PEGBRJE: Helium Rain and No Brakes Valet
Exploration and Destruction
Helium Rain is a space exploration and management simulation made by Deimos Games, an indie dev team out of Paris which launched this as their first title. Players take control of a freighter in space as their own spaceflight company, accepting contracts and hauling cargo across the vast reaches of the unknown darkness that is space travel. Others are trying to do the same, but it’s only those that can be fast and smart that will create an economic empire.
For those familiar with a certain other space simulation juggernaut called Elite: Dangerous, it’s hard to not compare the two in terms of gameplay and atmosphere (or lack thereof, because y’know, space… sorry). Helium Rain will have players customize and create their ship’s interior and exterior to allow for whatever activity they are heavily focused on in order to succeed. Many players will default to hauling cargo to and from different sectors of the galaxy, utilizing speed and capacity upgrades in order to gain an edge on the competition. Others may take an offensive route instead, increasing their fleets with fighters and bombers to take out enemy ships that threaten them or to do some old fashioned piracy. Regardless of which route or style is taken, actions taken will ripple throughout the galaxy, ranging from small scale skirmishes to galactic economic crashes.
Where Helium Rain diverges from Elite: Dangerous is in a very simple way; Helium Rain is single player only. The economic model is not based on the trading of hundreds of space travelers, but instead an AI simulation of human activity and trade styles. Pirates that attack innocent cargo fleets are AI, not sneaky humans attempting to skirt the system. Depending on the player, this may be a massive caveat in the title as many enjoy the feeling of an actual space simulation with others speeding through space, manipulating the markets and exploring the stars. Personally, I’m in the opposite camp — Elite: Dangerous’ online made it a tad more frustrating for me as someone who wished to coast a little more on my own terms and not worry about my actions impacting real people. AI don’t direct message me angry words of resentment, after all.
It goes without saying Helium Rain is massive. One of the large challenges of space simulations is just how daunting they can be for new players due to the seemingly infinite scale of space they can move while mirroring many real world systems. Economics aren’t something to be taken lightly, and can impact dozens of planets and sectors if handled haphazardly, space combat utilizes dogfighting and ships are made of dozens of systems that need understanding and care. 3D movement especially takes a long time to get used to, mostly for those of us lacking experience with flight simulations. Credit to where it is due, Helium Rain’s M&K control scheme felt clean and simple after my struggles with Elite: Dangerous, and I was able to maneuver space quite cleanly.
Helium Rain has even more that I haven’t uncovered yet, making me feel a bit uncomfortable talking about it already. At the same time however, I don’t know when an overview would come out if I attempted to discover everything due to the sheer size of this title. There’s an entire galaxy to explore, planets generated just for each player, upgrades to try out and ships to build and destroy. If you were looking for a single player space simulation to relax to while building an empire of economics, this is definitely a title for you.
No Brakes Valet is a driving destruction title made by Captain Games, a Canadian solo dev. Players take the roll of a valet, which seems simple enough at first, until one realizes that this valet cares little for the understanding of brakes. All that matters is speed and efficiency, and hopefully some tips for a job ‘well done’.
Players start No Brakes Valet by seeing a car parking lot from a top down perspective, and that’s it. Suddenly a car comes speeding onto the lot from one of the entrances, and players have a single goal; somehow park this thing while lacking the ability to control it’s forward movement. At first I had no idea what was going on, so I just crashed them into the walls and expected it to be fine. These vehicles aren’t average, run of the mill though, they are pure objects full of rage and steel. They bounce. Some momentum was lost, sure, but these cars refuse to stay put until all of their speed has been spent. It becomes a game of figuring out just how to slow the cars down enough to get them between the lines through any means necessary. Some will crash the cars into others to ‘boop’ them into place, others will spin them in circles until enough speed has been lost.
Truthfully, the entire game had me in stitches laughing at its absurdity. Cars would honk and scream onto the lot with little care for their own safety, and the sounds for the crashes and skids were so well done that it just added to the hilarity. Explosive barrels would appear randomly to throw everything off. My favourite part was when the simple headline appeared on screen of “It’s the Prime Minister!” as a car marked P crashed into 3 busses that I had goofed up and ruined earlier. There’s a method to the madness in getting the cars in parking spots properly, but there’s also just the joyous fun of seeing where these cars will end up during a complete whiff of movement.
Oh, and there’s a local multiplayer mode for up to 4.
No Brake Valley is absurd, simple, and hilariously over the top fun. I haven’t even talked about the limos and fancy cars yet. If you are looking for something quick and silly with some strategy involved once you can get past the giggles, this game is easily one you’ll be looking for.
Side note: some may remember this title from the Ouya as it has come to my attention. I didn’t have an Ouya, so I had no idea.
