Roth’s Obsession of the Week

This week I’ve been playing FTL: Faster Than Light, the popular Indie game available on Steam.  Imagine being deep in a Nebula; you’ve just found a Sun nearby, when suddenly a pirate ship comes out of nowhere and starts lighting you up.  Your shields are down, your weapons are malfunctioning and your sensors go out.  Your ship is pitch black and you get a solar flare warning.  Everything shakes and guess what! Your oxygen generators have caught on fire.  Well… Good luck!!

Pros

I’m not playing WoW anymore because, you know, real life… so unfortunately my time for playing video games is limited to laying in bed trying to fall sleep after a long day of work and school.  FTL is a perfect game for any similar lifestyle because its a good throw back to the days of the arcade.  If you do really well you might push an hour for one play, but good luck.  Another great thing about FTL is that its only $9.99, when its not on sale.  I’ve seen it for as little as $2.49.

Cons

Yes the graphics are 2D Pokemon style, get over it.  Oh, and it’s stupid difficult. (Not really a con for me personally.)

Gameplay

FTL drops you right into the action in sector one of eight with some fuel, a couple missiles, and a crew of three.  You have some systems and subsystems:

• Engines
• Shields
• Med-bay
• Oxygen
• Weapons
• Piloting
• Sensors
• Doors

You can spend spare scraps you find from encounters to upgrade your power reserve and each system.  You can also get Drone Control to have drones to attack/repair, etc. and Teleport to allow your crew to board an enemy ship.

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Begin jumping way point to way point and you’ll encounter many different situations: a pirate ship to fight, random drones that are looking for you, slaver ships, planets, space stations, stores, fueling stations, asteroid fields, tricks, and just about anything else you’d expect to run into in StarTrek.  Upgrades, equipment, and crew gained earlier on  in FTL can unlock new options for dealing with a situation.

If you do well you’ll work your way to the eighth sector where your home base is located. Once you arrive you have 5 jumps to stop the last boss, a very large, very scary ship out to kill you and destroy your home base.

Find FTL on Steam, and if you see it on sale don’t pass it up (like I did for the longest time).  Buy FTL, it won’t disappoint.