAZ.

When I first got SPAZ, I remember playing about 5 minutes and just not being interested; I never gave it a chance and now I really regret my initial judgements.
Space Pirates and Zombies is a top-down, twin stick style shooter set in a randomly generated solar system. You operate out of a main “mothership” and tackle quests and missions piloting smaller craft alongside AI Wingmen. The combat is difficult, but rewardingly so, and requires thought and sound tactics especially at the later stages of the game. I definitely judged this book by it’s cover when it was first released, but it is certainly no run of the mill twin stick shooter.
The RPG elements are shockingly deep; you gain levels, rescue crew specialists upgrade weapons, collect ship designs, outfit your wingmen, and participate in a simple but very effective economy trading rez (currency), goons (crew) and data (xp).
Visually the art is great, lots of vibrant colors, really unique ship designs, combat effects are satisfyingly meaty, characters are well drawn and the dialogue, while crude, is interesting and humorous.
The only issue I have come across is playing SPAZ via in home streaming. Considering the visual fidelity of the game, it seems like my gaming rig has an abnormally hard time encoding the video of it. I’ve found that using “DirectX Compatibility” and “Capture Mouse” helps make it playable, but there are still numerous visual artifacts and glitching seen on the remote computer.
Overall a brilliant game, and I’m truly looking forward to the sequel!

Space Pirates and Zombies (SPAZ) is a top down space shooter game with a level up system for technology and a rudimentary economy system. The majority of the game is space combat similar to the old multiplayer game “Subspace” but with no power ups (and you kind of design your own ships).

SPAZ technically has a story but you probably won’t pay attention to it for most of the game since you’ll be exploring the galaxy for long stretches between “story missions.” You play part of the crew of the Clockwork, a ragtag mother ship headed for the galactic core to mine precious minerals. Unfortunately the galaxy is mostly controlled by the UTA, a powerful organization kind of like the Empire in Star Wars, except not really evil. The UTA has its own problems though, the colonies are rebelling, and everywhere you go in the galaxy there will be fighting between UTA and colonial warships.

The game’s galaxy is randomly generated when you start a new campaign and is made up of about 100 different star systems randomly connected like a spider’s web (if you’ve played FTL, it kind of looks like that, only much bigger). Each star system has a number next to it, representing the “tech level” of the star system. In practical terms, you can think of this as the “difficulty” of the star system. In order to progress to different stars, you need to somehow unlock them. For example if you go to one star, it might be connected to 2-3 other stars and each of those 2-3 stars has a separate warp gate that needs to be unlocked. You can unlock a gate by either killing all the UTA ships around it, or by bribing the UTA to let you through.

This bribery brings up an important aspect of the game. Every time you enter a star system you are given a relationship status with the colonists and UTA. If you’re hostile to one of the 2 factions, they’ll attack you on sight and you won’t be able to trade with them. To bribe the UTA, you need to be on friendly terms with them. You change your relationship status by taking missions for that faction. For example to raise status with UTA, take missions destroying colony ships (which will lower your colony relationship). The relationships aren’t galaxy wide. You can be friends with UTA in one system and their enemy in the system right next door. You do not get chased from planet to planet no matter how bad your relationship is.

Combat in SPAZ is pretty straightforward. You control one of three ships in your little fleet and can switch freely between them. The mothership stays in a safe place rebuilding your ships if they get destroyed. When enemy (or allied) ships are destroyed, they drop a “blueprint” which you can pick up to unlock that type of ship. Later ships require more copies of the same blueprint. For example to unlock a particular fighter, just destroy it and pick up the blueprint it drops. “Data clusters” dropped by destroyed ships are the “experience” of the game, and you gather those to level up. On level up, you can put skill points into various technologies, such as shields, beams, missiles, etc. This allows you to use more powerful tech (that you have to buy separately). Money in the game is a mineral called rez that you can mine from asteroids or pick up from destroyed ships. The money is used to buy tech from space stations (as long as you’re friendly with that faction). New tech items are actually pretty scarce; you need to make do with your combat skills most of the time.

