Review Space Rangers 2 cuddled up with RPGDot

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Space Rangers 2: Dominators

<A href="http://www.rpgdot.com/">RPGDot</a> has <a href="http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=1189">a review</A> of <a href="http://www.elementalgames.com/eng/r_all.php">Space Rangers 2</a>. The score is a <b>9/10</b>, probably because the game is apparently pretty sweet. Anyway, here's a clip about life in the universe:
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<blockquote>This sense of a living universe is one of Space Rangers' strongest points. Many systems will have dozens of other ships moving about, including other Rangers who are in direct competition with the player - there's even a ranking system and leader board to track your performance against each of them. Some ships will call for your help when attacked by another, or even approach you to propose an advance attack on another ship. It's hard to know exactly how intelligent the AI is but sometimes you'll discern behaviour that seems like individual personalities: one specific pirate drove me mad by seeming to follow me to different systems, always harassing my ship, then zipping off with his superior speed to take refuge at a planet if I landed any significant damage on him.</blockquote>
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Man, I really want this game. That's one area where a lot of these types of games don't go far enough with - making things consistant and allowing the other ships to be more than targets and attackers.
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Thanks, <b>Dhruin</b>!
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[Whipporowill]

It's pretty damn sweet, I'd agree to everything Dhruin says. Minigames are awesome - all of them. I certainly enjoyed managing a ski resort and resolving a hostage situation on a backwater world, trucking around running raiders off the road to make ransom.

If they make a SR3 - I sure hope they don't bother going 3D. All artwork is stunning, on par with the graphical style of Masters of Orion 2. SR2 is an "Instant Classic". GOTY 2005.

 

[Briosafreak]

Still can`t find it anywhere, bah

 

[Jed]

If they make a SR3 - I sure hope they don't bother going 3D. All artwork is stunning, on par with the graphical style of Masters of Orion 2. SR2 is an "Instant Classic". GOTY 2005.

I thought it was a 3D game. For some reason, all the screenshots seem to be of the planetside RTS battles...

 

[Whipporowill]

If they make a SR3 - I sure hope they don't bother going 3D. All artwork is stunning, on par with the graphical style of Masters of Orion 2. SR2 is an "Instant Classic". GOTY 2005.

I thought it was a 3D game. For some reason, all the screenshots seem to be of the planetside RTS battles...

That's the only 3D in the game, totally separate engine for it (you can even have different resolutions between the space setting and the planetside rts). The screens in the RPGDot review was pretty much as it is, I think. Let me know and I'll do some screencaps if needed.

 

[Jed]

Whip, I am *highly* interested in this game, but I only have a laptop now. Do you think SR2 would be advisable? It's a pretty nice laptop...

 

[Whipporowill]

Whip, I am *highly* interested in this game, but I only have a laptop now. Do you think SR2 would be advisable? It's a pretty nice laptop...

Should work. If you'd bothered to read the review Jed, you'd have noticed Dhruin brought up just that specific thing...

The system requirements are also low - it even ran smoothly on my low-end notebook with integrated video.

So, go for it! At once. You won't regret it, and you already know that.

 

[Jed]

Should work. If you'd bothered to read the review Jed, you'd have noticed Dhruin brought up just that specific thing...

Sorry, I'm at work and I was saving the review for my lunch break... Thanks for the advice, though! I'll try to order it today.

 

[drexciya]

I was able to order it easily at play.com by the way. Given the price (28.99 Euro) it wasn't a bad deal either. Funny how I've come to generally despise the mainstream and have been finding underrated gems like this (and Silent Storm to name another).

It's a great game for people who don't care about looks but like depth and lots of real enjoyment. It's like a movie or TV series with lots of subtle touches; everything is just right. Even the prison scenario has been worked into a mini-game.

 

[Whipporowill]

I can't say I agree with the "looks" bit, as the game is simply gorgeous. It's not for graphic whores, like Dhruin mention - even if in kinder words, that's for sure, but still... it looks very good.

 

[Jed]

I just ordered from GoGamer. $50. I can't remember the last time I payed that much for a game (NWN?), but it sounds like a good investment. Early X-mas gift to myself, I reckon...

 

[AnalogKid]

I ordered this game last week (based on the RPG of the year 2005 thread ), and played it all weekend. It's a very good game that I'm enjoying, but there are a couple of issues, imo...

