Review The Codex Reviews Drox Operative

[JarlFrank]

Tags: Drox Operative; Soldak Entertainment

Yours truly has explored several solar systems and traded with galactic empires to bring you a review of Soldak Entertainment's newest effort, Drox Operative!

At its core, Drox Operative is a Diablo-like ARPG. You fly through space, shoot down "monsters" (actually they are spaceships, but the game calls them monsters) for experience points and collect the loot they drop. Loot consists of ship components and the experience points are gathered not by any single character, but by your spaceship's crew, which has several stats that can be raised on levelup.

On the start of a new game, a map of a galaxy's sector is created and different civilizations are placed in it. These civilizations then go on to colonize space and compete with each other, forging alliances, trading technologies and going to war, just like you would expect from a 4X strategy game such as Master of Orion. The galaxy sector consists of multiple solar systems, each containing a jumpgate that allows for quick travel to any other solar system in the sector, starlanes that allow travel between two specific systems, and a couple of planets. The civilizations explore the galaxy on their own, founding new colonies in other solar systems and building an empire.​

Read all about Drox Operative and how it tries to spice up its ARPG gameplay by adding 4x-like elements in my little review here. And try out the demo if you got interested!

Read the full article: The Codex Reviews Drox Operative

 

[LeStryfe79]

Thanks JarlFrank!

 

[Melcar]

I don't know why I initially read Drow Operative.

 

[Micmu]

Really? I always read it as Drog Operative.
Also, indie fucking A"RPG"s... where has this world come to....

 

[ColCol]

Soldak always seems to have good ideas, but it then it always shits on the ideas by using them only in diablo-likes.

 

[BaconAndEggs]

Great review, well written and is spot on. Now, time to go play more Drox Operative.

 

[villain of the story]

I never took this game seriously and always ignored the news about it. I was so uninterested. This review changed my mind. I'll try the demo asap.

 

[sea]

Good review. The game is definitely good in all the ways you've pointed out, but unfortunately it gets boring after about 20-30 hours simply because it is a Diablo-like, and the 4X stuff ultimately is not too well balanced or as deep as you'd want/expect. Still, getting "only" 20-30 hours of gameplay out of a $20 is quite fair, and I think it's worth supporting the game just for the original idea.

 

[Zed]

I thought it got boring after 30 mins.

 

[Severian Silk]

Too bad the game isn't first-person. The Master of Orion feature is something I'd like to see in more space games or even MMOs.

 

[Metro]

I wanted to like this game, I really did. But after trying the demo I came away less than impressed. The 4x stuff is just used as a proxy for the standard shallow questing you find in these types of ARPGs although admittedly it works a lot better in a space exploration/Starflight setting than it did in Depths of Peril (which didn't hold my interest for longer than two hours). The mechanics between all three of their games are virtually identical with Din's Curse being the superior product. These guys have talent but they really need to do something else other than re-wrapping the same core ARPG mechanics again and again. Probably better off playing Weird Words: Infinite Space.

 

[Kruno]

Need more dynamic events. At the moment I spent over 12 hours playing the game, and it does become fairly repetitive without some solid long term goals. Diablo 3 at least has the goals of Paragon 100, and finding specific legendaries, and you can spend hundreds of hours doing this because the combat can be satisfying. Currently in Drox the room for improvement is in the world itself. I skip all those fetch quests and only do things like kill the big guys, and there is a win condition for this as well. Drox has a lot of good ideas, but requires better execution.

 

[Jasede]

It's exactly like Din's Curse. You try it out and see some things which are neat. Then you get bored as repetition sets in. I still got my money's worth.

 

[MurkyShadow]

I can't believe how stupid... I am. I'd like to say how stupid this game is, but I just caught me playing it for hours.
These arpgs are like traps. If you don't have the skill to avoid them, or fail your saving throw, they may hurt you
a bit, or they get you for good. I feel dirty after wasting time with them. It's like an urge from the dark regions
of the subconscious, the region that says:" Instinct is good, it's all you need, fuck science and all that thinking crap."
Some years ago you could just uninstall and burn the box. Or gift it to a friend you didn't like. But with teh internets.
Is there are a viable option short of lobotomy?

 

[Lightknight]

It's exactly like Din's Curse

Except not as interesting. It gets you for a few hours, but there really is much less variety in it than in DC, ships are identical, very few weapon kinds, and targeting is 50/50 between being your best friend and your worst enemy.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Codex is such a fagdex, unfortunately.

Not only this MAJESTIC article includes whole brilliant paragraphs dedicated to such novel discoveries as ARPG having character stats (oh Lord, how riveting!) and different types of gear, it's also completely hypocritical in its praise to this extremely mediocre, if not straightforwardly bad game. Apart from being a faux 4x hybrid (which it really is not), it's just the old grindy loot dropping slot machine with extremely tedious clickety combat and general lack of any direction (thanks to it seemingly open world nature) and point to the game. If codex bashes diablo 3 (though it is bad and must be bashed), I fail to see how it can praise something that's even worse merely on the grounds of... I dunno, being indie? I guess it's the same logic that people use when they call eschalon (also a shallow and extremely boring game) good.

 

[Kruno]

Diablo 3 is not an indie game. Drox Operative is an indie indie game. People forgive indies a lot more, and that is why there is very little hate.
Diablo 3 promised so much and delivered nothing, even the first Diablo game had more features.