Games worth discovering

KSP2 is not where it needs to be currently

1K View2023-02-27

Kerbal Space Program 2 (Reviewed)

Developer: InterceptGames

Publisher: PrivateDivision

Released: 24 Feb, 2023

Price: $49.99 USD

Kerbal Space Program 2 is an Early Access space flight simulator that grants you complete control over your own space program, allowing you to build your own space ships and vehicles to explore the stars in any way you see fit.

It's a remake as well as a sequel, but the most intriguing feature of this is what the game has to offer in the future. Sadly, it is significantly lacking in many ways.

I'd like to emphasize that this game is more about your own creativity than an adventure. It's really niche compared to most average games, and not many people would completely appreciate or value the experience it can provide.

The space program has a lot of realism to it, which will be highly enjoyable for individuals who are interested in space engineering or astronomy.

How good is it?

It's not great but it's better

I don't want to compare too much between these games, as they are so similar yet so different from each other. KSP2 is currently merely a sandbox mode nothing more.

If you want content, you should play the original Kerbal Space Program, which has actual gameplay and allows you to set goals for progression or go nuts with sandbox mode. The only true difference between these games is the graphics, which aren't even fully optimized to run at the desired settings. It's flawed in many ways than one.

Missing or changed features

It's severely lacking a lot of the fundamental features that the original game has because they're adding them over time, or so they claim to be.

I can see where it's heading, but unless you're a really huge fan and don't mind shelling out and supporting the development then I would wait for a while.

Things to do

Build

In sandbox mode, you have complete control over your space shuttles, ground vehicles, and aero planes. If you're satisfied with how they look, you may perform a test launch to ensure you accomplished everything right.

If you failed or missed something, that's where you learn and try again, by adding the missing components and setting it up for another test flight / drive.

Edit Pre-Builds

If you're not the creative kind, you can also make minor changes to the developers preset rockets, planes, and rovers to create anything you would like.

There will undoubtedly be a large number of mods that can be shared between one another to display the work of creative gamers all over the world.

Explore

All that remains is to learn how to control your orbits and launch yourself into space to reach a moon, which takes a long time to properly set up and it won't be a walk in the park either.

As long as you have enough fuel and settings to avoid becoming stuck. That's the end of it. It is the achievement of securely arriving at your destination and returning home without exploding upon re-entry or getting lost. Nothing else.

Tutorials

They really are as great as I previously stated

You'll be returning to these lessons all the time to gain a handle on all the settings and controls required to get out of orbit and through stages.

I still know very little about what I need to do to properly explore the universe.

These are the types of goals that this game will provide you with to incentivize your progression, rather than the game playing itself for you.

You can retry them as many times as you need to while also being very clear.

Complexity

Rocket science is more approachable, but not any less complicated in this game. The game is no doubt incredibly complex when you sit down with it.

It takes time to grasp space engineering, controls, and how to safely travel the solar system as well as enter another celestial bodies orbit from another.

The tutorials do a really good job at explaining it to you without being to difficult to understand. It's spoken clearly and slowly with many highlights to help you.

Visuals and Graphics

Presentation

This is really visually appealing in certain areas, yet it falls short in others. Being in orbit around the Earth appears great, but being on the ground does not.

It's both visually stunning and bland

After playing for a while, I observed that they have some textures for far away and some textures for close up, but no real in-between textures.

It appears stunning from a distance, but as you get closer, it morphs into a bland and rather undetailed terrain. This happens for both Earth and the Mun.

This may or may not alter during development, but it's kind of underwhelming since it kind of doesn't incentivize a desire to visit the moon or planets.

It's a shame that the game is presently only a shell.

Performance issues are an issue

While it looks good on the surface there are a lot of problems with the delivery. I have a AMD Ryzen 9 5950x with a RTX 3080 TI and it runs poorly at times. Especially upon launching with large plumes of smoke upon lift off.

Roadmap

It's going to take some time

Many of the intended release features are diametrically opposed to what you would expect. It's a bare and simple Early Access test demo with few features.

Because it has been in development for the last four years, this has enraged many members of the KSP community. Yet, with Early Access, you have to expect an unfinished game that is still being developed over time.

When the original game is on sale for $5, you can obtain all of this and more from the modding community. For its current state of development, this game is demanding too much. I'd wait at least a few months before trying it out. Some of the essential functionality should have been incorporated by then.

Conclusion

I am not the target audience

While I am not particularly fond of these types of games. I can admire the effort they put forth to ensure the authenticity of their explanations and gameplay.

This game is fully dedicated to teaching you the philosophy of space flight and orbital components. It's a difficult educational studies in a way to grasp unless you're deeply involved in the realm of space exploration and space flight.

This game was released in the same condition as the original game.

Thus, if things continue on this road, the developers niche world has a bright future ahead of it. Yet, there is currently no compelling reason to invest $50 for a game that isn't finished or working properly by the majority of it's player base.

There are so many things that this game can and will offer in the future, but for now it's just building, flying, and repeat. There are currently no missions.

This concludes my review of this game, while my opinions may be met with criticism, that's what makes gamers unique, you don't have to like the same things that others do, nor do you have to agree with them.

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- Pawkt

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