Rebel Galaxy

And when I got tired of the actually quite awesome soundtrack i changed all the tracks to all of monster magnets stuff and marauded all of the known galaxy.. was a blast. love that you can put whatever music you want in there to play, randomised and set to different things. (at port music, combat music, exploring tunes etc.. differnt parts of the game, different playlists, Monster Magnet was TOO perfect for this one for me.

The title says it all: The gameplay is pretty repetetive. Missions from the mission board are randomly generated, and there are only a few types, like "fly there, kill this guy", "fly there, kill everyone", "here is some cargo, bring it there and either kill or escape the pirates attacking you", "escort this ship" (i.e. kill all the enemies attacking the ship in midflight), and so on. There are some "there's a distress signal" random events mixed in, which amount to shooting down more pirates attacking traders. Even the main missions don't differ too much (as far as I've seen). Still, the game is surprisingly fun to play. I attribute this to the soundtrack which makes you feel like the most bad-ass human to travel space ever. Its hard to describe, but I'd say it is some (very heavy) rock with a slightly western/country touch to it. The graphics are solid. The functionality to fly in formation when escorting ships is sometimes a little buggy, but apart from that everything works smoothly. Controlling the ship with my gamepad works flawlessly. It's a little weird though that you can not fly up nor down - only left, right and forward. That feel's quite strange for a space game. All in all, I'm deducting two stars for the very repetetive gameplay, but adding an extra one for the absolutely awesome soundtrack.

Basic controls and lots to do. Over all great game.

Awesome graphics, good story, nice difficulty, and good UI for a gamepad. Can't wait for DLC! Don't be too put off by the horizontal axis restriction, it works pretty well and keeps it simple - because that's what this game is: a simple, linear and fun game. Lots of meat in side quests, but you're pretty much never lost. A bug or too with warp pairing, but other than that: solid gold!

Rebel Galaxy is a fun expansive space game that sacrifices complete freedom and dogfighting to bring something completely new to the table, which is fun and unique Pros: -Areas feel (and are) big and look wonderful -Awesome music which adds a bit of a Mad Max feel (my opinion) -Ship combat which reminds strongly combat in pirate games which requires maneuvering to let shields recover and using "deflectors" to absorb damage in an emergency -Fully voice acted with only a few quircky lines and many alien dialects -huge variety of weapons and defence mechanisms to choose from which can change gameplay, especially the "broadside" weapons -Trade or fight and/or join certain factions which have unique ships or items -You can engage Warp speed at almost any point -An interesting story around your Aunt and a certain object she uncovered... Cons: -You are limited to a 2D Plane, same as for the big enemy ships but not the fighters. Can feel limiting. ESPECIALLY when you have something thats below you or above you. -Combat most of the time is just firing broadside weapons and maneuvaring, managing your other turrets in combat is not viable because... -...the camera is almost impossible to control unless you switch to broadsides. (Game knows this and hints at it) -Nearly EVERYTHING is automated. If you want to engage "Warp" you have to wait for the game to give you the go ahead after you travelled for x distance. for example -Controller is, as far as I can see, required. -The "Warp" will not get you to your destination immediately so you can sit back and wait until you arrive. Many time you have to almost drift out of the way of nebulas and asteroid fields. Its easy to do but can sometimes get annoying Overall: I like this game a lot. I played Freelancer and loved the heck out of that game too. And I noticed that even though you were not restricted to a 2d plane and it was dogfighting and not ship to ship combat in that game, I get a similar vibe from this game too.