It's a weird genre, sci-fi. Everyone seems to want a go at it, barely anyone seems to do it correctly. Occasionally, however, someone does get it right, and this is one of those examples.
Ark 22 puts you in the role of Kesha, a vending machine technician on a transport ship which crash-lands on an icy planet. The story shifts to the small village the crew have built, where Kesha acquires a few basic supplies and sets off to check for other survivors. Of course, it's not as simple as that and Kesha is thrust into a battle against aliens, monsters and all sorts of other enemies.
The whole game seems fairly Zelda-inspired, although unlike most games along those lines it does something of its own as well. The game itself is one of the biggest made with Game Maker; it'll require at least a few hours just to get through the main game, and that's not including the various optional quests. The expansive game world includes a variety of different locales, with massive dungeons and many NPCs to make conversation with.
It's not all swordplay and slingshots.
The control scheme is effective, with the arrow keys being used to manoeuvre Kesha and all the attack commands being on the other side of the keyboard. The eight-way directional controls offer plenty of control over the character. The puzzle sections are fairly difficult but not complicated, and combat is generally simple to control. Although you start off with only a sword for combat, other weapons are unlocked as you explore dungeons and fight enemies.
Graphically, the game is okay, with small but colourful and fairly clear sprites and detailed buildings, as well as stylised text outlines. Cut-scenes are presented with what seem to be hand-drawn images and subtitles, and there's an option to speed through them - a rarity in GM titles. The score is impressively written and the visual effects are great. One of the game's best achievements is that it doesn't repeat itself. Enemies, weapons and puzzle sections are all varied and the story moves along at a fairly quick speed. The only problem is the hardware requirements; players using less powerful computers might encounter lag in particularly complex screens.
On that point at the beginning of the review that not many 'get' sci-fi, that's another area where Ark 22 excels. The plot resists the temptation to simply throw aliens at the player and, for much of the game, it's fairly ambiguous as to what the enemies are. As well as the plot, the game features many NPCs to interact with, and it's these generally irrelevant characters that make Ark 22 so different to its rivals; the game world seems as if it's an actual society as opposed to a bunch of characters with no purpose other than to explain your goals. They're supported by an often humorous script and varied dialogue.
The NPCs usually have something to say, which makes the game more believable.
Perhaps Ark 22's greatest achievement is that it's able to be a mature game on its own merits. It doesn't try to fit itself into the nebulous realms of being a 'hardcore' game; it doesn't need mindless violence or profanity to make itself seem mature and achieves that goal because it doesn't aim for those. The complex story and gameplay put it above most similar games made with the program, and it's one of the few that could easily avoid the 'made with GM' stigma.
