by: John Olin

December 27, 2005

In the sea of games out on Xbox Live Arcade, you have about five games that are top-down shooters, some virtual card games, and a bunch of puzzle games. Well out of this sea of the same comes a lone strategy game that is probably one of the most unique experiences on the Xbox 360 yet. Enter Outpost Kaloki X, a strategy all about committing to various Space Stations across the galaxy, creating new business opportunities, saving the economy of fishbowl aliens, and all of that in fifteen minutes or less. If this sounds daunting, then don’t be alarmed, after about ten minutes of playing the game any strategy, puzzle, or even action fan will be entangled in the game for hours to come.

Basically no matter what mode you play in the game you always have the same basic objective. The objective is that you must generate a profit for the given Space Station, build certain cash generating operations, maintain them, and appease the various visitors of the space station. The control of the game is all done seamlessly and never gets so complicated that things become impossible. By pressing the X button you can look at your goals, controls, and various other options for the game. On the top of the screen you have an icon for every single visitor for the station and as they come along some give comments about how much they like it or hate it, while others give specific things that interest them. These guests will have a bright yellow flash with an exclamation point inside bursting out. These people have even more information and sometimes items to sell you. You access this information simply by press Y and highlighting their icon. It also gives you a view of where they are in the station on your overall screen. The panel on the screen that gives you information on the types of shops you need to build are on the right side of the screen. On this panel you have important information such as how much money you have, how much power you have to spare, and what is in high demand for the station, and the condition of your buildings. The Space Stations which you put all of these various lemonade stands, power generators, malt shops, and scientific establishments is normally round with some discerning characteristics and a bunch of appendages for which you attach parts to jaunting outward.

So the game has these appendages or docks, and let us says you put on a store, well it uses up power. When you try and put on another store you can’t until you put on a generator of some sort. The game normally gives you plenty of places to put businesses but as you advance further you find yourself running out of docks, leaving you to decide what you want to sell and what the new business is that you want to put in. Furthermore, some businesses can’t even be created unless you have established others that will help support that business. For example in order to get a health bar, you need to install a garden on one dock to even spring it up. As you advance further you may find stations which already have businesses but you need to repair them or there are multiple and tricky objectives. This leads to you having to create repair stations. These repair stations repair the generators and various businesses on your outpost. Of course none of this is free to you, and you have operating cost. So if you have stations that aren’t kept up they make less profit, and therefore you begin to go into the red, and you still have to continue to make money and keep the quality of other establishments up. That is where the challenge is in the game, is basically being a good contractor. If you just start building like crazy a lot of the times you will end up messing up along the way. If you pace yourself however, and do it within the limited time limit, then you will have much more luck. The customers generally are predictable, and as long as you keep things up you should have a steady stream of business. Very rarely are they random in how much they spend.

There are a few modes to choose from the practice mode allowing you to just simply do what you want if you don’t feel like getting objectives thrown on you. The adventure mode basically puts you in the role of a dashing young lad whose mission is to go to these various stations and make them attractive to visitors. The story mode isn’t really much of a story as much as it is giving you some objectives with a silly plot wrapped around it. An uncreative but still fun mode is the military/war story mode which gives you the same stuff you basically have in story mode but they make it harder on you. Eventually though you get the hang of the entire game and before you know it, the game is over. Anyone who actually gets into the game can probably suck up the entire replay from every corner within ten hours, leaving you to buy one of the expansion packs available on Xbox Live.

The great thing about Outpost Kaloki X is there are and will be more expansions to buy over Live to help you get more out of it, as well as some great Xbox Live Achievements to try and score. Besides that you also have the leaderboards to see how you stack against others who have the game. There is very little bad about the title. The game can look a bit static, and the way information is presented can be annoying sometimes although this can be changed at your own discretion. The game also can get repetitive, despite it’s deeply rooted nature, and at some points later in the game downright annoying with all the tasks at hand.

Despite the game isn’t really a shining display of the technical prowess of the Xbox 360, it is definitely one of the better looking titles on the system. Brightly colored, smooth, and crisp environments and models make the game a bit more enjoyable. The sound has a soft tone but a busy one, creating a good atmosphere for all the skating rinks and lemonade stands you bust out of your arsenal.

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At roughly ten bucks, Outpost Kaloki X is a definitely worth it. It is a welcomed change from the other Xbox Live Arcade games, and despite the difficulty of the game in later levels in has an addictive, almost municipal quality to it. If you are a strategy fan and would like to try something out completely different check this out. Even if you aren’t any sort of strategy or simulation fan, chances are the quirky originality of the game will still suck you in.

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