There’s something quite satisfying about border patrol games. It seems like quite a tedious job to do, yet it translates to videogames surprisingly well. Papers Please is obviously the first thing that springs to mind, with its rather depressing world view; but then the relatively recent Not Tonight took that formula and added to it, with a slightly more humorous take on an equally depressing situation.
Space Papers: Planet’s Border follows the same style, but with a far more lighthearted approach that probably won’t make you slump into a deep depression after playing.
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Many thanks to the publisher for the review code.
SPACE PAPERS, PLEASE
As you may have already gathered from the title, you are an officer of the intergalactic border patrol, making sure that all (literal) aliens entering are legal ones with all the correct papers and are not likely to endanger the planet – either by carrying dangerous parasites or something more nefarious – like a baseball cap or a banana.
Unlike the previously mentioned titles, Space Papers really doesn’t take itself all that seriously and thrives in putting passengers through ridiculous border control measures. You’ll start off by ensuring that all names match and their expiration date is valid, but you’ll be performing body scans and fingerprint checks before you know it.
Each of the various checks can be cycled through using the d-pad as and when you have a visitor lined up, and each one acts like a sort of analysis minigame. The luggage check will have you shuffling objects around to see if there are any prohibited items, whereas the standard documentation check is a simple matter of flicking through all the different passes to ensure that everything checks out.
Each planet has a month’s worth of work available, and every level has a set objective to achieve. Usually it’s based on a total amount of money earned or people screened correctly, but it may also ask you not to let in any parasites or have a lengthy queue. There’s no real variation between most of them, since each stage has such little room for error that you’ll be requiring a near perfect run every time. It can get a bit repetitive after a while since new concepts aren’t introduced all that frequently, and I think that if they had reduced the length of the game so that they could introduce new checks with relative frequency then it would have made for an overall more entertaining experience.
Speaking of repetition, the alien travellers do tend to mostly look alike with only a handful of variations between them. It doesn’t really help either that they all churn out the same few meme catchphrases, which I didn’t find funny the first time let alone the fiftieth time. It drags down the overall presentation, and I wish they’d have added more.
But, with all that being said, the game is still quite addictive and fun. It may lack the depth of similar games, and it really should have taken measures to prevent repetition, but I still had a great time playing the game – even if I had to restrict myself to shorter game sessions. But you know what? For the cheap price, that’s ok. It does what it aims to do with acceptable competency, and there’s a good framework here for a potential sequel that expands on the idea.
VERDICT
There’s a surprising amount of charm to Space Papers: Planet’s Border, with some wacky border control measures to prevent those illegal aliens and parasites from coming to the planet. It does suffer from quite a fair bit of repetition as it fails to mix things up frequently enough, but it’s still a lot of fun and certainly scratches that border patrol itch.
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