In the end- Hyperbol is a great start for Iocaine Studios. If only it would be given the attention it deserved...
Hyperbol is a multiplayer focused game, so there is little to no options for single player. The game has a good tutorial, along with a few pre-set skirmishes against the AI, and that's it for single player. It would of been neat to see a single-player campaign come with Hyperbol, especially since the game's AI is actually surprisingly good, although it tends to be a little slow to react at times. But Iocaine decided to focus purely on multiplayer instead, which is just fine, for the game is best online anyway.
When you go online, you'll have to make a profile for yourself using the Starport system. Once you've set your profile up and edited your ship to your own liking wih your starting funds, you can go online and fight alongside and against other players. There are a few quirks in this system that just seem plain odd however- for example: you have to pay money- just to change the name of your ship... Also- due to the general obscurity of the game, there are very few players online. Despite this however, there is surprisingly almost always one good server available to join.
The actual gameplay in Hyperbol is immensly addicting. You start by choosing a surface point (spawn point. Whatever). Once your on the battlefield, you must deploy a production station to create your projectiles. The production station can make up to 6 modules, which produce your weapons, so if you take 1 of each kind of module (there are 6 modules in all), you'll be able to work with every weapon available, or you can try other combinations so you get more of a certain group of weapons instead. The game offers you quite a lot to work with since there are about 18 different weapons to use, so that makes for quite a lot of tactical possibilities. Many more if you count upgraded weapons. There are also ship forms which allow you to change your ship's capabilities on the fly. For example, you could switch to repair form to repair yourself and teammates nearby automatically. The neat thing is though, the game's ships are all balanced- for they might be perfect with one of the game's many stats, but that means they suffer with other stat lines. So how you play will help you figure out how you want to edit your ship.
The combat tends to get quite tense, as you can't move at will in this game. so you really need to know what each weapon does in order to succeed in this game, as every weapon has a counter that you need to take advantage of. If there are any problems here, its that the complexity of the tactics required in this game result in a kind of steep learning curve. However, anyone who can get past this will have a great time online. The last issue to be unfortunately mentioned however is that lag can be crippling in this game. This is NOT a game you'll want to be playing with a weak connection.
The game's production values are merely decent. The graphics in general are colorful, the projectiles all look good, and there are some really nice explosions. Other than that though, nothing really special here in the graphics department. Sound wise- the game has some good weapon effects, with hyperbols giving a satisfying BOOM, and actual shooting sounding decent. The music fits the game's theme, but there's nothing outstanding here.
In the end, Thread Space Hyperbol is not for everyone. The steep learning curve of learning all the weapons will undoubtedly drive away some people, and the complete lack of a dedicated single player mode is disappointing. But anyone who can get past the game's flaws will undoubtedly enjoy Thread Space Hyperbol.