Vostok Inc

 Yet another game backlog cleared and more relief for me as my Switch pile of shame cleared up abit. Growing up in 90s, I am always a sucker for pixel art games and this is a reason why I picked Vostok Inc. Vostok Inc an Arcade Space Shooter game where you play as a Spacefaring entrepreneur,  exploring planets to planets to expand your business in Capitalistic fashion, taking any advantage that you can get to reach the top Sapce Corporate Chain.

 At its Core, Vostok Inc is a retro shooter game with a light Simulation served as a side dish with plenty of mini games and parodies. The main aim of the player in this game is to gather as many Moolahs as possible mostly through the business investments on colonized planets and keep upgrading the plane to get stronger to face the obstacles on next planetary systems. 

What sets apart Vostok Inc with other Space shooters is how this game take the jab on the uglier side of our Capitalistic Modern Societies with Satirical comical jokes and parodies infused all over the aspect of this game. The player pretty much makes their money from exploring many planetary system and exploit the local inhabitants through unethical business practice to gain as much money from the business ventures. Just look at flavor texts of the business investments and the upgrades to see how our player's company mimic the Shady practices of Large corporations. 

 As a game with $20 base price, Vostok Inc prove its value for money quite well. The Devs could consider to improve the game's depth should they ever consider a Sequel. Personally the most frustrating part from this game is the aggressive enemy behavior once their Spawn timer is activated and putting up with the Corporate Execs companions who easily gets upset when their needs gets unattended literally in less than 5 minutes. For the latter, I think the Devs really draw from their personal experience to make this part of this game frustrating. For this particular Manchild Exec problem, personally I recommend to do Asteroid Farming on 4th or Final planetary system which is a breeze once you unlock the Triple Laser weapon and keep soft reset the game whenever the Enemy respawn. I also would have wished the Post Game content could have something more than reaching to the final Planet investments but Vostok Inc have given more bang for the bucks by the time you finish the game.