PC Gamer - March 2012

PREVIEWS

In combat, you can see inside the enemy ship.

Looks kinda like Unicron’s severed head.

That’s either a huge ship or a tiny planet.

“Never retreat! Never surrender!“ (Usually.)

faster than light
Played it Guide the tiny crew of a fragile ship across a random universe

Slave traders! And they’re jerks! They demand I hand over one of my crew, and I’m not nearly well equipped enough to take them in a fight. I have no choice. We draw straws, and Jack goes. Sniff. Jaaack!

Faster Than Light is a randomized space adventure in which you manage a ship and her crew, jumping from star to star. Your first encounter could be a free weapon, or a bunch of slave-trading lamewads. And losing a crew member is a big deal: your main interaction is ordering them around your ship, telling them to repair damaged systems, pilot, or heal up in the sickbay.

I have just two left. I put Emily at the
helm, and Alison in the engine room ready
to repair it if we take damage. We jump,
and run into a small scout ship. It’s an easy
fight, and we get a good
amount of scrap from the
wreck. In the next system
though, there’s an asteroid
field and a pirate vessel.
I target their shield
generator with all my
lasers and missiles, while

READ ME publishER TBA DEvElopER Matthew Davis and Justin Malink ftlgame.com

chunks of rock batter my own. As their shields go offline, it’s fun to watch them scramble around inside their ship trying to fix the generator while other systems catch fire. When they finally explode, the scrap

My ship is a mess. The
fire in my engine room
would kill my crew if I
send them to put it out.

from their vessel is substantial.

You can use scrap to upgrade, so I make a major investment to double my shields. And in the next system, I find a spare combat drone. It turns out to be a lethal combination: in every fight thereafter, my drone zaps away their shields in time for my main lasers to take out their generator.

I run into another slaver ship. Hand over a crew member? How about you hand over...your...hull integrity! Shoot them before they overanalyze my smacktalk!

We’re both double-shielded, I have a
combat drone and they have a defense
drone. It’s close. I use my lasers to take out
their drone control system, and that lets
my missiles get through to their shield
generator. But by the time I take out their
weapons systems, my engine is on fire.
Luckily, they surrender, and offer me a
slave to leave them alone.