Game Review: Genesis Alpha One (Xbox Series X)

As frustrating as it is fun and as bland as it is brilliant, Genesis Alpha One is monotony with depth. A game that requires patience and the agreeable ability to learn its nuances. Slow and difficult to get into but once you do, you’re hooked. Developers Radiation Blue have certainly created something memorable here.

A roguelike game, Genesis Alpha One puts you in the shoes of the captain of a ship exploring the outer reaches of the galaxy. All so you can find a new home for humanity. Along the way, you’ll have to scour the star systems you pass through to find resources to help you survive. Resources that can be used to improve your ship, the life of your crew and so much more. Beware though, not everything in space is friendly.

Gameplay is split into two distinctive styles. The first is ship-building where you are tasked with building rooms to sustain life aboard your ship. Starting with basic rooms like a bridge, power supplies, crew quarters, greenhouses, and a tractor beam. The latter is one of two ways you can get supplies. Supplies needed to build even more rooms and expand your ship.

The ship building seems very basic at first, laying down corridors and connecting the rooms through an isometric viewpoint. However, how you lay out your ship is very important. Spread things out too far and wide, and it becomes difficult to navigate. Not only that, supplies are limited and with the randomly generated galaxies, you can never be sure that you will have enough available once you start unlocking more advanced rooms.

The more difficult it can be to navigate your ship, the higher the chance of failure. This is because space is dangerous and all manner of alien creatures can get aboard. Either coming up through the tractor beam or sneaking aboard via supplies you collect when visiting planets.

If not dealt with quickly, a lot of these beasties will burrow into the depths of your ship, laying eggs and spreading fungi. In an instant, your ship can be overrun with life support failing, corridors collapsing and the crew being slaughtered. It’s actually quite startling how quickly things can fall apart.

Which brings us to the second part of Genesis Alpha One, the first-person action and exploration orientated aspect. You can freely wander your ship, navigating it through star systems via your bridge, checking on supplies or speeding up the tasks you have set your crew. While there’s not a ton to do on your ship, aside from defending it from incoming alien life, you can take part in expeditions to planets via the hanger.

Here, you land on a variety of alien-like worlds in a small location and need to collect all the resources you can. All while defending yourself from the creatures of the planet. Unlike the resources you collect via the tractor beam, the planetary stuff needs to be refined when brought back to your ship. Where a handy fleet of robots will happily transfer the contents to a built refinery and into storage.

These expeditions can yield massive rewards, including items that you can equip, making yourself more powerful and robust in the face of so much danger.

Expect to die, especially as shooting in this game is not done well. While there is variety in weapons, the lack of a targeting reticule makes dealing with a mass of alien-life difficult. Surrounded, it won’t take long for your health to diminish but, importantly, it’s not game over.

You see, you’re a clone. All the crew are clones and once you die, the next one is automatically made captain and that is who you now play as. Run out of clones, then it’s game over. However, with a clone lab you can keep making more. Provided you have the supplies and environment for them. The clones, your crew, can be assigned to rooms where they will diligently work until you either re-assign them, get sick, die or get promoted to Captain. Whatever that room’s task is, they will complete. The more crew assigned, the faster the job will be done. However, aside from that, they are pretty useless. Barely able to defend themselves, limited upgrades and the cause of a lot of ships going down as they spread their illness throughout it.

It’s really disappointing to not be able to mould your crew into a badass team. Nowhere are they found lacking as much as when you get invaded by enemies. Almost always outgunned, a team of pirates can slaughter their way through your entire ship with barely a fight. This aspect, space battles, could have been so much fun but it ends up being one of the most trying things in the game.

Should you have the shields and firepower to outlast a battle with an enemy ship, you can then board it and raid it. Something you can also do when you come across wrecks. These can be some of the most challenging parts of the game as these ships are crawling with enemies and often, you’re beaming across right into a room full of them. Instant death and downright frustrating.

Of course, you could just set the parameters of your next exploration to have no enemies. One of the joys of the roguelike style that Genesis Alpha One employs.

Filled with plenty of niggling issues, Genesis Alpha One will win most over by the depth and replay value it has. Procedurally generated worlds, exploration that feels so very ‘spacey’, suitable sound effects and music to sell the isolation and an interesting ship building mechanic. All of this works in its favour to make the game surprisingly addictive.




Author

  • Carl Fisher

    Owner/Administrator/Editor/Writer/Interviewer/YouTuber - you name it, I do it. I love gaming, horror movies, and all forms of heavy metal and rock. I'm also a Discworld super-fan and love talking all things Terry Pratchett. Do you wanna party? It's party time!

Genesis Alpha One (Xbox Series X)
  • The Final Score - 7.5/10
    7.5/10
7.5/10
Sending
User Review
7.18/10 (17 votes)