70
I do like Gratuitous Space Battles. I think it's a great concept, beautifully presented. I just wish it would let me like it more.
72
Imperfect spaceship engineering and asynchronous online dueling combine to deliver a flawed star. [Dec 2009, p.94]
70
Gratuitous Space Battles manages to strike a respectable balance between casual gaming and deep, engaging strategy.
5
Story and Writing: 2 Game Play: 5 Music: 5 User Interface: 7 Optimization: 8 Graphics: 5 Replay Value: 3 Would Recommend: No
10
A well balanced, straightforward space combat simulator with customizable starships. A good value if you can pick up the game and all of the DLC on sale.
8
This is pretty much a battle simulator, there isn't that much to do during battles. But you can set up advanced orders and fleets to try to take out enemy fleets. Challenge your friends even to defeat your fleet and earn new weapons and unlocks. I'd say it is worth the current price. It is entertaining and kills time.
Gratuitous Space Battles
Released On:
Nov 16, 2009
Metascore
Mixed or Average
72
User score
Mixed or Average
6.8
My Score
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Metascore
Mixed or Average
36% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
64% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
85
Gratuitous Space Battles isn't for everyone, as its brand of strategy is entirely weighted towards the setup phase - and the execution is almost completely hands-off. Still, the prospect of building your own ships and using your own unique combinations of general strategies and offensive and defensive loadouts is very compelling for anyone who is a sci-fi space battle enthusiast.
80
In the end, for all its talk of being "gratuitous," Gratuitous Space Battles is actually quite a lean, mean game with a unique premise and singularly charming personality. If you're even marginally interested in seeing heavily armed tin cans tear each other a new hull breach with beam lasers and torpedo missiles, give it a try.
User score
Mixed or Average
43% Positive
25 Ratings
25 Ratings
43% Mixed
25 Ratings
25 Ratings
14% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
Mar 26, 2015
10
A well balanced, straightforward space combat simulator with customizable starships. A good value if you can pick up the game and all of the DLC on sale.
Sep 7, 2013
10
Graphics are pretty nice and battles are truly gratuitous. Just watching the comm chatter from the ships is funny. I find being able to design and build your ships from scratch the most enjoyable part and I spend endless hours testing and building ships. I always wanted them to change it so that you can control the ships in battles and finally they have. Please note some old reviews might mention the absence of in battle control which has now changed!
75
Still, the game retails at $20 and offers a far more satisfying level of capital ship space combat than any other game I've seen released over the last year.
72
Imperfect spaceship engineering and asynchronous online dueling combine to deliver a flawed star. [Dec 2009, p.94]
70
Managerial point of view to epic space battles. Good planning is necessary to enjoy this "Tower Defense" variation. [Issue#187]
70
Gratuitous Space Battles manages to strike a respectable balance between casual gaming and deep, engaging strategy.
60
The type of player that will enjoy the gratuitous space battles might well be put off by al the number crunching and preparation involved in just getting an effective fleet together. [Feb 2010, p.63]
Jun 1, 2012
10
Excellent game. There are a ton of space strategy games, but this one takes a completely fresh and (imho) fascinating approach by removing battle-control entirely and making it really a game of fleet design and real strategy, rather than frantic tactical mouse clicking. The real key to getting the most from the game is to go back after you have won and try to design the smallest, cheapest fleet possible, but which can still achieve victory. The game is a tinkerers heaven, and the frankly excellent graphics are just the icing on top. Highly recommended.
Nov 13, 2013
7
TOYS! Make spaceships and set them up to blow each other up. This is the space scalextric set, no controls except what the spaceships are and what the formations are. Set 'em up and watch 'em explode!
Jul 6, 2013
6
When I play a game I like to, well, *play* the game instead of being forced to read walls of text just to understand the fundamentals. This is the main reason why I'm not really into strategy games. "Gratuitous Space Battles" seems to be a fair game with a lot of things to do but I couldn't really be caught by it.
Dec 26, 2011
3
Now I'll freely admit that I'm not massively into strategy games, but having picked this up in one of the recent indie bundles, I thought I'd give it a go. If ever there was a game that threw up barriers to introducing people to the strategy genre, this would be it. I get that strategy games are often complex, but when the tutorial involves reading screeds of text, going through numerous pages of options and ten minutes later, you finally get to see the battle take place? I'm sure the hardcore strategy nuts are frothing at the mouth reading this already, but from someone who wanted to see what all the fuss was about, I'll try and find a more accessible entry into the genre.
Aug 12, 2013
2
In the Beginning this game was very good, but, they have gone Pay2Play in the matter that you need all the DLC to be able to fight others in a multi-player battle, unless you have the same DLC as the other players you cant battle them, the price for all the DLC is 37,43€ further more comes the price of the main game 13,99€ this gives the sum of 49,42 to be able to play the game. So unless you are willing to pay 50€ for a game that is from Nov 2009 i suggest you toss your cash some where else.
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