Madness! Madness is a state of rage or insanity or mental derangement in which some of us are born in to, acquire through chemicals or are pushed in to by a game that has no business being controlled by anything other than a keyboard or mouse.
Enter Kerbal Space Program for Consoles. Granted this is review is about the expansion rather the game, but I just wanted to quickly mention the ludicrous nature of trying to assemble a rocket in a build screen that allows an uncanny range of 3D movement.
This works really well on PC with a keyboard and mouse, but after patching up my 3rd XBOX Controller-shaped hole in my wall, I have decided NO MORE! I did plug my mouse in to the XBOX just in case the gods were looking graciously upon me, but my hopes were dashed and the gods just laughed at me and my 3 controller holes in the wall.
Anyhoo, moving along to what we are actually here for, the expansion, “Breaking Ground”.
Breaking Ground was released for PC players earlier this year and now the console players have been graced with it. KSP is a fun-as-heck game (on PC) and the expansion just adds the greatness.
There is no one part of the additional features of the expansion that is better than the next. Each features compliments the next. I am a man of science! Hahaha no, not even close. But I do love science and I even got straight A’s in high school in science… yep, I’m just that good!
Sorry, I digress… back to the real world now. The Deployed Science addition is freakin cool and kind of makes you feel like Matt Damon in “The Martian” with now being able to deploy solar panels, weather stations and even such a simple item like a booster antenna. This all helps you gather your required data needed to head home.
The Robotic Parts are very cool too indeed. These parts allow you to expand on your creativity and truly explore inner geek with weird and wacky creations.
The Surface Features addition is not so much fun as the above but makes it more “real” in a way. Space and planet exploration without meteors, volcanoes, craters etc just doesn’t seem very “sciency” to me. I don’t think that is a word, but I just made it one. These new worldly, surface features adds splash of creativity to a game that is already lots of fun.
This feature-rich expansion is focused on increasing the objective possibilities once celestial bodies have been reached by adding more interesting scientific endeavors and expanding the toolset.
After landing on a celestial body, a variety of data collecting equipment can now be deployed to conduct scientific experiments. While gathering that data, newly added surface features have been scattered across the solar system, which players will need to go out in search of to either scan or bring back to Kerbin for further examination.
Additionally, robotic parts are being added! A hinge, piston, rotor, and rotational servo in various sizes will be accessible to massively alter the possibilities of players’ crafts. These all operate under realistic physics with real forces and torque, electricity consumption, and even motor mass.
- Deployed Science: Scientific experiments have always gone hand-in-hand with space exploration and are now becoming an even greater focus in KSP. Players will be able to utilize a storage container in their craft that can hold various pieces of science equipment. Upon reaching their destination, players will need to deploy the equipment, which includes a central station, booster antenna, solar panel, weather station, active seismometer, RTG, goo observation, and ion detector. These pieces of equipment must be left out for a period of time to fully collect all of the scientific data and relay it back to Kerbin. The active seismometer in particular asks players to deliberately crash things into a celestial body to gather seismic data!
- Surface Features: A major addition with Breaking Ground is found on the celestial bodies scattered throughout the solar system. Meteors, craters, rock outcroppings, cryovolcanoes and more now populate the landscape. While smaller surface features can be transported back to KSC by Kerbals themselves, larger ones provide a greater challenge and will require Kerbals to venture out in rovers or send unmanned rovers. By attaching the new robotic rover arm to their rovers, players can scan the larger surface features to collect important scientific data.
- Robotic Parts: Long-requested robotics parts will now be available for use in KSP! A hinge, piston, rotor, and rotational servo in various sizes will allow players to tackle new challenge as well as enhance the creativity of their crafts. To coincide with these new parts, the addition of a robotics controller system will let players coordinate the behavior of all the different parts on their craft.
- A New Suit: Of course, the ever-important Kerbal fashion can never be forgotten. With Breaking Ground players will receive a new suit that is futuristic in aesthetic and tied to the science-focus of this expansion.
Take on new challenges with a breadth of added tools and parts in KSP’s second expansion, Breaking Ground. Weather stations, solar panels, and more allow players to collect science over time, while they venture out to research mysterious surface features such as cryovolcanoes with new robotic parts.
I can safely say that I give the expansion a 5 out of 5 and the game itself is certainly worth a high score in my opinion, but just, for the love of all that is good and holy, get it on PC or wait until (if ever) mouse support comes to console.
The Good
- Science
- Robotics
- More Fun
- Everything about the game
The Bad
- Playing on console!
SuBZeRO2K
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