The english translation is complete, utter, CRAP. My god, it took me almost a full day before I started to understand what the hell each text was trying to say. It's like having to learn a whole new language! If they'd just paid someone who actually spoke english to take even one pass of editing, it could have been as good a game as everyone is claiming. The cardinal rule of translation is that one may only ever translate TO one's native language. Never FROM it to some other language that was learned in school (or apparently in this case, never really learned at all).

For me, this is a REALLY big fuckup. Soooo much of the game is text, and almost ALL of that text is terrible! Not bad like poor writing or boring plots, but bad like incomprehensible gibberish using wrong tenses, non-existent grammar, and horrble synonyms that don't really mean what they wanted. If ever there's an english fan mod to re-write all the text in the game, I'll be the first to download it! (I might even contribute ... hint hint) I know they try to cover their ass with the bit in the manual about new words and changing language in the future, but it's just absolutely terrible.

My other complaint is that everything scales with your experience. Better items only become available based on experience, so it's mostly pointless to try and raise a lot of money early because there's nothing good to buy until you're high-level. The same missions pay more as your experience increases, so once again it's pointless to try and raise a lot of money early because later on you'll be able to raise 4X more for the same mission if you just wait a bit and gain experience. It's like one huge-ass levelled environment that detracts from my enjoyment of accomplishing anything because everything scales relatively and I'm right back where I started. If everything were available, but just too expensive, and if being better allowed new missions that paid more instead of influencing the pay rate of the same old types of missions, it would be a better game (I know there's a few new mission types that become available, but not enough, imo).

I do think this is the best game on the list, in spite of my complaints above. I just wish it were a little better.

 

[Whipporowill]

Equipment doesn't come with experience, it comes with time (as I've read in the FAQ linked by others), as the universe evolves. And saying that money doesn't matter as you can't buy better equipment than the current tech tier - is basically true, but I never experienced it that way, I found myself micromanaging my ship a lot (always looking for smaller /and or better equipment so I could carry that extra mining laser or find room for that engine which would boost my speed. Also, the new tier items doesn't suddenly pop up all over the universe - they begin as very rare. I'd call this a non-issue, to say the least.

The translation isn't horrendous. At times there's some misspelt words, some odd touch to the general flow of the language - but it's certainly not enough for it to hamper my enjoyment of the game. Sure, it could be better - I'll aknowledge that - but it's certainly no gibberish as I've never had problem understanding what's expected of me in the missions. In one of two of the minigames it's pretty bad though.

 

[Jed]

The english translation is complete, utter, CRAP. My god, it took me almost a full day before I started to understand what the hell each text was trying to say. It's like having to learn a whole new language! If they'd just paid someone who actually spoke english to take even one pass of editing, it could have been as good a game as everyone is claiming. The cardinal rule of translation is that one may only ever translate TO one's native language. Never FROM it to some other language that was learned in school (or apparently in this case, never really learned at all).

Consider it immersion: The way English of TEH FUCHURE is spoken!

 

[bryce777]

The english translation is complete, utter, CRAP. My god, it took me almost a full day before I started to understand what the hell each text was trying to say. It's like having to learn a whole new language! If they'd just paid someone who actually spoke english to take even one pass of editing, it could have been as good a game as everyone is claiming. The cardinal rule of translation is that one may only ever translate TO one's native language. Never FROM it to some other language that was learned in school (or apparently in this case, never really learned at all).

Consider it immersion: The way English of TEH FUCHURE is spoken!

Actually there is a HYSTERICAL paragraph in the manual. It says basically "Don't worries if you no understanding all the English. Our game uses the future speak of the year 3300 which is not so much like the languages now." I knew then I would love the game.

Seriously, the translation is not so good but it also is not something that detracts from gameplay.

The repair costs are the thing I dont like in the game, but once you get the nanitoids it is no longer a problem....

 

[Jed]

Actually there is a HYSTERICAL paragraph in the manual. It says basically "Don't worries if you no understanding all the English. Our game uses the future speak of the year 3300 which is not so much like the languages now." I knew then I would love the game.

 

[protobob]

I like this game a lot. As far as repair costs, you can get repairs at the military bases (its an option in the first screen you see when you dock at one) that are much cheaper (25-50%).

 

[Whipporowill]

I also read that repair costs is dependent on manufacturing race. Malouqs are supposedly worst, and most costly to repair and Galiaan is the best and cheapest. Or maybe they just degrade differently - not costwise.

