Just Pause - Article: SpaceStationSim Reviewed

As a little tyke, it was my dream to one day be in the stars. Nowadays, my dream can come true, thanks to Vision-Play. Vision-Play is the developer of Space Station Sim, a fun little sim in which you create and manage your own space station. No longer must I follow the career of John Glenn, now I may venture through the stars.

Going into the game, I expected the normal grid based field where I had to build my spaceship and place whatever items in it I may want. Unlike the other games, the focus of this game is on intense micro-management of characters, and not on making money or becoming the most successful space tour service. This game teaches us what life is like in space, and demonstrates what actually goes on, something that nearly everyone(myself included) will never get the chance to do.

The game is actually very true to life. Vision-Play was aided by NASA to create the game, and make it the most realistic space simulator ever made. If you make one wrong move, your character may die due to lack of life support. The game is a bit dumbed down for the novices, but it is deep enough for an experienced player to love for a long time.

Character creation may not seem foreign, as it uses a very familiar and Sim-like interface. Like the Sims, you will have to set up strengths and weaknesses for your character. If you want, you can have two people of two opposite social levels and let them loose on each other and see the chaos that erupts, this is mostly important when you let your characters go on auto-drive.

There are tons of ways you can upgrade your ship. This allows a wider range of gameplay, but also a wider range of items you will have to fix. In order to get these items, you have to invest flags, which represent each country that you do experiments for. The options are almost endless, you just need the patience to create the ultimate flying house. There will, of course, be many issues you will face. If your astronauts get bored, you might need to buy something to entertain them, gas levels too high, you will need to buy a scrubber for that specific gas, but the majority of your resources will be geared towards experiments, as you will want to gain more flags so you can modify your ship even further.

The graphics are ok. They are not amazing, or good, just simply ok. They do nothing to outshine any other graphics in any game, yet they are not too horrible as so they detract from the experience. The spaceship models are pretty detailed, then again, they were helped by NASA. The chatacer models are not incredibly detailed, nor do each of the different character models differ immensely. The textures are blocky at best, and whether it is day time or not time, the sun/moon have no effect on how everything appears. The sound is not fitting for the style of game, at all. The sound affects are simply amazing, though, and the voice acting is not that bad, either.