Cargo Commander

A little rough around the edges with some graphical issues that will hopefully be patched, but otherwise a great indie game that's full of quirky flavour. The easiest way to describe Cargo Commander is probably 'challenging platformer + graphical nethack in space'. You're looting abandoned cargo containers in randomly generated sectors. Each container is essentially a platforming level in itself, with the added challenge of shifting gravity and the cold hard vacuum of space outside the flimsy container walls. Watch out for the former, mutated Cargo Commanders that also frequently occupy the containers. Definitely a good buy from Steam.

Give Commander Keen a wider frame, beard, coffee overload, a lonely station in the middle of nowhere, randomly generated levels spawning seemingly endless arrays of containers, cargo and alien hitchhikers and you have Cargo Commander in a nutshell. Trying to **** out a meager existence to return home to Earth to see your child, Love (capitalised; she's only referred to as such) and your dog, you're tasked with using your home - well, more of a large container with an air conditioning unit, potted plants and repetitive music - as a magnet to attract large containers laden with cargo and other goodies. After they've crashed into your home at speeds enough to send shivers down any crash dummy's spine, you can either enter them by drilling through un-striped wall panels of the container, or float through the convenient gap in your hull straight into it. Watch how much time you float around in space; not only do you have a limited oxygen supply (which can be upgraded somewhat) but there are small, arrowhead-shaped enemies that fly through space and can do quite a bit of damage to you. Other varieties of alien can be found within containers and are all trying to ruin your already miserable existence in numerous forms and explode into the game's currency - caps, which are used to upgrade your suit, health and armor, tools, weapons and to purchase ammunition. You'll find it of great benefit to upgrade your drill early on as it is crucial to drill faster when escaping hordes of spawning aliens. The drill, being a arm-mounted tool, doubles as a robotic fist you can upgrade to cause increasingly painful melee blows to ward enemies away. Initially armed with the aforementioned tool and a nailgun, you can find weapon terminals within some containers to acquire and swap-out secondary weapons, of which I've used a six-shooter and shotgun (I've been unlucky). Caps can also be used at certain intervals to purchase a car package your family has sent. I got sent a drawing from my child, which went right up on the wall in the section of the ship which seems to be assaulted the most. Sorry kid. There are a great variety of randomly-generated containers to breach, explore and loot from. I've encountered containers shrouded in almost pitch-black lighting only to spawn four simultaneous waves of enemies, 'slave ship' containers with laser-protected cells, containers filled with bombs and containers laden with flame-spewing turrets to name a few. There are also special containers that contain a large cargo box within, which can either be destroyed to yield smaller cargo boxes with wonderful, wonderful loot, or a large alien bent on tearing off the delicate cargo boxes from between your legs. That isn't so wonderful. There are over 80 types of loot which will randomly generate within cargo boxes each level, so the key to finding them all is purely down to experimentation. As you enter containers, their layout is generated and depending on how they've impacted your home, their orientation may rotate, giving players a potentially nauseating challenge as the camera angle changes. With all this variety you also have to manage time, as every so often a wormhole forms, **** containers into it's depths in order of the farthest container to the closest. Levels themselves have content that is as randomised as the level name. Each level name dictates what it contains, which is a cool element to have because you can create levels using any word you want, or perhaps a friend's name, and share the level around. It's also available for other players to play through the random game function. The random game function is self-explanatory, but also contains a scoreboard for each level, bringing some competitiveness into what is otherwise a single-player affair. All in all, Cargo Commander is a great platformer with interesting elements that keep things fresh for many hours. Retailing at $9.99 on Steam it's highly-affordable and I recommend it to anyone wanting fast-paced, alien-busting, loot-collecting, platforming goodness.

I'll cross post from steam as that doesn't seem to be working right now. This fails the important "Would I have paid for it if I'd payed a demo" test, which is a shame considering I forked out the thick end of £7 on what looked like a great (and more importantly deep) game. It's fun for 10 minutes at a time, and you can get used to the fast pace dictated by the wormhole mechanic, even if it isn't my first choice of play style. However the game mechanics are an inch deep, there is very little variety in the content and it soon gets boring. The saddest thing about it is that it's another "indie" game built on a solid idea, with great potential, that gets pushed out the door half baked as soon as it reaches the point that people would pay money for it (the grand total of 2 music tracks is very telling in that regard) 2 years post launch it's also not entirely bug free, containers are generated with inaccessible sections, something has eaten one of my sector passes (which are a stupid idea anyway, why limit players to 2 new areas at a time?) my score is no longer displayed and the game occasionally freezes. Pushed out unfinished, and left to rot on steam, can I have my money back?

I'm very disappointed by the use of a strange type of Alway On DRM in this game. When not connected to the internet you can play the game, but you can't make any progress. You can't ever get to the next level. To unlock new levels you have to play in "Normal Mode" (online) as opposed to "Local Mode", as the makers call it. There are also severe bugs that mean you can't play the game directly from Steam on Mac, but have to locate the application folder and run it directly. Apart from that, the game is OK. The game is novel with the way the level gets built around you as containers crash into your ship, every container having it's own gravity, and being able to make short leaps through open space. But after you've seen all that in the first five minutes, the game becomes very, very repetitive.

Poor stuff, poor game design, do not buy this game, go spend your money whit other thinks... I played this game for only 30 minutes, that`s all, you can`t play more this.