Gratuitous Space Battles Critic Reviews

Gratuitous Space Battles isn't for everyone, as its brand of strategy is entirely weighted towards the setup phase - and the execution is almost completely hands-off. Still, the prospect of building your own ships and using your own unique combinations of general strategies and offensive and defensive loadouts is very compelling for anyone who is a sci-fi space battle enthusiast.

A deeply satisfying game, beneath a humble facade.

In the end, for all its talk of being "gratuitous," Gratuitous Space Battles is actually quite a lean, mean game with a unique premise and singularly charming personality. If you're even marginally interested in seeing heavily armed tin cans tear each other a new hull breach with beam lasers and torpedo missiles, give it a try.

Still, the game retails at $20 and offers a far more satisfying level of capital ship space combat than any other game I've seen released over the last year.

Gratuitous Space Battles is an interesting mix of puzzles and strategy. Action fans won’t find this interesting, but those tactical puzzling fans who love a steep learning curve will definitely enjoy this game. It’s quite expensive for an indie game, but luckily, there’s an extensive demo for those who want to make sure they buy the right thing.

Imperfect spaceship engineering and asynchronous online dueling combine to deliver a flawed star.

Gratuitous Space Battles manages to strike a respectable balance between casual gaming and deep, engaging strategy.

Managerial point of view to epic space battles. Good planning is necessary to enjoy this "Tower Defense" variation.

I do like Gratuitous Space Battles. I think it's a great concept, beautifully presented. I just wish it would let me like it more.

It's definitely worth trying though, and you may very well find yourself hopelessly addicted. With thousands of online challenges, as well as a rampant moding scene, you'll be playing this for awhile.

The type of player that will enjoy the gratuitous space battles might well be put off by al the number crunching and preparation involved in just getting an effective fleet together.