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Genre: Strategy

Format: Download

Developer: Digital Eel

Publisher: Shrapnel Games

Minimum System Requirements: 700MHz G3 processor, 128MB RAM, Mac OS X v10.2 or later, 32MB video card, 40MB hard drive space

Price: $24.95

Demo: www.shrapnelgames.com (17MB .zip)

You might have had a long day at work and want to unwind a bit before starting supper, or maybe you want a break from writing e-mails at work but don't have the time for a long game and are bored of solitaire. Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space might be just the game you're looking for.

The concept is very simple. You're given a ship and have to go out into the unknown and uncharted galaxy to discover new life forms, get loot, upgrade your ship's weapons and shields, gain allies, and return home before your time is up to get the highest score. Depending on which ship you choose, your game is slightly different as you should collect unusual life forms on the science mission, the pirate mission emphasizes collecting items with high value, and the military mission wants you to contact alien races. Once you pick the length of the game, how much nebula is in the galaxy (affects how fast you travel), and how strong the enemy is, your game will start.

You start out at Hope, your home planet, and have a bunch of other systems to explore. Just click on the one you want to visit and your ship will fly there in a straight line. Once you arrive, you'll explore the system—sometimes finding a strange artifact and other times meeting a new alien species that wants to destroy your ship or trade items with you.

While exploring the galaxy is turn-based, once you enter battle it switches to real-time and gives you the ability to fly your spaceship around the battlefield, use an artifact you found, ram the ship, or retreat. If you find other ships to accompany you, you could have them attack the enemy head on while you fly around to the back and attack from the rear. In other battles, you come across aliens attacking each other so you can pick one side to help, while other times all of the aliens decide to band together to attack you. If you were lucky enough to find good weapon and shield upgrades, then you will emerge victorious with hopefully some loot for your trouble.

All this sounds like a lot, but even the large map doesn't take more than 20 minutes to play, and it's impossible to completely explore a galaxy and conquer all of the enemies before your time is up, which is both good and bad. Good in that there's always more to do, and bad in that just when you have a chance at winning battles you have to return home or get a score penalty.

To get around this, there's a simulator mode where you can pick what and how many ships are in your fleet (even from alien races) and who you fight, although you have no control over what equipment your ships get and I presume this is standardized.

It's also expandable with user-created mods, but unfortunately I haven't come across any and there's no place to download them from the developer or publisher websites despite the manual saying otherwise.

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is an enjoyable alternative to solitaire for a quick jaunt through space.

Download Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space