

Success in battle involves timing your most powerful shots to hit when their shields are weakest, which effectively creates some great “Fire on my command!” moments. The many ways in which multiple versions of blasters, beams, flak, missiles, ion blasts, teleported bombs, attack drones, boarding parties with six distinctly different races, and mind control interact with shields, cloaking devices, defensive drones, engine speed, medical bays and cloning facilities, reinforced doors, and more is endlessly interesting. Play Combat seems rudimentary at first, since both 2D pixel-art ships sit still on the screen trading blows, but its wide variety of offensive and defensive options give it surprising legs. That’s the joy of it: you never get to feel safe. (That makes it an excellent fit for the iPad’s touch controls, too.) But because it involves so many random factors, from whether a missile hits its mark to if your crew can rescue a space station from giant spiders in a miniature text adventure, FTL is often cruel to the point where a few bad jumps can render a playthrough effectively unwinnable.
#FTL ADVANCED EDITION PC#
After countless hours of the PC and iPad versions, I’ve effectively mastered its amazing ship-to-ship and somewhat weaker hand-to-hand combat systems – it doesn’t take too long, as it generously allow you to pause at any time and consider what to do and where to move your tiny crewmembers.
#FTL ADVANCED EDITION GENERATOR#
And even though it doesn’t always work – or perhaps because it doesn’t always work, and sometimes everyone dies and you have to start again – it’s those moments when it does that make FTL: Advanced Edition one of the most memorable and replayable games I’ve ever played.FTL is a story generator more than it is a game of skill. Kirk or Han Solo would attempt to reverse his fortunes and save his crew. It’s the kind of desperate, so-crazy-it-just-might-work move James T. FTL stands out as easily one of my favorite indie games released over the last few years.There’s something special about a game where you can choose to reroute power away from the vital life-support system to the weapons and coax one last shot out of your crippled, flaming wreck of a spaceship. Instead of being annoying, this is incredibly rewarding as you can play the game over and over again with a variety of ships and loadouts. FTL is a rogue-like, meaning that every time your ship dies you have to start the game over. The combat is simple to learn, but difficult to master, providing an enormous amount of depth and fun. Your ship journeys through the galaxy trading, fighting, and negotiating for the survival of your crew. The player begins his journey with limited weapons and a paltry crew, both of which can be expanded. FTL, an acronym for Faster Than Light, involves the player controlling a Federation ship in hopes of destroying a rebel capital ship.


Such is the life of a pilot in FTL: Advanced Edition. The enemy strikes back with his own attack, a barrage including both missiles and lasers destroying my ships oxygen system, leaving my crew to suffocate in space.

Unfortunately, the majority of the salvo misses, flying harmlessly into space. I fire a salvo of lasers at the enemy ship in a hope of destroying the enemy weapon systems to prevent a return attack.
