phySex

Let me get this out of the way first; I absolutely adore this game. There's a reason I chose it as the star of the first 'PicoReview' - because it's so easy to write about something you love. 

The game forces you to 'engineer' your own craft to carry out the tasks that you give yourself. Here on the left is a ship I built to mine, in the middle is a fighter ship. Both built by raw materials I mined out of asteroids, refined into basic parts and welded together to create a working ship to do all of that work for me. 

Space Engineers is all about emergent gameplay, that is; you get out what you put in. This game isn't going to force-feed you a story and have you 'saving the world' in a matter of hours. This game gives you the tools, the resources, and the vastness of space to use them in. 

A ship built solely to mine asteroids. The drills link to cargo storage and the cargo storage links to an ejector that spits out the minerals directly into the refinery for processing - all designed by me; the player. Industry!

In saying that, however - I must also mention that this type of game is of my taste. I love being given freedom to create my own goals and achieve them. I struggle to attach myself to games that shove 'epic' storylines down my throat and usually tire of them before they can teach me a single game mechanic (usually shoot things). Space Engineers gives me a drill, a welder, and a grinder and says nothing to me.. 106 hours later and I'm still hooked. 

A look at a ship in the welding stage. Parts are laid out with a bare-bones structure and the player is required to bring the smaller parts to it and weld it all together. Sounds tedious, but I found it quite relaxing.

Space Engineers is a game about industry. You mine for iron using a hand-held drill to build a ship that has a bigger drill. You use that ship to mine for more iron to design and build a ship that welds new ships so you don't have to. You use those ships to build a mothership that carries all of these things around space.. you get the picture. One thing's for sure; Keen Software House are great at what they do. I've been playing Space Engineers since a week before the first alpha was officially released on the 23rd of October, 2013 and they have been relentlessly updating every week since then. They currently have a new game in development called Medieval Engineers, soon to be released into alpha in a similar fashion. I absolutely cannot wait.

Kudos, Keen Software House.

 It's like someone cut someone's arm off and motor-boated the wound Due to its alpha-state, we were battling with hilariously annoying glitches on top of the innumerable body parts and assorted other nic-nacs that lined the halls, each one required to be picked up and put in a basket for incineration. Pirakeet experienced run-away baskets that would shoot in any random direction when she so much as dropped a bullet casing in them.. I had a tendency to kick pieces of human at super-sonic speed while mopping the floor.. it all lead to a sometimes frustrating, though very entertaining experience for both of us. I should mention that mopping, fixing bullet holes, and picking body parts up is really all you do in this game.. ..and you will pick up every single thing. Mop every single bloodstain. Fix every single bullet hole. You mustn't even do so much as leave a chair on its side, or accidentally forget a bucket when you leave the level; lest you return to your quaint little office to find newspaper clippings of your failure. This grading system is light on statistics but heavy on charm, and it was a welcome addition to an already left-field title that I remain heavily interested in as it goes through development, and I think you should definitely check it out!