Game: Operation Zeta Early Access
Genre: Action, Indie
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: SFS Studios LLC
Age Rating: US E | EU 7+
Price: US $9.99 | UK £7.19 | EU € 8,19
Release Date: August 24th, 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to SFS Studios LLC.
Operation Zeta, a space roguelike action game and is out on Steam on Early Access. But that’s all about to change as the game comes out EA, on January 14th and is also released on Xbox. So let’s journey in space and have a look at it.
Operation Zeta
The game’s story starts with telling the player that Operation Zeta is a great battle that has been fought and lost. Finally, you and your spaceship have landed on a planet. But you have a big problem on your hands. You see, your spaceship is a mess with parts of it scattered everywhere, and they need to be collected and your ship repaired.
So you have to act quickly to collect all the parts and repair your ship before the enemy’s death laser destroys the warzone. When I say act quickly, I mean it as you have exactly ten minutes to find and collect all the pieces of your spaceship before the laser hits. No pressure then!
The Grappler
Using the grappler, you investigate each planet in the solar system for the missing parts of your ship. Once you find a piece of the ship, you take it back to the starting planet, so your ship can be repaired.
There are aliens to avoid or shoot and lots of different NPC’s to find and complete quests. For example, in one of the weirder quests, I was asked to shoot the skeletons wandering around and return their skulls to receive a piece of the spaceship. Quests are varied in their requests, and the world is randomly generated, which makes each run in the gameplay out differently.
Gravity
Gravity or physics plays a part in the game, too, as you move from one planet to another. At times, I struggled to work out the direction to the next planet as I floated in space. Finally, some arrows appear on the screen to show you the direction the next planet is located.
Operation Zeta is a unique take on the roguelike genre. There aren’t any bosses or deadly combat to end your run. Instead, there are aliens to shoot or avoid, but it’s the strict time limit you are up against.
Niggles
There isn’t a tutorial as such. Instead, you are fed instructions on what buttons to use as you play the game. I would have preferred a tutorial or at least somewhere in the menu to check the controls. New players will get frustrated while playing the game if they don’t know how the controls work. I also had the on-screen instruction appear as another text was on the screen. This resulted in a mess of text, and I completely missed the instructions I was meant to read, as you can see in the image below.
Controls and a Warning
Controls are on the keyboard using the WASD keys for the most part. A controller can be used if you prefer, but neither control option felt intuitive to me at all. So when you start the game, you are not only up against the clock but also hindered by the lack of a good control system.
Once you get the hang of the controls, the game is a fun take on the roguelike genre. The game loop is addictive and will have you going back for more. In addition, the game offers the player a good challenge as that ever-present time counts down in the corner of the screen.
The graphics are quite cute, with the unique space setting adding to the game. One word of warning if you are prone to motion sickness, which I am, the developers have added a “reduce motion sickness” checkbox in the options, so make sure you have it checked as it does help elevate motion sickness.
Conclusion
The developers have put a lot of thought and love into Operation Zeta, and it shows. I enjoyed the game and changing my strategy to get a little further every time the game resets was a tactic I used. The game’s physics are slightly confusing at first, as are the controls. However, finding ways to save time as you explore becomes very rewarding.
Final Verdict: I Like It 