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While fascination with space has waned in the popular consciousness for a while, who
can say they've never fantasized about being an astronaut? Being able to either jump around
on the moon, or simply to spacewalk amongst the stars, with our big blue planet orbiting
within your vision. Astronaut Spacewalk fulfills this fantasy by immersing you visually and
aurally in the suit of an astronaut as you use your propulsion system to move along satellites
and space stations. It's an immensely authentic and rewarding experience, provided you have
the patience to work out the complex user interface and control system.
The user interface is laid over the entirety of the screen intro twenty-four different
button sections. The two radars are top middle, while a reset position button is top left
and a precision control button is top right. Controlling your astronaut is accomplished
by the eighteen other sections, divided into three areas two across, and three down. The
first section is standard movement, which will move you forward, back, up, down, left,
and right. On the right are more complex controls for pitch, roll, and yaw. Yaw will rotate
the astronaut left and right horizontally, pitch will rotate him vertically, and rolling
will spin him left and right in a vertical position. Finally the middle section of the
screen contains the camera controls which can move up, down, left, and right, pause
the game, or reset the camera position. The user manual explains this in decent detail,
but once the game begins, you realise that knowing the mechanics of space-walking, and
actually doing it are two entirely different things.
First off, moving towards the specified waypoints is an exercise of small movements. Each jet
of air upon a button press will set you off, and as there is no friction in the vacuum
of space, changing orientation and direction can be a difficult feat, especially if you're
still experimenting with the controls trying in vain to make it to the first waypoint of
the first mission. The null button comes in really handy to stop you in your tracks, but
excessive use of this feature will deplete your fuel and electricity reserves. Just like
one could imagine performing these tasks in real life, success takes an unbelievable amount
of understanding of the systems involved, as well as patience.
If you have these qualities however, Astronaut Spacewalk will reward you. Even flying around
with absolutely no control, the first time you see Earth come into view, suddenly all
your problems don't seem so important. The constant chatter from mission control rounds
out the experience, and if nothing else, this game succeeds at reminding us about all the
frontiers we have left to explore, and both the risk and reward of doing so.