Satellite Reign - Review @ High-Def Digest

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

'Satellite Reign' is not the kind of game that holds your hand. After a brief tutorial I was dumped into the city with a trio of eager agents, with only a "good luck" and a "here’s your fourth agent, by the way she’s in a heavily guarded police compound" mission to my name. This made me very happy. It is not a theme park like most open world games turn out to be, where a chipper tour guide would slowly escort me about the various mechanics for hours, withholding the good stuff until halfway through the campaign. It is a sandbox, where the city lives on its own terms, gradually adapting to my presence as I hack into ATMs, infiltrate merc barracks, and bribe dirty cops for information.

In this city, as in any just about cyberpunk story, megacorps have taken over the governing role from the state and mixed in their own special brand of fascism, information control, and terror. It’s the future, so there are many future things like cybernetic implants, laser guns, and outlandish hairstyles. The game takes a laissez-faire approach to both exposition and morality. I am free to explore the city, steal things, and kill people, so long as I am able to fight off or escape from the responding security forces. The game does not penalize me for doing bad things, nor does it necessarily reward me for doing good things. I am rewarded for serving my own purposes, which I just kind of make up as I go along. My agents aren’t running the March of Dimes, after all - we’re trying to build a criminal empire. […]

Final Thoughts:

'Satellite Reign' truly embodies the phrase "spiritual successor". It is very much a modern adaptation of an older title. That is not to say that it is without innovation or not a good game - far from it. 'Satellite Reign' takes the best parts of its source material and expands upon them with modern tech, creating an intoxicating, thickly cyberpunk strategy experience. The degree of freedom available invokes that special kind of PC game that is all-too infrequent these days.

Score: 4/5

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Capt. Huggy Face said:

Personally, I'd have liked to see active pause in this game.

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