Based on the game ‘Sniper’ in 1995, Subspace Online has had an interesting history, with the game continuing to this very day as ‘Subspace-Continuum’ available through Steam and through their website. The original review appeared on Gamers Uplink in 2001 and was written by David (aka. Dhalamar.)
This game is amazing. It may not be the most graphically impressive game out there, and it may not have the best sound around, but for some reason that does not matter one bit in this game. It is just too much fun.
This has just as much activity within the community as, say, Quake 3 Arena or Unreal Tournament. There can be thousands of players on at any given time, all of which are looking forward to turning your ship into nothing more than shrapnel floating in space. If it is in Q3A or UT, it is in Subspace. There is something new happening all the time.
There are eight different ships, all with their own special powers and such aside from all being able to straight up shoot. They have handling differences, power differences, the works. You find what you are best with and go try to kill things. The ships themselves are detailed, although small. You can power your ships up by collecting little green cubes floating around and try not to get killed doing it. Inside the game is a treat. The game runs on a 486DX2/66 because of its light graphics and sound, but that does not take away from the fun and enjoyment in the least. Imagine that old game Asteroids, only instead of flying rocks, you have other ships shooting at you trying to make mincemeat of you. The in-game options are superb. There is the obvious map, a radar, a unique chat, and those are just the basics. I cannot even get into all the options this game has to offer here, there is just too much, and nothing is useless.
The graphics are subpar. While the ships are detailed, they are small, and it is hard to spot that detail. The background is just the basic stars in space, and the obstacles like walls and things like that are basic. However, the graphics are incredibly smooth, there is not any jerkiness anywhere. And if you are lagged, instead of hampering the game play, the game merely switches you over to Spectator Mode, where you just watch as a ship goes around blowing everything away. Which is both good and bad, good to the point that when it switches over you can sit there and watch its movements and firing techniques and learn from them, bad to the point that it just boots you out of play.
The sound, much like the graphics, are subpar. The basic ship sounds of flames roaring when you fly around and impact sounds. They are done very well and suit the game.
The playability and fun of this game is where it stands out. When you first go into the game and start flying around, once you get used to the way the game controls, you find yourself hooked trying to kill everything that moves and running when you are almost dead. You will find that you will die a LOT until you get used to it. And normally dying all the time in a game tends to drive me away, but not this game. It is too addictive. You must play it to see what I mean.
There is not much wrong with this game. The only thing wrong with this game is the fact that it kicks you into Spectator Mode when your latency is too high. It gets very annoying, especially when you are on a dial up connection, it will happen a lot. And the graphics and sound, like I said, are subpar. They could be a lot better, but you will not even hardly notice the loss in graphics and sound because you will be doing too much. This game is just too fun. And subpar graphics make it so lower end computers can have fun without needing the beefy requirements of games like Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament, and Everquest. Sure, those games are fun, but it is great to know there’s fun online games that do not require a 400mhz Pentium computer with a 3-D graphics card.
And something I personally see wrong with the game, the learning curve is a little steep, for you to become good at the game, you must learn all kinds of keyboard commands, which may detract some from the game, but they are not necessary for you to just have fun.
I highly recommend this to anyone, whether you have a 486 or the highest end Pentium. This game is just too much fun, and it worth the download. Head on over to the official Subspace home page located at http://www.subspace.net to learn more about this very impressive game, check out the hosted sites, go through the different sections of the site, all that good stuff. I have not even SCRATCHED the surface of what this game has to offer. There are a large number of very well-done sites dedicated to the game, all of which can be easily found searching through the official page. The site alone is worth the visit even if you do not like the game for some reason. Head on over there and see what is happening, download the game, play it, love it.
| Graphics | 6 |
| Gameplay | 10 |
| Sound | 6 |
| Value | 9 |
| Overall | 10 |
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