Pros:
+The game is surprisingly complex. This would be a great game if I had no backlog to keep me going. Years ago when I had not many games to choose from, I would have spent a lot of time on SPAZ.
+There is no difficulty option, but if you’re having a hard time, just go to a lower level star system. There is nothing keeping you from backtracking or skipping entire star systems. Also, very often a star system will have open battles between UTA and colony ships when you are neutral to both factions. You can just sit there in the battle and wait for a ship to be blown up so you can snag the data/blueprints. Obviously this works better on high level star systems where you’re too weak to fight either side by yourself.
+Interesting weapon / defense dynamic. Beams do extra damage to shields, cannons do extra damage to armor, and missiles do extra damage to hull. Your ships can only load 1 or 2 weapon types each so you need to have a nice variety in weapons to be able to take on all enemies. Plus, combat is very fast paced and some weapons are easier to hit enemies with than others (missiles are homing).

Cons:
-As I mentioned above, new tech is few and far between. A star system will probably only be selling 1 item, and it probably won’t be what you’re looking for. And in order to actually buy the item, you need to be friendly with the faction that’s selling it. That means doing missions for them (and ♥♥♥♥ing off the other faction).
-The game is a tremendous grind. The faction relationship thing mentioned above is one example. Another is unlocking additional ships. You have to hunt down and destroy specific ship types to unlock them. Not so hard in the beginning, but in the end these are massive battle cruisers that can easily kick your ♥♥♥. And you need like 10 blueprints to unlock them.
-The technology level up system is weird. You need to save up skill points to unlock higher levels of tech, for example unlocking level 3 missiles requires 3 skill points, level 4 requires 4 skill points. Yet the game will keep nagging you if you try to save the points. If you try to diversify, you’ll end up at a disadvantage. (If you’re playing an RPG, you don’t put a point into every skill).

Overall, I’d give Space Pirates and Zombies a tentative thumbs up. You can sink a lot of time into the game if this is your cup of tea, but for me there’s too much grinding. The pluses outweigh the negatives, but only just barely.

Why are space pirates called space pirates? Because they arrr in space

While I'm a bit late into the game of reviewing SPAZ, writing it anyway couldn't hurt. Space Pirates and Zombies is a action-strategy space shooter with elements of random generation. While you have some control over how random it is, it only serves to increase or decrease the difficulty in the long run.

Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty solid. You pilot your ship around with WASD keys, and shooting your weaponry with the mouse. What makes it special if that you don't point and shoot, but the direction of your ship controls where your shots are. If you place a weapon on the front of your ship, expect it to shoot forward until the higher class ships which have rotating turret mounts that do just that. Even then, anything other than lasers will still need to lead the target, as nothing is hitscan. This makes shooting more skill based.

At the same time, you have to pilot your ship to avoid incoming shots from enemy ships. This ends up leading to dog fight type scenarios where you and your opponent are dodging around each other trying to get a shot in. This is where a lot of the enjoyment of the game is, since a lot of battles will be decided on whether or not you can out-maneuver the AI, especially on higher difficulties when the enemies become too strong to kill in a head-on fight.

As you kill enemies, you can pick up orbs of Data to level up and gain research points. The tech tree is nothing complex, since it is mostly just a direct % increase in damage and other stats for each weapon or ship subsystem. This is however needed, since more powerful versions of equipment are unusable until you level up that system. But before you can even equip something, you must acquire the blueprints of each item. Naturally, higher level equipment requires more blueprints, which can be obtained by the faction bases. Either buy from them, or blow it up and loot the charred remains of the base, if you can.

The Bounty Hunter system adds in some extra challenge to the mix, if you choose to allow them to spawn. Killing enemies within their territory increases the bounty on your head. Eventually, if left unchecked, the hunters will come after you in an attempt to collect that bounty. The higher your bounty, the higher the chance. You also have the chance to be extorted on the way out of one of their systems. Failure to pay and you'll need to fight them off. You'd think this would increase your bounty further, but instead gives you respect, which lowers the bounty. If the bounty falls into the negative, you start to gain respect points. This acts as a buffer before you will start accumulating a bounty, and ensures you won't be attacked until you drain all of your respect.

