Interkosmos 2000 Review

If you check Interkosmos 2000's description, you might think it's a game about being on a ship in the middle of space while you desperately fixing things to stay alive... except that the chaos is extremely easy to control, and the only thing you'll be trying to manage is your nerves as the game repeats the same command for minutes on end. 

I genuinely wanted to love this game. Not just because the menu itself got me exhilarated or the fact that I'm a huge fan of both space and the survival genre — it was also because I was in absolute awe when I first booted up the game and sat there in the pilot's seat. The entire HUD looked overwhelming, complex, and realistic, and I loved it so much. Looking out through the windows while the AI explained everything to me was possibly one of the coolest experiences I've had in VR and space games; I was so enthralled by the idea that I refused to stop playing despite my usually low tolerance for motion sickness. 

The beginning was fantastic. My wife — who sat away from me on the couch watching the game stream on the TV — was laughing along with me as I whacked the consoles with the wrench, looked around frantically — trying to understand which of the Life Support systems were failing — and helplessly grasped at the items floating around, trying to get them to sit still. Unfortunately, that fun tension quickly turned into real frustration, as the game became mundane, confusing, and irritating.

Let's begin with the awful controls. I'll admit that I am very new to VR — I've had it for about a week — but during my short time with it, I have played quite a handful of games, and Interkosmos 2000 was by far the most awkward with the controls. Although I didn't dislike the fact that my hands sometimes would get stuck against things because it adds to the realism of being crammed in a spaceship, I did really dislike how glitchy and bad at tracking it was. More often than not, whenever a fuse would burst (which happens very often), I would find myself scrambling around trying to get it to grip onto the door of the compartment to take a new one out and then fumbling to grab it... and then struggling to connect it. Although I understand part of the charm is in the chaos, it definitely became a chore more than a fun aspect very quickly. 

Speaking of chaos and being stuck on a glitchy task, if I wasn't fumbling around with items, I was stuck in a mission because I didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing. Either because it was something new and completely unexplained (like when I had to do a burn) or because they were throwing terminology at me that I didn't understand and, again, hadn't been explained how to do (like the Hohmann manoeuvre). Perhaps that wouldn't have been nearly as irritating had it not been for the NPC (oftentimes an AI with a monotone and loud voice) incessantly barking the same order on repeat every few seconds until I'd finally figure it out, making it that much more frustrating that I didn't understand what to do. Essentially, this trivialised the usage of clicking the radio to get the same command because the game would infinitely repeat it, and it really took away from the experience. Often, I found that what I'd tried to do originally to complete a task was the right choice but failed because of a glitch; whether that was because the game wouldn't process it properly or because I was doing something that was too similar to the next step. One example is getting too close to the Destiny module to scan it, which ultimately forces you to reset the checkpoint (or, in my case, restart the application entirely) because the next step would be to get close to the module to scan any damage.

Additionally, the story of the game felt too satirical for me to care about what was happening, causing a strange dissonance. On the one hand, I was tasked with a very important mission (and trying to survive through multiple Life Support failures), but on the other hand, there was a bordering racist stereotype of a Russian (with a terribly thick and exaggerated accent) on the radio arguing with the American station. Long-winded arguments between Houston and Moscow completely stifled progression whilst the two (supposedly) professional stations argued about the colour of a box and a floppy disk. Moscow eventually says, "We cannot take responsibility for every red object", an admittedly hilarious line but, unfortunately, one of the extremely rare well-placed jokes throughout the span of the game. The voice acting only made this more insufferable, as the already difficult-to-endure story was all the more challenging to handle due to the lack of professional acting. Interkosmos 2000 tries to be funny but fails at it; it sets a seemingly serious story, but fails at doing that, too. It felt that, ultimately, everything the game did was half-arsed and uninspired.

This lack of real characters and story was particularly painful whenever I died or failed and had to restart a part because the game would force me to sit there and hear their awkward interactions over and over. Whenever it does allow you to interrupt the dialogue, you run the risk of glitching the entire task and forcing you to restart to listen to the conversation once again. If not that, then I'd be sitting there watching the 30-second countdown go down painstakingly slow until I could try again just to fail because I still didn't understand what to do. Once I got through that sequence, the next one was a 4-minute countdown, and I thankfully managed to avoid death in that one. Meanwhile, the survival and chaotic aspects of the game — such as Life Support — were incredibly easy to manage and very mundane, oftentimes just needing you to twist a valve for a few seconds and move on. When I got the hang of it, the survival aspect just became another nuisance to deal with whilst trying not to die and repeat the scene.

Lastly, the graphics and sound effects were pretty good. I particularly loved the sounds the ship made as you pulled levers or dragged yourself around, as they were very immersive and incredibly well done. The graphics were pretty good, too, although I felt it was a bit underwhelming to always have a planet beside you as you travel, instead of seeing any sort of scenery change — this particularly becomes mundane and boring as you never leave your ship, so it takes away the fun of travelling.

All in all, I was very disappointed with Interkosmos 2000. I really couldn't recommend anyone play it if they're put off by any sort of repetition — be it dialogue, sounds, or gameplay — or are easily frustrated by meaningless interruptions.