Cargo Commander for Mac Review

Space can be a lonely place, with infinite miles of nothingness all around you. Cargo Commander really captures this, while putting you in the shoes of a scavenger / commander, trying to make a living and return to his family. The music, the art-style, they all come together and make you feel as if you are out there.

But the real question remains, is it fun being out there? Let’s get down to it…

 

Enter Cargo Commander

Cargo Commander is a platform/adventure game developed by Serious Brew and released on Steam and Gamersgate (our partner) for the Mac and PC on November 1st, 2012.

In a nutshell, Cargo Commander puts you in the shoes of a space scavenger. You live in a big square cargo ship and your job is to explore the space in the hopes of finding and recovering valuables. Only then, will you be able to accomplish your mission and return to your wife and kid.

 

You start the game in your lonely Cargo Ship, where you have a computer and access to emails from your boss and family. This sets the tone of the game: You are alone, yet you have a task at hand: Collect crates.

You have to activate a huge magnet which attracts the containers floating around. When the nearby containers collide against your cargo ship, the real game starts!

The whole game is based on exploring the containers that you attract. At the beginning, they are small and simple. You just enter the container, kill a dude or two (using your arm attachment), drill a wall here or there, and hurry back home. Why hurry? Because worm holes appear and you are forced to get back to your cargo ship before it tears appart everything and leaves you lost in space!

 

Gameplay

The gameplay seems rather bland at first, but this is a game that deserves an opportunity. Yes, the core mechanics, shooting and jumping around, feel simplistic, but Cargo Commander manages to pull it off by putting you in fun situations.

Things get more complicated and unpredictable early on. As you progress, you unlock more weapons, you attract more and more containers at once (and bigger too) and you find yourself in fun situations thanks to a combination of gravity, time and a dozen enemies chasing you in space.

Cargo Commander definitely provides some fun moments, however I found the whole process a little tiring after a while. The sectors you have to explore are randomly generated, but you still have to look for the same old crates.

 

The Verdict

 

The Good

• Captures the feeling of being out there in space
• Offers fun gameplay
• Creates gradually more challenging situations to conquer

The Bad

• The core gameplay mechanics do feel simplistic
• The game tends to feel tiring after a while

Final word

If you like platformers and adventure games, you will probably enjoy this game. Right now, you can get the Mac and PC versions of the game on Steam for $9.99. This is definitely a low barrier to entry if you want to try it.

If you are not a huge fan of Indie platformers or indie games overall, the appeal of Cargo Commander may be harder to find. This is not the next Minecraft which will make you fall in love of indie games.

3/5 – Good

 

I personally would love to see this game on the iPad one day. I have the feeling the simple gameplay and mechanics would be perfectly suited for the iPad, where the atmosphere and art design are very important too (and this game has them both).