Review Space Rangers 2 lubbed by EuroGamer

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Space Rangers 2: Dominators

<A href="http://www.eurogamer.net/">EuroGamer</a> has <A href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61014">reviewed</a> that wacky <A href="http://www.elementalgames.com/eng/r_all.php">Space Rangers</a> game and given it a fairly high <b>9/10</b> score. In fact, they seemed to like it so much, they wrapped up the review with:
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<BLOCKQUOTE>Drama, excitement, adventure, challenge, thought: these are the best reasons to play videogames.
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And this is one of the best reasons this year for you to play videogames.
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Play this videogame.</blockquote>
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How's that for a ringing endorsement?
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Thanks, <b>DMC</b>!

 

[Balor]

Heh, I told ya!
SR2 is, indeed, Teh Aw3s0m3.
Btw, isn't it the very EuroGamer that is ph34red everywhere due to it's tentency to give out much lower scores to games then everyone else?
I mean, giving them what they really worth?

 

[Jed]

Those damn Euros just hate freedom.

 

[bryce777]

Any news on when this might make it out to the colonies?

 

[Trash]

This is one ringing and rightly deserved recommendation. I hardly ever get enthousiastic about games any more, but this one got me hooked. If you even remotely like games like star controll 2 and starflight, get this one. It's a must.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You can get it from GoGamer.
http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer. ... ew/001SPAR

 

[Balor]

Well, unfortunatly, it's not as plot-heavy as SC2. (Text sidequests are really fun, and even somewhat witty sometimes, but have no connection to real plot).
However, when it comes to actually living universe - this game has no competition.
By the way, there is online scoreboard at the official site (Perhaps in English, too).
You can try and beat some worldwide records by playing on Expert and completing the game in 6 years or so, heh.

 

[bryce777]

You can get it from GoGamer.
http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer. ... ew/001SPAR

Thanks!

I looked for it earlier, but to no avail.

 

[Avé]

Heh, I told ya!
SR2 is, indeed, Teh Aw3s0m3.
Btw, isn't it the very EuroGamer that is ph34red everywhere due to it's tentency to give out much lower scores to games then everyone else?
I mean, giving them what they really worth?

Well, SR2 scored higher than:
Halo(8/10)
Fable(8/10)
Gran Turismo 4(8/10)

Not bad

 

[LlamaGod]

Btw, isn't it the very EuroGamer that is ph34red everywhere due to it's tentency to give out much lower scores to games then everyone else?
I mean, giving them what they really worth?

omg that must be 50% then

 

[RuySan]

i'm curious about this. is there any playable demo around? i can only find trailers

 

[Halenthal]

I doubt there's any demo. I ordered the game some time ago from gogamer.com and have been enjoying it every minute since then.

The translation is decent, though there's some very oddly structured sentences and the occasional misused word ('right' instead of 'write') and I know of one buglet that can be minorly annoying if you're not paying attention (escort mission, keep ship X alive for Y number of days, if you do you get paid. If ship is killed before you collect the reward money, you don't get the reward).

Other than those two minor quibbles, the game is darn near perfect, very near. I'd give it a 9/10 for sure. Even the things it doesn't do really well (the RTS minigame, for example) it doesn't force you to do them if you don't want to, while giving you rewards that are nice but not uber.

Just because I was an idiot and did this once before learning about it, here's something to keep in mind for future reference: When you put a probe on a planet, you do NOT have to sit there and hit the end turn button over and over until it finishes or finds something. No, just drop the thing off and then leave the planet, go about your business and come back when you want.

 

[Balor]

BTW, about the "escort mission" - it's not a bug, it's intentional.
After all, you were payed to protect the ship, right?
And it was destroyed. After your contract expired, yes, but it doesn't bother your employers .
So, consider it a feature and hurry back to get cash in this mission before something nasty will happen to the craft you were payed to protect.

 

[VasikkA]

I've been playing this game for 3 weeks now and I recommend you buy it. Seriously. Don't know how things are elsewhere, but I got the original SR(almost identical to SR2) in the same package! A very good bargain, in my opinion.

Space hasn't been this much fun since Star Control and Elite. This game tries to combine the two, and manages to do quite well that. There's turn-based combat(kinda like in MOO), witty humour, a wide variety of items and customizable spaceships, hyperspace shoot-em-up, a really dynamic gameworld with other NPC rangers and kickass pure dynamite text-based quests. The only downers are repetitive quests cept for the text-based ones, a mediocre RTS-mode(or I just suck at that, because I haven't played one since Dune 2, but luckily you can skip them) and a lack of a story. The last one is a double-edged sword; A decent story would have spiced things up, but on the other hand the game emphasizes players' freedom to do (or not to do) whatever they want. But it leaves you with an empty feeling, just like Morrowind. Also, I would've wanted to solve some tricky diplomatical issues á la Star Control.

Thank god for Russkijs. There can never be too much turn-based combat and vodka.

 

[bryce777]

I started in on it last night. For some reason, they market it as just Space Rangers, and then they bundle the original with it.

It is goofy at times, but I am loving it so far. They have a paragraph in the manual about Space-Talk which is hysterical...basically they claim to have changed the English language a lot for the future so not to worry if you don't understand it all...the funniest, cleverest way to cover for some of the questionable translations that I can imagine.

 

[bryce777]

Not that anyone cares, but I am enjoying the hell out of this game.

 

[Halenthal]

Glad to hear you're enjoying it. It takes a while to really get going in the game, but once you've got a decent enough ship that you can fly into a system controlled by the Dominators and at least get out alive, life is good from then on.

 

[Mandake]

Does anybody know when it is available in Germany?

 

[RuySan]

i really need to sell my kidneys to play this, so it seems

 

[Trash]

The lack of story ain't that a biggy to me. There is quite a bit of background info to be found within the game, but what really interests me is the various ways you can defeat the "bosses". Ground combat, space combat or by researching their weakness (or motive) and exploiting it. Not worth a kidney....but surely the 20 euros I paid for it. :wink:

 

[Zli]

Does anybody know when it is available in Germany?

Try getting it online. Interactcd and Play both ship to Germany, I think.

And I'm glad everyone's enjoying it as much as I am.

 

[bryce777]

It does take some time to be able to remotely stand up to them. It takes a lot of time to do the game, period!

I have been playing every minute of my freetime all week and I think I am a long way from finishing...though I finally got a good battle hull and weapons and am able to stand up to the dominators fairly well, though not well enough to clear a system on my own or anything.

I disagree about a 'lack of story'. There are no idiotic cutscenes, and you are not forced into a main plot, but there is tons of story and much more writing than most games.

There are lots of optional puzzles, too, and I am great at puzzles (I solved the einstein thing in 15 minutes) but a lot of them really made me think and even have to write things down.

I am also really shocked at how much effort went into the game. I am not a huge RTS fan, but the (optional) RTS robot missions are done much better than most of those games and have excellent explosions and are very intense.

I especially like all the choose your own adventurelike text quests you can do.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

[quote="Trash"Not worth a kidney....but surely the 20 euros I paid for it. :wink:[/quote]I'd say it depends on the kidney.