Well the name says it all really. You play as Buck Mann a glorified space delivery boy charged with quickly, and safely, delivering various goods across incredibly dangerous areas of space. I don’t know if there are any space police or whatever in Space Run but if there are they’re really bad. It’s a warzone even for a delivery company!
Space Run is essentially a side scrolling strategy game that draws heavily from the ideas of a tower defence game. Your ship consists of various hexagons that allow you to place your precious cargo and any of the turrets, shields and thrusters available. You’ll need to ensure that your cargo is protected on a suitably defendable hexagon whilst making sure you have space for thrusters, to get through the level faster, and are able to aim your guns at incoming threats. It’s not always easy to fit it all in.
The exact size and shape of your ship will depend on the mission you take on so you will have to employ different strategies each time. And it gets more complicated when you need to use a power generator to power turrets correctly. There’s a lot to think about and usually there isn’t a perfect solution so there is a sense of just getting the job done rather than creating a super-death-delivery-ship.
After each mission you can spend your hard earned space credits on upgrades for your turrets, buildings and their abilities. There’s a good feeling of progression and you are handsomely rewarded for completing missions quicker. There’s a real incentive other than score to keep completing missions as fast as possible.
But unfortunately there isn’t really enough variation to keep the gameplay interesting past a couple of hours. The ship changes and levels become more challenging and tactical to a degree but there are only so many different runs that you can do. All too soon it becomes a case of repeating the same things over and over. It is challenging, especially if you go for the fastest time, which is where most of the appeal comes from but there isn’t enough strategy to keep things interesting past the 2 or 3 hour mark.
There is a thin plot forced in around Space Run’s missions but it’s really just a way for the game’s characters to be amusing. Or at least try. Sadly it’s almost impossible to feel much of a connection to Buck Mann. He’s about as generic as space scoundrel rip offs come and isn’t as funny as he thinks he is. You’ll have a few laughs, but not as many as are intended. There are some nice Sci-Fi geek references though. My particular favourite was the word ‘frak’ which reminded me how much I need to get a life after I laughed.
Space Run is a good side scrolling adventure for a couple of hours but there isn’t much replay value to keep you coming back for more. The half baked characters and humour unfortunately don’t deliver as much entertainment as they needed to. With subpar characters and mediocre humour Space Run relies solely on its gameplay. Which is good fun for a brief period but doesn’t do anything to hold your attention for too long. But it is good fun while it lasts.
