Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime was one of my surprise favorites at PAX; a colorful, lighthearted couch co-op game with a surprising amount of depth and challenge that was a hell of a lot of fun for the fifteen minutes we had to try it out. The full version proves to be everything we experienced and so much more, with more of the same great gameplay as well as some wonderful variety, making Lovers one of the best games I’ve played all year.
And it’s soooo cute!
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime puts two players, or a single player and an adorable canine AI, in charge of commanding a spaceship navigating the stars, fighting the forces of anti-love and rescuing your furry friends from danger in arcadey action shooter . The ship has eight installations: a command post which accelerates and steers the ship, four maneuverable guns fixed on the four quadrants of the ship, an invulnerable shield which covers about a quarter to a third of the ship but can be moved 360 degrees, a map console, and the Yamato Cannon, a powerful weapon fixture which unleashes massive damage but with a cooldown time.
There are a few tricks here. First off, you and your friend can each only man one position at a time, meaning you can only be running about a quarter of the ship at any given time. If you’re trying to get somewhere you’ll need one player to steer the ship, often leaving one player to man guns and run the shields by themselves, but sometimes you’re going to need to run two guns or the shields in tandem. Actually, sometimes you’re going to need to be running all the positions at once, meaning you’re going to have to make some hard decisions in a hurry. Not only that, you have to run your players through the ship, navigating ladders and tight quarters moving from fixture to fixture, adding extra difficulty, tension, and hilarity to your task.
Playing this game successfully is going to require cooperation and coordination between players. If you and your co-pilot aren’t working together, carefully navigating your ship through tight quarters, manning guns and guiding the shields, you won’t stand a chance. It only took a little time before we found a natural division of duties that suited us for most of the game, but the game will present you with challenges that will require some additional thought, a little trial-and-error, and a good amount of communication and coordination to overcome.
That said, the very nature of the game means that things aren’t always going to go smoothly. Sometimes you’re going to be beset by enemies on all sides and you won’t be able to fight them all off, and sometimes you’ll abandon the steering wheel to fire the Yamato Cannon only to have the ship drift off into an errant asteroid field. Rather than be frustrating, this adds to the chaotic fun of the game. Things aren’t always going to go well and that’s great. We had just as much fun getting killed by wacky missteps as we did pulling off tightly executed operations to save our fluffy bunny friends.
The core gameplay to Lovers is solid enough that it could last through the entire experience on its own, but they mix things up every few levels by throwing in a stage where you have to protect a warp drive from waves of foes, or a location with only a few very powerful enemies requiring you to figure out an irregular strategy to defeat. On top of this, the game has some great bosses which are both challenging but also gorgeous.
Along those lines, I’d be remiss to talk about this game without commenting on how great it looks. The graphics are cheerful and bright, with colors that both blend and contrast to makes for distinctive scenery and popping imagery. Empty expanses of space may use soft, dark colors to create an almost relaxed feeling, while frantic battles will sport enemies in numerous bright, striking colors which add an even more hectic feeling to already chaotic battles. Lovers compliments this with a soundtrack that could often be described as discreet, taking a back seat to the sound and presentation, but still presenting some great mood-setting, synth-heavy tracks compliments the style and tone of the game very nicely.
I really can’t think of any flaws in the game, though a few thoughts did occur to us while we played. While you can play the game by yourself, commanding your AI dog (or cat), you’re going to miss out on almost everything that makes it so great. Your experience may also vary depending on who you play with; the game is very easy to pick up, though devilishly difficult to master. This is the type of title you may not be able to enjoy with someone who doesn’t normally play games, or even someone who doesn’t handle the cooperative nature of the title very well. Also, if you’re going to be playing the PC version, you may not be able to accommodate the same experience gathered around your desk with a friend. These are minor caveats, not flaws, and that said it’s really great that this title is available on Xbox One, as the console needs something worth playing on it so badly, but also simply because console is the platform a game like this really should be on.
I’m really not kidding when I say that Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime went from being completely off my radar to one of the best things I’ve played all year. It’s an easy title to pick up but offers an amazing amount of complexity and challenge, and whether you are laughing as you bungle your way through a sortie or at the edge of your seat as you fight for your life in a do-or-die showdown, it is all extremely entertaining. It’s everything that’s right with couch co-op, done up in an extremely tight, adorable package.
This game was reviewed using a pre-release code provided to us by the publisher.
