RecommendedSteam player
You can't take the sky from me... Take Starpoint Gemini 2, Freelancer, Elite Dangerous and the worldbuilding of Starcraft 2, throw into a foodblender. Put on high for two minutes. *WHIRRR* This is the result. A gorgeous, whisky-soaked blend of a game where pilots drink greel distilled alcohol, where antimatter specks are used for deviant practices, and where combat takes place on a horizontal plane straight out of Assassins' Creed : Black Flag, on crack. All handled with the colour and panache of the original Torchlight, which exploded out of nowhere and revitalised the Dungeon Crawler genre. This promises, and mostly succeeds in doing the same for space exploration. I'm a leaf on the wind, I'm a leaf on the wind! In the time honoured tradition of all space exploration games everywhere, you are thrown into a starter ship, in this case, a dinky little corvette with a few broadside cannons, a few turrets, and a hull made of papier mache and shields made of soap suds. It is your job to find your Aunt Juno, who so very kindly left you this ship, and find out why you've been dragged out to the tail end of space, which is full of the scum of the universe, and work your way up the foodchain, blowing up said scum and villainy, and eventually become owner of a pimped up ship of doom and destruction. Depending on your playstyle this may be a top notch destroyer, with speed and agility and tons of guns, or a dreadnaught with a horrifying number of broadsides, or a heavy hauler with enough armour to qualify as having it's own gravitational pull. Or, y'know, you could buy a strike craft and try to outrun bullets, but that's for the clinically insane. Even top level shields and good guns won't allow you to toe it with the enemy dreadnaughts for -long-, but hey, whatever flicks your switch! Miner, trader, soldier, sailor... Rebel galaxy gives you a very, very diverse set of tools to work with, you can tool up for mining with lasers and fault scanners, or you can go full out commodity trader, and the economy is set up enough to actually handle that, with system averages and station histories that actually work properly and can be scanned from out of station across the system, allowing you to set up profitable trade routes back and forth. This can pay off very nicely once you have a high capacity hauler, particularly if that hauler has one of the contraband cargo expansions which means you can facilitate life as a smuggler on the side. Or you can just blow things up, because explosions are pretty. Blowing things up always work, and there's a terrifying variety of weapons, not just purchasable, but also lootable unique variants which can be discovered in the world, in loot crates or from the hulls of pirate lords, if you feel like converting them to scrap metal. The pool is wide, but not QUITE as deep as space promises... Rebel Galaxy offers a -lot- of activities, and offers enough in each activity to have you happily whiling away your time, moreso than Elite Dangerous did (and yes, I know many E;D fans who are going to burn me for that, but it's true), the mining is more sensibly handled due to the tractor beams, the combat is more visceral and less grindy, the trading makes more sense and doesn't require an excel spreadsheet to get the best out of. There's a real economy, and you don't need to be online to get the most out of the game. There are -two- buts to this rather delicious soup. One : The factions - They are present, but they're rather bland. More time and depth could have been put into them, faction exclusive ships for each faction would have been glorious, along with modules, as well as faction exclusive bases that you could dock at, along with missions and different reactions based on standing, as well as more complex interrelations between said factions. Right now you basically have only two paths you can follow. If there's anything that could exponentially increase the lifespan of this game - Faction DLC would do it. This would convert a 20-40 hour game to a 200-400 hour game. No joke. Two : Whilst the activities are good, they all tend to peter out once you get out past the destroyer mark, and the fact you can only hire gunship level mercenaries puts a hard cap on the kind of fights they can throw at you. Hiring capital level mercenaries would have solved this. Again, faction DLC for the win here. Final thoughts... Do these two issues stop this game from being anything other than excellent? No. It's still a bloody great game, and for the price point they're charging it's an absolute steal. It does however prevent me from slamming the "Essential" badge on, because I know that the devs could quite possibly get the Factions some love, and make this "the" game to beat. Hint hint. It does, however, easily merit being a game that people should look into, especially if you're someone who loved Freelancer, or similar games. Verdict : Highly Recommended Writer and columnist for Just Reviews, where you can get similar fine reading material. Join our group, follow our curations, and throw me a like if you would like to keep up to date with our efforts!Show moreShow less
26.5 hours at review769 people found this helpful