In the interest of disclosure, I really do not like the developer of this game on a personal level. However, this has nothing to do with anything, as I am also capable of seperating the Art from the Artist, and there are a great many things that I have enjoyed over the years, knowing full well that a jerk made them.

With that said... Oh dear. Oh dear indeed. Fleetcomm is a bit of a mess, to understate the situation completely. From the very first menu's inconsistent (but piercing) audio, to the realization that the ONLY graphical option is 'Fullscreen on/off', we're looking at an incredibly bare-bones game here. Content-wise, this really shouldn't be carrying the 'V1.0' label, as it currently contains justt seven disconnected tutorial stages (plus one survival arena), with the first chapter of the planned story not due until later this month.

Okay, the gameplay - the game claims to be a tactical shooter experience, but what that really means is that it's Asteroids + Gradius' Options with hideously convoluted controls and almost impossible to read graphics. The background (in this version at least) is a near solid black field with occasional dark red haze, and almost all enemies are the EXACT SAME COLOUR with no clearly visible highlights, so in order to clearly see what you're shooting at, you need to hold your Scan button (Tab by default) to draw obnoxious yellow lines to every enemy in the arena.

This is also somehow worse than early alpha builds of the game, which were still pretty confusing to watch, but the background provided at least SOME contrast against the enemies. Basic readability and usability were clearly not the focus of development during this game's many delays.

Besides that, the game feels twitchy and hard to control in the worst of ways. What should be an intuitive arcade shooter is made convoluted beyond reason by drowning every simple and accessible element in a haze of noise, both visual and auditory. The soundscape of the game is a hellacious mess. A cacophony of piercing wails and beeps that never really seem to indicate anything of use.

The engine is also a mess. Just by firing missiles I've managed to drop the game - in windowed mode, to boot - to single-digit framerates, which never recover even after the missiles explode. Music tracks play on top of each other. Physics seem to be a suggestion rather than a rule, with enemies drifting in random directions contrary to what their sprite might suggest. There's also no indication from the starfield to tell you which way you're drifting.

Somehow, despite the framerate tanking, my GPU is still running cool. However, on the totally static mission selection menu, the fans rev up, as if it's rendering some impossibly complex scene that I can't see because there's a couple blue box-buttons in the way.

There's really only one thing I can say in this games favour, and it's that the music isn't too bad, although I gather that was produced by a third party too. In short, this is an ugly, painful, messy experience, and woefully unfinished. Despite this, it's being sold as a full product, with no indication on the storefront itself (you need to check the Recent Updates page) that there's nothing but the tutorial here at present.

Four years of development and multiple crowdfunding campaigns, and this is the 'final' product released. Even with more content planned for release, somehow I doubt adding more of this is going to make the game any better. Avoid. This game is bad. I've written so many words here, but I still cannot really describe how broken this feels on even the most basic conceptual level.

In the interest of disclosure, I really do not like the developer of this game on a personal level. However, this has nothing to do with anything, as I am also capable of seperating the Art from the Artist, and there are a great many things that I have enjoyed over the years, knowing full well that a jerk made them. With that said... Oh dear. Oh dear indeed. Fleetcomm is a bit of a mess, to understate the situation completely. From the very first menu's inconsistent (but piercing) audio, to the realization that the ONLY graphical option is 'Fullscreen on/off', we're looking at an incredibly bare-bones game here. Content-wise, this really shouldn't be carrying the 'V1.0' label, as it currently contains justt seven disconnected tutorial stages (plus one survival arena), with the first chapter of the planned story not due until later this month. Okay, the gameplay - the game claims to be a tactical shooter experience, but what that really means is that it's Asteroids + Gradius' Options with hideously convoluted controls and almost impossible to read graphics. The background (in this version at least) is a near solid black field with occasional dark red haze, and almost all enemies are the EXACT SAME COLOUR with no clearly visible highlights, so in order to clearly see what you're shooting at, you need to hold your Scan button (Tab by default) to draw obnoxious yellow lines to every enemy in the arena. This is also somehow worse than early alpha builds of the game, which were still pretty confusing to watch, but the background provided at least SOME contrast against the enemies. Basic readability and usability were clearly not the focus of development during this game's many delays. Besides that, the game feels twitchy and hard to control in the worst of ways. What should be an intuitive arcade shooter is made convoluted beyond reason by drowning every simple and accessible element in a haze of noise, both visual and auditory. The soundscape of the game is a hellacious mess. A cacophony of piercing wails and beeps that never really seem to indicate anything of use. The engine is also a mess. Just by firing missiles I've managed to drop the game - in windowed mode, to boot - to single-digit framerates, which never recover even after the missiles explode. Music tracks play on top of each other. Physics seem to be a suggestion rather than a rule, with enemies drifting in random directions contrary to what their sprite might suggest. There's also no indication from the starfield to tell you which way you're drifting. Somehow, despite the framerate tanking, my GPU is still running cool. However, on the totally static mission selection menu, the fans rev up, as if it's rendering some impossibly complex scene that I can't see because there's a couple blue box-buttons in the way. There's really only one thing I can say in this games favour, and it's that the music isn't too bad, although I gather that was produced by a third party too. In short, this is an ugly, painful, messy experience, and woefully unfinished. Despite this, it's being sold as a full product, with no indication on the storefront itself (you need to check the Recent Updates page) that there's nothing but the tutorial here at present. Four years of development and multiple crowdfunding campaigns, and this is the 'final' product released. Even with more content planned for release, somehow I doubt adding more of this is going to make the game any better. Avoid. This game is bad. I've written so many words here, but I still cannot really describe how broken this feels on even the most basic conceptual level.