Genesis Alpha One Review

"Space, A Dangerous Frontier"

Campaign

January 29, 2019 at 4:35am

Genesis Alpha One is a hardcore space simulation in the style of a rogue-like. You're attempting to find a new home for humanity, preserve the DNA of the species and it's a dangerous mission. Things can be great, but take a deep turn into darkness at any point. You could be soaring across the cosmos to then stop and witness your ship essentially imploding. It's crazy, and perhaps a lot of fun. Death is very much a permanent thing and one of the elements that makes this game for a specific niche.

I personally had a blast attempting to make it to some far away place, but I know some might find this title to be challenging. There's a ton of replay value present as you build different ships while working for various corporations. You're never sure what modules you'll come across, what types of mutations you'll discover or generally how the mission will go. This searching of planets was rather interesting and you can sink in too many hours of gameplay if you do find the general mechanics addicting.

Gameplay

There's a lot to run here, luckily you'll have a group of clones to help. You're generally trying to gather a variety of materials and then refine them for practical usage. For example you may collect biomass, this can help you unlock a special genome alteration to make strange alien people. You can then clone them, or regular humans which work the stations of the ship. You'll be tractor beaming up supplies, going on missions to planets or just running the health structures. There's a fair balance of keeping vegetation up, recreation and defense of the ship.

You can actually go on the missions too which has you collecting raw materials or perhaps discovering hidden things. The further you get into space, the more dangerous things become and the worse creatures you'll discover. You need to keep the ship safe, alien bugs may wreck your wiring, things can breakdown and it can generally go bad quick. There's lots of customization here too as you adjust colors, and literally build your own ship. You have a regular movement system in first person and then a full over the top builder. Rotate pieces, select levels and create whatever you'd like. It's wonderful, there's just a lot of depth here. I mostly wish the tutorial went deeper into explaining things as some may find this difficult to grasp.

The Conclusion

Genesis Alpha One won't be for everyone, but the ones that like it will certainly find this addicting. I think they've got a really solid simulation here and with danger, it'll always challenge you. The permadath may be rough for some, but others might love this difficulty that's present. It's all about getting better and there's a lot to discover as you search quadrants of mini solar systems.

The planets you can visit are wildly varied, and there's just tons of depth across the board. It runs really well, looks great and always has something for you to manage. You can personally speed projects, or just have the crew work. There's also nothing quite like seeing the ship burst apart as you desperately try to fix things. I really liked this game, I love this type of experience and they delivered this sense of exploration in a realized way.

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Genesis Alpha One Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Team17

Rating Overall: 8.0