I think it's been about 6 years since I played the original Space Pirates and Zombies. I played it over the span of a few months, starting multiple games, getting bored before I finished any, but then coming back to play some more a while after. It definitely wasn't one of my favorite games at the time, nor now of course, but I still played it a considerable amount.
So I was a little bit sad seeing its sequel, Space Pirates and Zombies 2 in Early Access with bad reviews, but I decided to hold off on playing it until it got out of Early Access. I don't know how long ago that was now, but it doesn't matter. The game has come out, it's reviews have considerably improved, and I had just rolled it from my list to give it a try.
As much as I'd love to just get to the comparison between the two games, I feel a brief description of what the game is is in order. I do know that all those years back I was thrown off by the name of the game, as neither pirates nor zombies were (and still aren't) really up my alley. Luckily, the title mislead me. SPAZ is basically just a half sandbox, half spaceship fighting game. You start off with a pathetic piece of space garbage, and you fly around mining, trading, fighting, and pillaging to keep getting stronger. The game has an open environment (or "world"), a randomly generated map, enemies, stations, and parts, making it reasonably much a space sandbox.
When I entered SPAZ 2, I expected at the very least the same enjoyment I'd get from starting up the original after all this time. So when it had been a couple of hours, and I wasn't really feeling it, I stopped to think why. Clearly my first thought was that this sequel is just worse. However, maybe it was just my mind making the past better than it was. So I took another look at the first game, and tried to see where along the lines they might have messed up to ensure I wasn't just biased.
The first difference anyone would notice, is that SPAZ 2 is in 3D. This might have made a world of difference, if the gameplay were not so sadly still locked onto a 2D plane. I would assume this was intended as a visual improvement, and while I can't say it failed, I can surely say that not only was the effort not worth it, it was overall a negative, since the gameplay suffered due to it. The third person camera made navigation and recognition difficult, and on top of that, I had no idea if my shots were going to reach the target, or if I could/should move further/closer.
The shooting problem was "fixed" by an automatic fire mode that just shot at anything in range, prioritizing your attack target. This fire mode was so efficient I would be severely gimping myself if I decided to switch to manual instead. The downside? That is literally half of the fun of the combat portion of the game, ruined. I had been demoted to just being a pilot.
Further, it would seem like there is just less content overall. Less items, ships, possibilities... More time spent in the less fun map view. Some awkward ship-building system, that, while giving me more options, also made progress feel a bit more hollow. It's just not an improvement over the original, and if you ask me, it really should be.
If anything I wrote sounds like fun, go try SPAZ instead of it's sequel. While I can't say the original was super exciting, captivating and all that, especially now due to its age, the sequel is just a downgrade, and not worth your time.
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