Artemis review

Combat is challenging, exciting and frequently hilarious. Engineering frantically shuffles power between manoeuvrability, weapons and shields, in order to outflank enemies and deal the killing blow while staying protected. The Science officer scans attackers for shield vulnerabilities while Tactical puts down a barrage of torpedoes and the Comms officer attempts to negotiate surrender. Meanwhile, the captain tries to make sense of the chaos and keeps an eye on damage reports – there are only a few seconds between full shields and annihilation if you end up on the wrong end of a Dreadnought, so quick decisions are vital.

The only thing really missing from combat is 3D space; while the graphics are 3D, you can only move in two dimensions. Being able to duck under enemy ships as well as fly around them would make combat more interesting. We’re aware that this would be quite a programming feat, but open-source 3D space engines do exist, such as the Freespace 2 engine. Also, pressing the Escape key quits the game – clumsy keyboard use meant our engineer once quit the game mid-battle, so we’d prefer a ‘Are you sure’ confirmation to stop the ship losing a vital crew member at an inopportune time.

Artemis is one of the most enjoyable multiplayer games we’ve played, and we especially liked the social aspect – it’s more fun playing against people in the same room than online, and space battles were tense and amusing. 3D space would be a bonus, as would more variety in mission types, but the game is under heavy development and improving all the time.