Rebel Galaxy

Now just add a competent KI, more ship/weapon/shield/etc types, more missions, manual docking, ...

The game couldn't catch me at all. Already the begin was sort of shallow when entering this dusty bar with scavanger and criminals all around. Then the music absolutely adds nothing to the atmosphere for me but more pushes me down all the side. Sorry but this western blues just doesn't fit to space in my opinion. Then the gameplay is horrible. Targets that are said to be easy kill you within no time but difficult targets can be destroyed with not even the minor difficulty? WTF??? And why do I have a spacecraft, but am only able to move it in 2D-level? Why not make some nasty evation maneuvers, get higher or deeper in space (like this nasty fighters do all the time - that's why you can't hit them) or just change a course to another point? No, instead you have to fight with your own controls to at least make another keyboard setting then there was originally programmed. Really, this pisses me off so much. Absolutely regret to even have spend money on this >:(

You really need to change your mindset to play this game. It's not a space simulator, it's a tank and turret simulator set in space. You can only go ahead, 4 speeds, and turn... it's annoying if you were expecting a bit more "spaceness". It simply can't get into my head why a spaceship can't go up and down, so, I can't really enjoy this game.

Camera is zoomed in too close to the ship, which is unpleasent and there does not seem to be any way to zoom out. Controls for movement and interaction are awful. Maby I'll give it another go sometime later, but my first impression is a very bad one.

The premises are good, the voice acting is great but playing the game on a PC with mouse and keyboard is masochism. Buttons sharing several functions, pointing items in menus actually working like an old DOS game - when you click it doesn't always activate what you're pointing but what's "active" in that moment. The fighting system might be good in a RTS but the pacing is way too fast to activate the modes - which are scattered all over the keyboard - and actually fire, the handling of the ship is *painful* and it has the habit of accelerating on its own volition. After 20 minutes it gave me nausea and a headache, and I'm a hardcore gamer since 1993 with tens of thousands of hours in many games, even the old Descent and Descent II. It could be great but its controls are really horrible, even remapping them doesn't help. Apropos the remapping: it can't match the correct icon to many buttons, so 0 of numpad gets depicted either as "Q" or as an arrow key, depending on what button you remapped the previous step. All lateral mouse buttons become depicted as Left Click, despite being recognized by the system. Is this a pre-release? Luckily I've waited the maximum discount to buy this game or I'd be very, very, very pissed.