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- Humble Games
- Humble Games
- Humble Games
- Humble Games
Next Space Rebels
Released On: Nov 17, 2021
Metascore
Available after 4 critic reviews
6.5
All Platforms
While Next Space Rebels’ story tends to run a bit long and the middle part feels like a grind, it’s still a great loop with FMV actors playing out the weird times we find ourselves in. It made me consider just what it was actually like to grind out an existence as an influencer at the mercy of a platform’s whims when you start with a small idea of building a soda bottle rocket in a field. Hopefully, people do stand up against the predictable dystopia we find ourselves hurtling towards. And if they do it with rockets, maybe we’re all the better for it.
Thanks to its interesting combination of content creator simulator and rocket creation, Next Space Rebels offers an original, crazy and very fun experience. A pleasant surprise.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 8 User Ratings
6.5
50% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
25% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
25% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 8 User Ratings
6.5
50% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
25% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
25% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Great game, can recommend. Building rockets, recording your launch and seeing the reactions of all the different characters makes for an addictive gameplay loop. You'll have to read quite a bit though but the story is funny and very interesting.
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PC
What a pleasant surprise! Really don't know why this game isn't getting more attention. Went into it not even knowing what it was, and I must admit, I rather fell in love with it. The concept of shoe-horning together mock social media with amateur rocket building is a bit bonkers, but it absolutely works. The videos and writing are knowingly cheesy and OTT, but I don't believe it detracts from the experience at all. I found the plot to be humorous and engaging. The core gameplay has a significant element of trial and error to it, but not in a bad way. There's (usually) solid logic underpinning the physics of the builds. Would highly recommend, very addictive game. (It's also currently on Xbox Game Pass, so definitely check it out on compatible platforms.)
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PC
Having beaten this game twice (it took 2 days even though my game broke but we'll get to that later) I've got a pretty good idea of where this game doesn't fly for me.
Pros:
Novel concept, not a lot of rocket sims out there
Cheap game, the dev's knew what was up and only asked for $20, glad I got it for free on gamepass
Simple UI and interface (literally everything is point and click/drag)
A few interesting challenges (hovering was a hard one)
That's about it. I liked the game initially, but after I went back for a completion playthrough, a lot of the flaws started to become a lot more obvious.
Cons:
The story was ridiculous and really biased, so much anti-capitalist propaganda that I'm finding it hard
to believe they charged *anything* for this game. In addition, it takes forever to have these scripted conversations with npcs, but I'll get to that in a moment. I found myself trying to skip as quickly through the story as I could, even on my first playthorugh. i can say without a doubt that it mimics real life in one regard; I could not possibly care any less about what XxYoMaMa69420xX has to say about anything really, so they got that part right at least.
The social media influencer part really gets old, especially during a 2nd playthrough when you realize there is no branching paths and it starts to dawn on you how boring the conversations are that this game would have been better off skipping that whole bit. I spent 20 of the first 30 minutes reading through scripted interactions and watching fake youtube videos and reading fake comments...
The game is buggged to hell and back, both with unreliable physics and even within the quests themselves; sometimes they wont start, you wont have the interaction you're supposed to have in order to trigger the challenge, or when you complete it, it doesn't give you the reward. They physics are just bad, i know the real world isn't perfect but if the real world's physics worked *anything* like they do here, we never would have made it to space. Inertia doesn't exist here, neither does rotational energy and yet these things are *extremely important to rocket physics.*
Parts are lackluster and largely useless. Its a cool idea to build a rocket out of golf clubs and vacuum cleaners. Once. Then you're never going to those parts again because they're terrible and you wind up using the real model rocket parts. They should have left the strength component completely out because, like I said before, their physics are inconsistent, so you'll frequently find that *gasp* your model rocket parts blow themselves apart all the time, either because the orientation of the rocket glitched for a moment and put too much strain on, or because no part is strong enough to handle escape velocity (by the end of the game, you dont/cant even worry about stabilizers being strong enough to withstand the engine because *none* of the parts can, so you'll always be getting a warning after launch).
Money in this game makes no sense, I found it really annoying in my 1st playthrough as I got demonetized early on and almost got stuck because the game needed me to buy a part off the store but I had no money and no way to earn any... you have this whole social influencer and rebel website thing going on, you've got hackers talking to you, why you can't earn money on the darkweb is beyond me. And of course, all of the good parts are locked in that store, so if you can't afford em, good luck sending your satellite into space using toilet paper tubes and PVC.
In all, I had some fun the 1st time through, but on a 2nd playthrough, the game lost all its novelty and exposed its flaws; (sometimes game-breaking) bugs, poor physics, and a ham-fisted storyline with one of the worst payoffs for beating the game I've ever seen. I kept waiting for there to be more that just wasn't there.
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PC
Summary Order some parts online, get your camera, and grow your StarTube channel through rocket tinkering and often wacky challenges! With great fame comes great responsibility, and a sudden wrench in your path to greatness will take you on a journey towards space.
Platforms:
- Xbox Series X
- PC
- Xbox One
- Nintendo Switch
Initial Release Date: Nov 17, 2021
Developer:
- Humble Games
Publisher: Humble Games
Genres:
