One Happy Team...

Completed Rebel Galaxy Outlaw.

I like the fact that ships are different, and not every more expensive ship is necessarily better. I liked hauler more than the military fighter, since those turrets can rip enemies to shreds pretty well, while still being able to sell tons of cargo at every port.

There are two annoying issues with the interface of the game. First, there’s no good indication of missile lock. But there’s no visual cue for that, unless you’re looking at the missile, which is usually not the case. And second, count of your own missiles is displayed on the same screen as enemy lock, and the coms are on the same screen as well. So when you lock on enemy, you loose missile count, and when you get a comm, you also loose track of your enemy shields. There’s so much space in the cabin they put a second screen there, but it is just the duplicate of the first one. Instead, the comms could be an overlay, like in many other space sims. But no, a single screen is all you’ve got.

Turns out that Juno’s husband wasn’t killed, just went into hiding, on Juno’s mother orders, Tatiana. She’s a pirate lady, and wants to divert the traderoutes, so her daughter would inherit a legitimate trading empire. Very kind of her. There’s an option to betray her to the police or team up with her.
It all ends up with a whimper, though. At one point, everyone is freaked out by Tatiana being able to teleport ships without a jumpgate, something no one knows how to do. But this is never explained. “Final battle” is just routing a bunch of police vessels. And then Juno tells her husband to fuck off, something very inconsequntal, since we’ve seen this dude for two cutscenes at best. And there’s no credit roll, nothing.

The game grew on me slightly. The story flows nicely, in a GTA-like fashion. To earn some money for our vendetta we pair with a local idiot that was asked to steal a package from his own brother.

The package is for a mafia boss, and it contains EMP missiles, that we use to teach police a lesson. Then a former friend turns up, and asks us to help break leader of their pirate gang out of the prison. Then the new gang leader, Durgan, tries to kill the old gangleader, that we help to break out. But we kill Durgan instead.

What I liked about the fight with Durgan, is that although there are two frigates, you only need to kill Durgan himself, and he pilots just fighter jet, although a though one. But once you kill him, others simply surrender.

The original Rebel Galaxy was about battleships, which I liked. Here we have space jets and dogfights, which I like less. Luckily, there’s auto targeting, that makes the fights slightly easier.

Signs of a serious space game: there are turrets on the ships.
Surprising that trading is actually a very viable option to get rich quickly. It’s actually easier to earn money as a trader, than by shooting pirates.

Some nice details: sometimes after destroying an enemy ship, you can pick up the ejected pilot. Mostly for fun, as the bounty for pirates is negligible. Also, each ship has a completely unique interface. Very nice indeed.

Storywise, it’s a space western. We play as Juno, as she avenges her husband. She even knows who killed him, just not where to find him. Story gets forgotten pretty quickly, though, as you need to spend a lot of time earning cash to buy a better ship, so it won’t get blown in a few seconds.