So far, it plays much like you'd expect this type of game to. The control of the aircraft feels very responsive and pretty slick, you can climb, dive and perform various air-based manoeuvres in a believable fashion and with a good weighty feeling to the control response. The combat itself works well with a good mix of dodging, diving, and using missiles and guns to take down targets. Occasionally you also need to destroy ground objects, which are currently rather simplistic and visually lacking in aesthetic quality. There's no take off and landing mechanic as of yet, but it is a planned feature.
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| The engine is solid |
A variety of game modes are on offer. These include a single player campaign, a customisable skirmish mode, a challenge mode used for unlocking new aircraft, and a planned multiplayer mode. There's also a quick action mode which allows a one-button-press jump straight onto a battle field. The game can be controlled with the keyboard and mouse, but, as with basically any flight sim game, it seems clearly designed for a controller and works much better with one.
The campaign mode is noticeably barren for the moment and the developer has admitted so themselves. It seems like a lot of work is yet needed to get this game's single player offerings up to par. There isn't much story to speak of, which is an area planned for additional development, and the missions are fairly simplistic involving one or two basic objectives. In addition, the levels are designed incredibly sparsely with little to no detail outside of the actual mission goals.
The skirmish mode, on the other hand, offers a large range of options so you can set it up how you'd like it, and it seems to be one of the most complete game modes so far. The AI is well programmed and seems to be a very competent pilot; on the hardest difficult setting it provides a decent challenge. The multiplayer is, as yet, not implemented.
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| I don't know near enough about planes to say what this is... |
The graphics are fairly bog standard for the moment. The planes themselves look pretty good, there's certainly a rather large selection of them on offer, with a total of 165 different aircraft being planned for release. The developer opted for cell shaded models, which is well-suited to indie game graphics. The terrain, however, looks pretty terrible, and land-based objects on the terrain look weirdly out of place. The sound assets in the game are also not yet up to scratch and sound very amateur. Presumably, they'll be improved before final release.
What clearly excites the fan base more than anything about Vector Thrust is the customisation options offered in the form of an included map editor and modding support. These tools are offered from the game's main menu and appear to offer the unlocked tools which the developer is using himself to build the campaign. In addition, in skirmish mode mutators can be used to affect almost any variable within the game; for example, a vampire mutator which allows planes to steal health from each other by causing damage. This combination of all these features will, theoretically, provide the game's player base with vast modding and mission creation options.
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| The cell shaded aircraft models look pretty good |
At this stage it's difficult to see whether Vector Thrust will do enough to make it stand out from the crowd. There's a variety of decent flight sims out there with big production teams, and it's not exactly the easiest genre for a new developer to penetrate. If the title does enough to attract a dedicated fan base who embrace its malleability then it could become something special on a cult level. In addition, the game engine seems pretty solid, controls well, and has the potential to act as a solid base for a good title. On the other hand, the gameplay right now is nothing to write home about, and in its current formant it would almost certainly not appeal to a mainstream flight sim audience.
Vector Thrust is currently available on Steam's Early Access. Their current trading model rewards early access purchasers with a lower buying price, with the cost planned to increase incrementally up until full release.
Most Anticipated Feature: A wealth of game customisation and editing features.