Another way to gain respect, as well as money and Data, is to fight in arena matches set up by the hunters. As you progress, harder challenges are unlocked, each with 3 difficulties. If you want to avoid ambushes every are or two, you may want to take advantages of these arena matches. They can even be repeated for a lesser reward if you are out of fresh fights. And if you really have no other option, you can pay your bounty off yourself. As a whole, this system adds more challenge to the game, which is welcome when not playing on the highest difficulty.

There's much more to gameplay, but I don't wish to drag on. So I'll end with one major flaw I found, and that mostly comes with the late game. If you fail to kill one of the smallest ships but weakened it to critical health, it will flee. For several thousand feet. If you don't switch to a small ship of your own that is just as fast, it will get away, and you'll spend minutes at a time waiting for it to come back. This becomes a huge pace breaker, and sometimes even causes you to be put in more difficult situations in the late game, when enemies can spawn just by you staying in an area for long. Maybe if they would retreat from battle, leaving the area entirely, this wouldn't be an issue.

Story: The setting is that of a far future, and space travel has advanced to that of colonizing other star systems. This is mostly thanks to the currency of the game, Rez. This subtance is mined from deposits floating in space to craft vessels. In order to become rich, many set off to mining colonies to gather as much Rez as they can. Legend also has it, there is a grand deposit in the center of the universe. This deposit is what our protagonists are looking for. The only problem is getting there. Warp gates between star systems are guarded by the UTA, the police space force, essentially. Not only this, but the grand warp gates to the planets near the center are locked down tight. A nice twist comes in the zombie part of the title, which you discover upon finally reaching these center systems. I'd elaborate, but I don't wish to spoil it.

Graphics: I care very little for graphics as long as they are serviceable. Meanwhile, SPAZ has great graphics. Each ship looks nice, if simple at times, and the lighting is bright and colorful.

Sound: The music of the game mostly boils down to ambient noise, but there are a few tracks here or there that are enjoyable. Cutscenes are also narrated by TotalBiscuit, who does a fine enough job. Though even he says he did terribly, and it is clear enough that he could have done better if he tried. The sound effects are all well and good, meanwhile. Each weapon has its own shot sound effects, and the sounds of another ship being hit are clear to hear. But after awhile, hearing the pew pew pews of the game gets old.

Overall, the game is a terrific time. It serves as a challenge when it needs to, and is just pure fun to shoot stuff in space. I'd recommend this to anyone who thinks they might enjoy this when shown any gameplay.

Overall a great game.

Personally, I like to play games while I drink (hey, it keeps the replayability factor up when I forget :-P), watch Netflix and BS with buddies. This game is great for that in the sense that I can step away from it while it's running and not come back to a dead toon or missed out on something extremely important. Also (bonus points) if I get a little too far gone, chances are good that I again didn't miss something that I can't look back on the log to figure out what happend. I think this game may have been made specifically for me.

I love leveling up. I love keeping an eye on resources. I love the discovery aspect. I love upgrading and discovering new weapon/ship models. Oh and there's a fun storyline with multiple characters. The best part is that each one of them are friggin pricks! I hate dainty little do-gooders when it's a universe they just wouldn't survive in. Every character I've come across in this game thus far has been such a friggin @sshole and I love it!

I can't wait until SPAZ 2 comes out if it's anything like the original!

Play it, or don't. No one likes you anyway.

I've played through this game several times. I originally bought it on sale through Amazon.com, long before they added the Bounty Hunters to it. I purchased my Steam version when it went on sale recently, just for the added joy of getting the achievements. I mention this to note that my hours in game are far more than my Steam account suggests.

This game is actually fairly simple to play and even master. Though the graphics look awesome, they are just 2D, which makes the game run fast and smooth. The controls are easy, and the galaxy is totally customizable in terms of size and difficulty. Obviously, the game has some replayability value, since I've played all the way through at least 3 times, collecting all the tech I could find each time. For me, this is one of those games where I don't come back for a while after playing through it, but when I just want to blow something up, I can come back and be pretty close to my old skill level.

