Starpoint Gemini 2

After being somewhat blinded by the 5-star reviews I bought this game here on GOG. I have to say it was a waste. Having played Privateer and Freespace back in the days I had certain hopes for a nice mixture of a captivating story and a glorious sandbox. Sadly, Starpoint Gemini 2 does not deliver. How so? Well: 1) non-combat options Trading or asteroid mining sounds good on paper but the minimal cash flow that results from these activities just ends in a hell of a grind to the next ship. 2) missions There are 5 types of mission: a) Assasination: fly to A, kill stuff, done b) Maintenance: fly to A, press a button, wait 10 seconds, done c) capture: fly to A, do not kill everything but board target ship, wait till boarding completed, done d) taxi: fly to A, pick up faceless npc, deliver to B, maybe kill stuff along the way e) supply run: go to A, pick up cargo, deliver to B, maybe kill stuff along the way They are all a variations of "go here, shoot stuff" or "go here, press a button, wait". They have no story whatsoever and the small pieces of text you are offered as an "explanation" as to why you should do this mission could not be more bland and uninteresting. 3) progression Capturing enemy ships is easy as pie and selling those ships results in quite an amount of cash flow. It is so easy to make loads of money this way that a) any other way pales in comparison and b) this results in you being able to breeze through the ship tiers, often skipping entire tiers along the way. The DLCs only make this worse as they offer 2 special ships that outperform other available ships 3 tiers above their current one. 4) story The story is really bland and probably the worst part is the appalling voice acting. Honestly, it is so bad that I literally cringe in my seat everytime I hear my character talk. B-movies like Sharknado have better dialogues... If you are looking for another Privateer or Freelancer... stay away from this. You will be disappointed!

From an indie studio, to receive such an in depth game with so many possibilities that is limited only with your imagination, I could ask nothing more. The developers are awesome. They provide assistance whenever they can, constantly stalking their forums to provide answers and keep their customers satisfied. