Spacebase Startopia is an enthusiastic homage to one of my favorite management games. Not so much a tribute as an unofficial remake, as it carries over almost everything from the original Startopia, right down to the name. Returning to my giant donut-shaped space station, I should finally be satisfied after 20 years of waiting, but instead I'm a little conflicted.

At times, the similarities are so blatant that the visuals feel like an upgraded "Startopia," but the faithfulness to the original also highlights the off-the-mark points. Like a terrible, terrible gag.

Space-based Startopia and I got off on the wrong foot when we were introduced to the relentlessly irritating virtual assistant. Clippy is no match for VAL. It's an AI sidekick that keeps track of your goals, occasionally dribbles out suggestions, and incessantly undermines you. AI that is also an idiot is well known territory, but VAL lacks an important element. The writing lacks the wit of Grados or the first Startopia AI, also called VAL, but the real problem is the way it speaks: all three voice options sound like they were run through a text-to-speech program, and the tone and timing are completely incapable of making you laugh.

Thankfully, Spacebase Startopia is actually quite charismatic when not being pestered by an assistant or reading pop-ups. A speed setting or pause button would be nice to mention, but you should still make time to put your responsibilities aside and look around. Whether it's a visitor wearing a fancy hat he just won in a loot box raffle (which is already starting to feel dated) or a large group of people tearing around a disco dance floor, different species are performing different moves.

Occasionally, I'll chase around industrious little droids who travel throughout the station delivering crates and cleaning up after dirty organics. They are cute. The garbage cans have a bit of personality as well, and when the droids fill up the garbage cans, the robots unload them onto the recyclers. They look very serious, which I love.

But before you get too excited about recycling, I should add that Spacebase Startopia gets stuck in as soon as it sees trash in the real world. Dealing with the trash produced by station residents is a tremendous task and will never be complete until you give up. To stay on top of it, you have to help the droids and manually pick up and dispose of the trash yourself, or squash the creatures that the trash attracts. Trash picking was no fun in the original "Startopia," but in its spiritual successor, "Startopia," it is even worse. The time spent on this miserable task is probably longer than any of the tasks in Space-Based Startopia. At least I am more grateful for the time I have not been up to my elbows in mud.

At first glance, Spacebase Startopia appears to be pure chaos, with hordes of aliens and robots running between rooms crowded with visitors. But it is organized chaos. Everyone is working or satisfying their many desires and vices, each a vital link in the vast chain of events that keeps the music playing at the disco and the factory producing new blueprints. The music continues to play in the disco and the factory continues to produce new blueprints. Each of the 10 missions prepared for the campaign has a clear objective, but the ultimate goal is to attract more tourists and their wallets, to gain energy and prestige (the second currency linked to tourist satisfaction), and to convert it into more rooms and amenities to attract more tourists The first step in the process is to While you are free to do this in the sandbox mode, the campaign will teach you how to run trade hubs, medical stations, and great vacation spots.

Whichever area you choose to focus on, you will probably use everything at your disposal, but the campaign eases play by gradually unlocking a full list of construction projects, making you wait until the end of the game to fully get everything. As a result, some of the early missions can be very tedious, but later in the campaign, you will be thankful that you were not thrown in the deep end. Spacebase Startopia is not a particularly difficult management game, but it can be a demanding one, dragging you all over the station as you make trade deals, oversee research projects, and make sure all facilities are fully staffed.

Once you get to play with some of the toys, you will find that the three-level system is also a boon. All stations are divided into sections separated by bulkheads and three specialized decks that can be opened for a fee. At the bottom is the main deck, where you will spend most of your time. Here you will find the berths, the medical center, all industrial facilities, security buildings, research facilities, and basically anything else you might need. The second deck is where visitors put down their tentacles and enjoy the entertainment. There is an arcade, a cat cafe, and even a ride that drops people into a black hole. Finally, there is the Bio deck, where important resources grow and can be turned into everything from robots to room blueprints. In this deck, important resources can be transformed into robots and room blueprints. Tourists looking for a little peace and quiet can also hang out here and terraform or generate specific resources to suit their various needs.

The deck system is one of the features of Startopia, and it works here as well. It divides the vast station into digestible pieces, so that you are never looking at the same thing for hours on end. Visitors are not the only ones who feel at home on the bio-deck. On one deck, a pirate raid is slaughtering people, while on another deck, there is no pause because everyone is busy catching their breath.

When it comes to pirate raiders, the fight certainly sucks. It doesn't matter if you're a pirate or a monster popping out of an alien cocoon, fighting is the least interesting aspect of the job. Managing security droids and mechs (none of the guests or employees fight) is almost just clicking on things you want to kill... That's it. Each class of mechs has one unique ability, but it feels like overkill for such a shallow encounter. I am also upset that the room had to be rearranged to allow enough space for the first mech to move around. It's kind of silly to have to design an entire space station around something that will rarely be used. I want to like it, and it looks like a big, blocky toy, but I'm not a fan.

Entering combat also means switching to another mode, where the combat interface unnecessarily takes up a third of the screen. In this mode, you can only control combat units. Once combat begins, you must switch modes, instruct your units to head for the danger zone, switch to normal mode and continue managing your station while skulking to your destination, wait for notification that the attack is about to begin, and then switch to combat mode to take over. There is no need for such tediousness in such a basic RTS layer. At least the invasions are less frequent, but that only makes it more clear what should have been cut. Not much help.

Along with aggression, other random events also appear that offer more compelling management. For example, you may be forced to make a time-sensitive choice. Some of them only give you bad choices, so you have to choose the one that seems most bearable, but these events also give you a chance to get some very useful buffs. Also, someone may ask you to unload a pile of trash, or ask you to clean up your own trash. There are many ways to get out of a tight spot.

One of these incidents taught me a valuable lesson. If you are also in the business of treating people, you might as well let the plague take root at your post. There aren't many opportunities to be terribly ruthless, but this is a great one. I regret my actions, and there are aliens to whom I owe an apology.

I wish there were more tough choices and corruption. The cartoon capitalism of space-based startopia feels like fertile ground for this kind of shenanigans, but it's so rare. The game tends to be at its best when it is as faithful as possible to its predecessor, but it is still a shame that it relies so heavily on one. Perhaps we should be glad that there is no new RTS layer of has-beens, but the management game has developed a lot in the last 20 years and offers many ways to build on, rather than imitate, the starting peers. After all, living in the past is probably not such a good thing. But it could be fun to visit for a few days.