Description:
Construct and operate a functioning space station with an arsenal of out-of-this-world Tonka vehicles. Drive a Tonkonium Extraction Vehicle through a maze of lava pools and explosives, or speed a Terra Racer through the low-gravity zone of the station's sporting arena to entertain your station crew. In Tonka Space Station, you decide whether to build defense grids to demolish hazardous space waste, or focus on food production for your many hungry workers. With the ultimate motor pool at your fingertips, the fate of the station is entirely in your hands. Doing the job well can result in promotion--work your way from a lowly Photon 3rd Class all the way up to Galactic Commander. The game's primary goal is to build a functioning station, one that balances the needs of its residents with other important considerations like safety, productivity, and research. To this end, players build modules--sporting arenas, habitats, communication hubs, defense grids, and harvest areas--on the platforms available in the station. To build a module, you're given a specialized Tonka vehicle and an arcade-style mission. To construct a harvest module, for example, players drive a bio-harvester through an obstacle course of hostile alien plant life, snatching edible berries from the jaws--er, pods--of the carnivorous vegetation. Tonka Space Station has some stunning anti-gravity effects, and the machinery and settings of the space-station activities are satisfyingly realistic. The need to stay on top of safety, industrial output, and the happiness of the station's people provides an engaging framework for the main focus of the game: the arcade games and the Tonka vehicles these activities employ. In this sense, Tonka Space Station is slightly disappointing. The variation between the vehicles is not nearly as wide as it could be, and players accustomed to real-world Tonka products may yearn for more options than steering, shooting, and avoiding danger. None of the vehicles, in other words, does anything as amazingly cool as what even the simplest front-loader or backhoe can do. If you can get past that, however, this game is perfect for players who are interested in space sciences and enjoy simpler arcade-style activities. (Ages 5 and up) --Alyx Dellamonica
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