Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is the aptly titled follow-up to Digital Eel's space adventure game, Strange Adventure in Infinite Space - a game where you explored the universe in a set number of years (each year being a turn) and returned to your home base to earn a score. Why is it so appropriately titled? Well because it's just a strange game with bizarre widgets, baubles and creatures tucked into every corner of its auto generated universe that you'll experience in less than ten to thirty minutes. Throw on a thorough coat of Rich Carlson's weird humor, Iikka Keranen neat gameplay ideas and artist Phosphorous' bizarre art stylings and you have a game that's literally in its own freaky zip code. Weird Worlds might be weird, but it's right on par with Digital Eel's other releases, which always offers unique themes and features while offering simplistic gameplay.

Weird Worlds takes the SAIS universe and adds a plethora of moderate gameplay improvements, new lore, more creatures, lots of ship enhancements, and plenty of exotic loot and creatures to haul back to your home planet for an ultra high score. We mentioned already that the gameplay concept is simple - explore as much of the universe as you can, collect things, battle alien enemies (if you want to) and return to Hope for a score. This is one of the key hooks of the game, much like a hand of solitaire.. No matter if you win or lose, you'll keep coming back and trying again. And not only to get the highest score - perhaps you'll try and find some new ship enhancement that has been added into the game, or find some new universal bauble that can be used to destroy a planet - or even discover a new race to fight against. Weird Worlds offers lots of action whether you're seeking to discover or seeking to lay claim to highest score.

Weird Worlds offers players some nice adjustable game elements like Map size, Nebula mass, and enemy strength. All three can be mixed and matched and are divided up by Small, Medium and Large. There's also a pretty cool tutorial mode that you can toggle on or off at the beginning of each game. The first time you jump into the main game, you really should try using this nice feature because it explains -- as you go - what everything does and what your overall goal is in a game. Finally players now have a choice of three different ship types to start with: a science vessel, pirate corsair or a Terran frigate. The Terran frigate is probably the best choice for beginners because it offers more ship weapon slots and other add-on slots. Each ship also offers a different type of mission: the science vessel will give you a mission to collect data and make contact with life forms, the pirate ship is all about making money and getting hostages, and the frigate is more about learning about other life forms.

Whatever your mission you'll encounter lots of opportunities to gain rare objects, meet other alien races and explore the vastness of this auto generated universe. The exploring part of the game will take of the bulk of your time, but there's plenty of other things to do here like exploring, avoiding hazards (by steering clear of planets or simply finding a device that can cope with these hazards), fighting aggressive alien life forms and finding ships to expand and strengthen your fleet.

Eventually you'll have to engage the enemy in combat via a 3D real-time combat system much like the first game. During this phase players can direct their ships to attack or retreat or use any universal devices they found along the way to affect the outcome. Combat runs the gamut from simple to downright brutal depending on what race you are going up against, the strength of your ships and what weapons systems you have installed. There's also the ability to ram other vessels, which comes in handy if you have a ship with a strong hull. Finally there's a new event that lets you recover "abandoned ships" - sometimes these ships have weapon systems that you have to destroy first which can be a major or minor detail depending on your own vessel. The result of this or combat in general is a variety of loot which you can use to impact your final score or upgrade your ship. Combat is just as fun as it was in the first game, so players familiar with this series will feel right at home.

Weird Worlds also offers a combat simulator that lets you recreate battles or just check out different alien ship types for quick and bloody battles. While the simulator is a brief distraction in the grand scheme of things it's a nice additional feature that lets players get a handle on how combat works in the game. The simulator will let you choose up to five ships (which you can mix and match from a variety of races) and battle against up to 3 sets of enemies who can have three sets of ships each. Overall its a nice way to test your combat prowess against a superior enemy force, even though it doesn't last very long.

The game also offers a scoring system with three different categories: Small Medium and Large. These are all based on the size of the universe you choose, so you can make it to the high score list no matter how brave or timid you are in a given game sessions.

In the end, Weird Worlds offers similar gameplay to Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, but adds a whole new layer of fun stuff to discover. If you like space adventure, a small dose of action and lore that feels inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then You'll want to pick this game up and play it. You can learn more about the game, download the demo or buy the game by visitng Shrapnel Games .