Space Pirates and Zombies

Explore a randomly generated Galaxy populated with factions, enemies, missions, and items providing you with a unique experience each time you play.

Space Pirates and Zombies is a space, action and indie game developed and published by MinMax Games Ltd..
Released on August 15th 2011 is available in English on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

It has received 3,073 reviews of which 2,794 were positive and 279 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam and has a 50% discount.


The Steam community has classified Space Pirates and Zombies into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows
  • OS *: Windows 7/XP/Vista
  • Processor: 2.5 GHz Processor
  • Memory: 1 GB Available System Memory
  • Hard Disk Space: 250 MB Available HD Space
  • Video Card: 256MB 3D DirectX 9 Compatible video card
  • DirectX®: 9.0
  • Additional: OpenGL: 3.0
MacOS
  • OS: Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later
  • Processor: Intel Core Duo Processor (1.8GHz or better)
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM
  • Hard Disk Space: 500 MB Free Space

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Sept. 2024
SPAZ is a charming, difficult, but ultimately fun - a game that, while not perfect, was something I thoroughly enjoyed - in spite of it's flaws. I admit, I am biased, because it does contain the VA of the late, great TotalBiscuit, but even with the fond memories that voice entails, I can't help but love this game, as much as i've cursed it. Visually, SPAZ is surprisingly clean. It's detailed, but not too detailed. The particle effects are disdinct enough to recognise an attack or projectile, but not so overwhelming as to become visual noise. The soundtrack is inoffensive, but the sound design is a bit better than that. Together, the visuals and sounds come together to make a really solid impression, and really sell the feel of the game for me. It's easy to get lost in, and the way the dischordant biological elements contrast with the sleeker mechanical ones is really nice. In terms of story or characters... well... it's not exactly stellar. I mean, it works, and it's not *terrible*, but you can tell the narrative was stitched together to give the player a sense of progression and gradually unlock aspects of the game. While every story is utalitarian, this one feels more so - though, the characters do tend to stick with you some more. The unexpected heel turn kind of comes out of nowhere, though, it's not entirely unprecedented, and the Mechanic Lady is by far the best character because if I was stuck in a spaceship with that loon of a scientist, I'd want him dead too. But that's about it as far as interesting characters go, and while they try to build up the side characters, they just don't end up feeling very memorable. The factions are also completely characterless - there's almost no time given to making them feel disdinct, and that's not the end of the world, because ultimately the narrative isn't the focus. But in terms of gameplay, SPAZ shines - though, it isn't a gemstone without flaws. The controls of the ship, while making sense, do take some getting used to - even right at the end i was having trouble sometimes with staying in one place reliably, or not moving incorrectly based on where I want to go. You have to learn how to orient your steering to where your ship is facing (which is a bit of a challenge for me, because I used the Sunspot, and that's a circle). The tutorial is solid, but there are some features that don't get mentioned - such as holding shift to stay still (sort of) and manually move your turrets. There's also some issues with balance: Missiles, aside from gravity missiles, are basically worthless, as are Mines and Bombs, Drones require heavy investment to be good, and a lot of the ship templates are just... awful. There's such a disparity in power between ship sizes that there is never, ever a reason to not be using the biggest ship of it's class - and usually, in that class, the bounty hunter ships are king because of how much firepower they can put out. Combat against enemies, however, is what I'd call frantic. You always feel close to destruction, especially on the highest difficulty, because enemies can and will kill you. If you're not prepared, not thinking ahead, you will get stomped. But, if you can't plan well, you can always grind. No matter how hard the game is for you, if you sit down and grind for a dozen hours, you will overpower things in the end, which is honestly refreshing. It's balanced in such a way as to mean that while some fights are never winnable, the vast majority can be - and all of them can with the proper planning, effort and cunning. There's seldom a *wrong* choice, and if you're determined and fixated enough, you can make almost anything work. That being said, however, the game most certainly has a problem when it comes to some of it's later stage balancing. Chapter 4 is a sore point for the game for me, because while the new strategic elements and planning get emphasised, the constant attacks on your mothership vary between challenging to downright impossible (especially since they're always at huge size past the first three, and will keep spawning even when there are no zombies). There is no counter to three ZOmbie Manta Ray. Sometimes they spawn two back to back, and your mothership *will* die. Fortuantely, when you reload the save, different ships spawn, which does prevent softlocks. It's one of those things where I know it's the difficulty's problem, and since you can reload and solve it, it's not a massive issue - but if the game decided to fuck you then, you are getting fucked. There's no workaround, and no real counterplay. It's just simply more DPS than you can output before it kills the mothership. Overall, however, in spite of a few flaws and some questionable balancing, SPAZ is a fantastic game. While I wish the issues were ironed out, and the story was more involved and complex, compromising on that front to deliver the gameplay that I experienced is a sacrifice well made. I had a blast, and I highly recommend playing this game if you have any love for space, or a good challenge. While it's not one of my all-time favorites, SPAZ was definitely worth the investment for me, and I can see myself coming back one day - and taking my space fleet up against the mightiest of the galaxy once more! Though, not on insane.
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Sept. 2024
Space? Check. Pirates? Check. Zombies? YEP. ...and Bounty Hunters? Ooooooh yeah. Got this game ages ago as I only had a macbook at the time - recently booted it back up and man is this fun. Very charming spaceship shooter game with a surprising amount of depth, difficulty, and content. You can turn your brain off and grind, mess around with different ship builds and blow stuff up! I also really like the progression curve in this game - different star systems have different levels, so when you get new gear or unlock new ships, using them makes previous content trivial and lets you access new systems at an appropriate challenge level. Having these big jumps in power is something missing from modern games with dynamic level scaling. Getting new upgrades feel super exciting as a result! Also, the endgame is surprisingly stout, and rewards good preparation before starting. Totally worth the money in 2024.
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July 2024
I played this a long time ago, and finally got it again this summer sale. It is fun for an old game, the combat is satisfying with lots of visual effects. The grind is real though, though the guides do mention the default settings for the galaxy generation being not great. Should have generated a larger world, so there are less difficulty spikes. I also wish there were more ships you can control at the same time, having only three ships for most of the game makes this a very small scale tactics game. I like the controls, ships are pretty easy to drive. There is a lot of ship and weapon variety, so that is great. Overall, I think it is well worth the price, though you need to read some guides on how to avoid the grind, and generate a better paced galaxy.
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June 2024
Not often that you can pick a game back up 12 years after the last time you played it and still have a blast with the game. This is one of those great games that is simple to play, great for a short or long session, has enough options to feel like your choices mean something, and remains good even years later.
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June 2024
Flat out the best 2D space ship game to this day, and with some of the community mods its even better. Sadly the old forums are now down so said mods are quite difficult to access now but many are still saved. I wish this game had gotten more development and press as it has incredible potential mod wise due to how easy it is to mod.
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Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

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Last Updates

Steam data 20 November 2024 13:17
SteamSpy data 21 January 2025 02:03
Steam price 22 January 2025 20:45
Steam reviews 20 January 2025 18:01
Space Pirates and Zombies
8.7
2,794
279
Online players
8
Developer
MinMax Games Ltd.
Publisher
MinMax Games Ltd.
Release 15 Aug 2011
Platforms
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