The fantastic Kerbal Space Program recently had a new piece of DLC released and we were lucky enough to get the chance to play it.
Greg reviewed the main game when we were This Is Xbox, he said:
In sandbox mode these mission are entirely driven by your own imagination. There’s no budget concerns or technologies that needs researching, you have everything available to you and are free to build any craft you desire, no matter how monstrous it is. Career mode and science mode restrict you, with career mode offering you contracts to be completed in order to gain more resources and science to unlock new technology. Here your progress is more tightly managed, making it an ideal place to start as you learn the ropes. But either mode you choose is still extremely difficult, but you’ll find you make just enough progress through failure to keep you hooked; it can get frustrating but it’s remarkable how enjoyable it is too keep failing time and time again.
The History and Parts pack builds on this and gives us budding space engineers the chance to take part in the race to space, featuring new missions that will test your skills, new parts to add to your creations and some new launch sites too.
It’s hard not to charmed by the game, whether it’s the little Kerbals you send in to space, who no matter what the situation always seem to be gormlessly happy or the excellent space soundtrack that somehow keeps you calm under pressure.
However, Kerbal Space Program is not a simple game and I needed some expert help, so I drafted in my wannabe astronaut of a son in to play some of the missions to give me his thoughts. The new DLC gave us the opportunity to take on some different missions, the first of which saw us build a basic rocket to reach a low altitude, before building one that could reach a higher altitude to take a temperature from the atmosphere before creating our first satellite. It wasn’t long before we had completed that mission, and we continued our journey. The new parts that have been added to game allow you to recreated some of the most iconic space vehicles, including the Saturn V and Soyuz Rockets
Having not played Kerbal for a while I was worried about how complicated the game was, but was pleased to see that the UI has been rewritten and a new Simplified preset has been made available with an entirely new control scheme designed to be easier to pick up and play with a controller. Being able to access all sub-menus and tweakables without the use of a cursor at all is a really big help.
It’s great being able to relive some pivotal moments in space history and also learn a lot more about what goes in to the physics of space travel, the DLC costs £7.99 and for that price it’s great value for money. There is hours of fun to be had and you’ll learn loads too, I’m really impressed with the improvements to the UI, considering the amount of detail in the game, the developers have done an excellent job.
Kerbal Space Program: History and Parts DLC
