I recommend “Sword of the Stars: The Pit” on Steam to those who favor gritty aesthetics, unlimited replay value, or good old fashioned dungeon crawling. With so much time already logged, this game is definitely a steal at ten dollars for the base game and five dollars for the huge expansion in the DLC “The Pit: Mindgames”.
Screen Captures are from Steam gameplay. “Sword of Stars: The Pit: Mindgames” is under the copyright of Kerberos Productions. All Rights Reserved.
VIDEO GAME TITLE: Sword of the Stars: The Pit/The Pit: Mindgames for the PC
TYPE OF GAME: RPG/INDIE/CASUAL
PLATFORM: PC Steam
PLATFORM GAME REVIEWED: STEAM PC GAME
DEVELOPER: Kerberos Productions
PUBLISHER: Kerberos
RELEASE DATE: The Pit: Mar 8, 2013; Mindgames: Jul 3, 2013
Classic, dungeon-crawling, PC RPG, set in the Sword of the Stars universe. How deep can you go?
Kerberos is a company composed of those hailing from Barking Dogs Studio and Rockstar Games Vancouver. Those working at Kerberos worked on hits such Bully by Rockstar Games, Team Fortress from Valve, and Ghost Busters: The Video Game developed by Terminal Reality. Their most recognized work is the Sword of the Stars a space strategy game involving giant star ship wars and capturing sector’s of the Sword of the Star’s Universe.
Sword of the Stars: The Pit builds on Kerbero’s previous franchise’s world from Sword of the Stars space strategy game. Those who have played Sword of the Stars will recognize familiar races to play as in The Pit. Although it is under the same name, the Pit poses itself as a spin off to the original game from strategically fighting with ships in space to controlling a single hero fighting your way down several floors in a turn based,2D top-down, rogue-like dungeon experience.
GAMEPLAY:
Sword of the Star’s: The Pit/Mindgames involves controlling a hero to brave the depths of the pit. Each hero has different advantages and stats to accommodate each play style. Want to cast mental spells? Psion fits the bill. Want to be incredibly beefy, the Marine is your man. Utilizing these class advantages you fight a variety of monsters and transformed Humans and Tarka to reach your ultimate goal in the game: The Pit. Each monster has its own sleight of hand whether that be poison, disease, or hit and run.
Though caution is always advised playing the game because any step you take in this turn-based combat system could be your very last because death is permanent similar to The Binding of Isaac or any other of the old school RPG’s featuring the rogue-like game play of randomly generated dungeons and monsters of varying difficulty depending on how far you venture into the rabbit hole that is The Pit.
As with most Role-play games, has a selection of stats to add to with each level, which increases the chance for some weapons to hit or actions to work, and become more powerful, or profitable. Also standard to RPG’s is a health bar and hunger bar as well as a Psi/Mana bar added in with the Mindgames DLC.
The game also features various difficulty settings from easiest to hardest: Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane, and Seriously?!. This allows for players from casual to hardcore to enjoy the game at their own pace.
The story of the game starts off with the hero you choose going into The Pit to find a cure for a rampaging alien disease that transforms organic beings into danger zombies. Overall the story is mostly progressed through translating messages at consoles which you may or may not get depending on your decryption skill.
Overall, combat feels good, click to attack, shoot with your current weapon, hot key abilities or items to quick slots to use faster than going through the menu.
For a turn-based game the combat is usually surprisingly fluid unless there are many enemies on the screen, then you might have to wait a few more seconds than normal as each turn has to be taken by the enemy as well. This also happens even if you are out of sight of the enemy as you will notice the turn taking system working when going down an empty corridor.
Interacting with items and objects garners benefits of finding items, helpful tools or food. Interacting with anything in the game has a chance to fail depending on your skills in the corresponding stat. For example, opening locked doors or supply boxes are influenced by the lock pick stat while prying open freezers are calculated by the mechanical skill.
Although it is interesting how each stat correlates to a different action possible, it sometimes makes the game feel too much at the mercy of luck. This also includes attacking where R.N.G (Random Number Generator) could slap you in the face with four misses in a row with your pistol that happened to have only four bullets left. This all influences how far you may get into The Pit because it could happen to just not be your day or vice versa.
Most of the weapons and psionic powers are unique aside from the standard pistol, assault rifle, and heavy weapon archetypes. Laser guns, mind control, and energy cannons are but some of the weapons available to you as you venture deeper.
The aesthetics of each floor changes the more you go down from a standard cave to a post apocalyptic station to natural biomes with new and more challenging creatures. Each monster having new or increasingly powerful abilities to challenge your advancements in skills, weaponry, and stats. Much of the game is naturally gritty as much of the floors of the facility have been abandoned due to the apocalyptic story premise.
The Mindgames adds a wealth of new items, monsters, areas, and classes with unique attributes, advantages, and abilities. Though there are too many new features to list, the ones that stand out are the new Psion and Ranger classes who adds a whole new twist to the original three classes. Also with the DLC is the new safety net added every five levels where you can bank experience, and items for future characters and start on those respective levels that you’ve reached when you start a new character.
CONTROLS:
Controls for Sword of the Stars: The Pit are lag-free provided that you are not trying to attack during an enemies turn.
Which is better, keyboard or controller pad?
Sword of the Stars: The Pit/Mindgames does not have controller support according to the game’s steam profile.
GRAPHICS & AUDIO:
The graphics are great as everything appears to be clear what the item might be or what it might be used for, as well as clarity in what is attacking you or how it is attacking you.
Audio is fine and reminiscent of old school games clear and unique.Â
REPLAY VALUE:
As a rogue-like game with permanent death and randomly crafted dungeons with various ways to play the game makes Sword of the Stars: The Pit a hugely re-playable game.
Leader boards with high scores are also available to you to see how you measure up and strive for higher scores.
Overall, Sword of the Stars: The Pit should be a hit among avid dungeon crawlers, rogue-like gamers, and those looking for a game to play casually on the side at your own pace. If you are looking for a game to fill time gaps each day, this game should suit your needs fine.
As well as having an addicting progression based game structure, the game has personality quirks within each of the classes and items that some may find enjoyable as well as the gritty apocalyptic setting reminiscent of the Fallout franchise.
Sword of the Stars: The Pit is user friendly in that the controls and combat are not overly complicated and its depth is more tied in with the strategy involved with the turn based system. Unique weapons and abilities add to the fun and strategy of the game as well as items to help lessen the RNG with the highly RNG based game play.
With all this said, it suffers from how chance some things can be, and too much bad luck could end with your hero in a tricky situation. This at times can get frustrating, but each classes’ advantages usually make up for it provided you are doing actions corresponding to their unique advantages. For example, this comes into play as a Engineer who has higher than average electronics therefore he has a less chance of getting hurt concerning actions with electronics.
As a final thought, I recommend Sword of the Stars: The Pit on Steam to those who favor gritty aesthetics, unlimited replay value, or good old fashioned dungeon crawling. With so much time already logged, this game is definitely a steal at ten dollars for the base game and five dollars for the huge expansion, The Pit: Mindgames via DLC.
PROS:
+ User friendly controls/Not overly complicated
+ Tons of replay value with new classes, play styles, and difficulty.
+ Simple turn-based strategy game play.
+Â Generally challenging due to it’s rogue-like nature
NEGATIVES:
– Heavily RNG based game play
– Frustrating at times due to bad luck