 

[AnalogKid]

Equipment doesn't come with experience, it comes with time (as I've read in the FAQ linked by others), as the universe evolves.

I just read the FAQ, and if this is true it's a very good thing. So it's up to the player to "keep up" with the universe, rather than having the universe follow whatever the player does. That's wonderful. Has anyone tested this by just holding the space bar for years and then seeing if available equipment has improved?

And saying that money doesn't matter as you can't buy better equipment than the current tech tier - is basically true, but I never experienced it that way.... I'd call this a non-issue, to say the least.

It's not that money doesn't matter, it's that struggling to make money early is pointless. I can struggle to do 3 courier missions now, having a difficult time staying alive in all of them, or I can just wait and then do 1 such mission in a few years when the reward for each mission has increased for no apparent reason (other than the metagame reason of keeping up with increasing repair costs on more expensive equipment). That's disappointing.

The translation isn't horrendous. At times there's some misspelt words, some odd touch to the general flow of the language - but it's certainly not enough for it to hamper my enjoyment of the game. Sure, it could be better - I'll aknowledge that - but it's certainly no gibberish as I've never had problem understanding what's expected of me in the missions.

I just flat out disagree. I suppose YMMV, but for me it is horrendous, and it did impair my ability to enjoy the missions. I can still ultimately figure out what I am supposed to do, but all the obvious attempts at humourous back-stories and "color" are ruined for me. Basically every mission in the game is now a blank fed-ex quest without any attempt to hide that fact because the attempted camoflage is unintelligible. It's like struggling through L337 SpeAK to try and decipher the point of some idiot's post. It's just not worth it.

Still, the universe is good, the gameplay and character improvement is fun, I enjoy the variety of things to do and the fact that the player can choose to do whatever he wants. It's far and away better than anything else I played that came out this year... so close to a great game, but for me it's only a good game.

 

[bryce777]

I didn't realize that about the military bases. The gaalian stuff definitely deteriorates much more slowly, though. The stupid maloq stuff is almost useless, especially for engines or weapons.

The other races all have their own characteristics that make using them useful at times, though. It seems upgrades for various items work better for some races than others, but I can't figure out exactly how it works or else maybe it is random and inherent to the item or its size.

 

[Dhruin]

I didn't think the translation was anything like that bad. I really didn't find it much of an issue, although I agree that they should always hire native speakers to do the translations.

The RTS thing is 3D but I didn't do many of those (RTS just isn't my thing) so I forgot to point that out. If you run SR2 on a low-end system, the RTS portion is automatically disabled; I think the main game is like DX7 level - my notebook is a Celeron 1.4, 512Mb, integrated Intel video. Frankly, it's a miracle that Solitaire works.

I couldn't get FRAPS to work (because it isn't the latest whizzbang 3D?), so I used the crappy screens from the publisher and they seem determined to promote the entirely optional RTs portion.

 

[Balor]

I just flat out disagree. I suppose YMMV, but for me it is horrendous, and it did impair my ability to enjoy the missions.

Learn Albanian... I mean Russian, heh.
More quests this way too . Not simply more, but best of them, too. (The bastards).

And a few answers:
Repair a also much cheaper on pirate bases provided you have 'pirate rating' higher then zero. For 'pure pirates' it can cut your expences by 75%! Not to mention that they sell heaps of nodes, and that discount applies to them too.

About 'time vs level' - It's indeed time-based, and there is a setting in the 'custom difficulty' that will allow you to speed up the progress, or degrade it. Beware - if dominators are set to strong, and tech progress to stagnant - they will be 'outlevelling' you.
However, since best weapons in the game are of dominator 'manufacture' anyway - it's not THAT bad.

Oh, and about 'higher prices' - well, heard of inflation?

 

[Jed]

The RTS thing is 3D but I didn't do many of those (RTS just isn't my thing) so I forgot to point that out. If you run SR2 on a low-end system, the RTS portion is automatically disabled; I think the main game is like DX7 level - my notebook is a Celeron 1.4, 512Mb, integrated Intel video. Frankly, it's a miracle that Solitaire works.

Really? I ran Morrowind on a system with lower specs than that (well, the video card was better...)

 

[Balor]

About upgrades - they are purely random, and can be even tuned to your advantage with a bunch of S/L.

 

[Nicolai]

Hm, Dhruin's review really made me get my eyes up for this game, so I'm getting it now.