Be warned: the story and writing are kind of weak. I haven't looked too hard for mods that might help improve this aspect of the game. I just wanted anyone expecting a grand space opera to be aware. The game's charm lies in the concept and ease of the controls.

If the game goes on sale, I'd highly recommend it to people who like top-down, sci-fi shooters, as well as those who like RPG style build-up-my-force-as-I-go games. The

Great game

Worth every hour of playing. If you are into simple not complicated 2D space shooters it's game for you. There's a lot of humor mainly in text (unfortunately) but it won't make this game worse.

• fully customizable ships. You can equip your ship as you like it: (engines, armor, energy shield, any weapon slot, add-ons, crew)
  
• every ship in this game is different and almost all obtainable so you won't fly with the same thing until you find the best one
  
• easy controls, use WSAD and mouse (Yes you control ship by yourself) ;]
  
• not enough resources, or crew? No problem destroy UTA, Civilian station. You also don't have to buy technology from any station, you are the pirate ARRRRRRR :D
  
• fight like gladiator with your ship in Bounty Hunters arena

I like the zombie infection idea it reminds me Beast from Homeworld: Cataclysm.

Overall 9/10

Best game I've played in a lonnnnng time. Extremely engaging, genuinely funny.

oh.

I haven't completed the story mode yet (only 21 hours into it so far and I haven't even started fighting zombies yet), but I can already say the game is definitely worth buying.

While the story feels a bit cheap in places though sometimes interesting, dialogues feel childish a lot of the times, Total Biscuit admitting to being a bad narator for this particular game (though I can't say he was terrible at it), and the enemy flying away preventing you from killing them is really annoying making a simple small battle take forever to complete (usually resulting in you changing ships just so you can keep up with it and kill it), and among other little flaws the game has... it's a great game. Where this game really shines is the gameplay itself. You can try out a lot of different ships, which they do actually feel like different ships with completely different hardpoints and options. Some ppl think the balance is a little off, but I disagree for the most part, losing ships once in a while is to be expected which is why you have resources to make more in the first place, plus, if you stay in the "green" leveled areas (or yellow if skilled), you never have to worry about being overpowered by stronger enemies. I also like the fact that the more skilled of a player you are, the more chances you can take by going in the more difficult areas of the world (so you can either take your time and not have much difficulty or you can go hardcore on it and fight enemies way stronger than you and complete the game much faster).

Even at full price, I highly recommend this to anyone who is into this kind of game.

Fun and suprisingly deep

I think the name SPAZ actually make the game seem less than it actually is. The zombie aspect of the game is more like Homeworld Cataclysm than another dumb zombie shooter game. The game itself is very solid and to a point very satisfying with all the ship customization and upgrades available to the player. The little downside is, in my opinion, that it drags on a bit towards the end of the game and tends to be quite repetetive. Nevertheless, I recommend it to anyone who likes solid sci-fi games and doesn't necessarily want all the drama and weight of a AAA title.

Spess Zombies.

They live in spess. They like to nom things, not least of all your brains. At least, I'm assuming its your brains they want, cause when they get in yer ship you dunno really what them zombies are up to.

They're sneaky like that.

Also wow, is spess a busy place. Floating signs, bodies, starships everywhere, and everyone almost hates you. Almost. There's always that one guy that's like "Hey I remember you, yer that hot girl with them... or the guy with that... awesome ship." Yeah. Yeah I am. Maybe.

You don't know.

Spess Zombies.

Fun game, reminds me of the Escape Velocity games back in the 90's. Great Mod support and community on the games official webpage. Cannot wait until the sequel.

If you were playing FTL and thought to yourself, "This is great, but I need... MORE" Then Spaz is the game for you.

If you were playing Gratuitous Space Battles and thought to yourself, "This is boring, I need... MORE" Again, Spaz is the game for you.

I want to stop playing it, but I can't. I have to conquer the galaxy, pirate-style. Incredibly addicting, and like FTL, ignore any and all dialogue. It's cute, but that's about it.

For $2, it's a must-have. For $10, you'll still get your money's worth. I give it an FTL out of GSB.

Is a good game