Join Piper Faraday, and Games Xtreme as they ply the space lanes, scrap some bots, and have a great time!
Piper Farady needs you!
Welcome to the future Cowbot, and Piper Farady needs you on her crew. Join her for dashing, daring adventures, adventures in space piracy in that thing they call OUTER SPACE! Welcome to Steamworld: Heist, the sequel to Steamworld: Dig, only it's not more of the same. If you know anything about Steamworld: Dig it's that the game is sort of a steam-driven, outer space, robot Spelunky style game.
Steamworld: Heist isn't anything like it at all!
2D XCOM-like Space Pirate Cowboy Adventure!
Piper has her ship, a skeleton crew, and needs to recruit more as she flies about the map attacking various Scrapper (bad guy) ships and bases. It's broken down into a phase where you can freely move about the interior of your own ship, talk to your crew, learn some insights on what's going on in terms of the story, and plan your next inevitable heist.
There's a bunch of places to explore on the map, some are ports you can dock to and wander aboard, buy new supplies and weapons, and get side missions from. You'll also be able to recruit new crew as long as you've got the right Reputation to impress them enough that they'll want to work for you. You get Rep for completing various missions against the Scrapper forces.
The map's pretty self-explanatory, and the tutorial does a great job priming you for the rest of the game.
So, you've started out, got you and your trusty companion: Seabrass... it's time to go make some money (water) in this big ole space!
After you select a mission, and set up your team, swapping out items, weapons, and hats, yes... the game has hats - hats can be claimed by shooting them off bad guys and then picking them up. Or you might get them in a loot crate. You head into the bad guy's ship, starting out you'll have an easier time of it, since the early ships are meant to ease you into the game overall.
From this point on you're moving using an XCOM style turn-based strategy gameplay system, only in gorgeously animated, quirky art-style 2D. When you move you get a distance line, it'll show you clearly where you can move to, if you can hop into cover, and if you can still shoot. Go beyond that distance and you'll find that you won't be able to do anything but move that turn.
It proceeds like this, move, end turn, move, end turn.
You can open hatches as part of a move, or stop and open them later on.
Eventually you're going to get into a scrap with some Scappers, and here's where you can shoot them until they break. Shooting is handled with real-time aiming rather than XCOM's random roll to hit, so you've got some control over where your bullets fly. Some guns have scopes, these give you an aiming line, and some you've got to work out for yourself. To make things a little harder the characters have a natural wobble to their aim, so their arm moves up and down slightly, making you adjust.
You can trigger certain special abilities, such as Power Shot, prior to taking a shot, again, if you're familiar with XCOM you'll get on with this just fine.
Firing off a shot will do damage, and eventually you'll scrap the bad guys after a turn or two and be able to move on. Whilst you're aboard an enemy ship everything is measured in turns, so there's no free movement until you're back on your ship, or exploring a space dock, or bar.
As you explore these procedurally generated random ships you'll accrue experience, loot, and at the end of the mission when you've achieved your goals. Say, looting 3 bags of good old swag, you'll be able to head to the airlock and bug out. Here you're treated to an End of Mission screen and given the XP reward, levelling up unlocks your character's new abilities, and gives them a bit more HP etc to survive longer.
You'll also open loot bags, these swag bags can contain water (used to buy more stuff), and sometimes they'll have weapons, and items you can bring with you into the mission. Say, scrap grenades.
Items like these have per-turn cooldowns, so you're not managing a resource which will dwindle over time. You do have a limited number of inventory slots to store cool stuff in though, and whilst more slots can be bought with water supplies, you'll want to sell of excess stuff that you don't use, or have a better version of.
The game progresses nicely, adding more and more challenge as you level and explore the map. Soon you'll have reinforcement alarm timers, special boss fights, and more as you attempt to clear the sector of Scrappers, ending their involvement in your nefarious affairs before the Royal Space Navy turns up and just murderhobo-bots everyone to be on the safe side.
You can go back into a mission you've already done numerous times, gaining more XP and regular loot, this is a good way of levelling your various bots, and adding new gear to your inventory. It's a great way to make extra water so you can afford that cool thing you've been saving up for.
In Space, everyone can hear you Whirr
I like Steamworld: Heist, and if you're a fan of the original there's a load to love here, in fact it's one of my favourite games at the moment. It's fun, and the art style is great, not to mention the animation, which is crisp and full of character from the attacks to the idle animations of the Cowbots.
The sound design is great as well.
Theme wise, honestly, the whole space western thing with robots just makes me grin.
It's a polished package that's worth adding to your collection if you're a fan of turn-based games, and especially if you're looking for something to scratch your XCOM itch on the PS4.
It's single player as well, so you're not going to play it co-op with a friend, unless you play pass-the-pad and let them control a character on their turn.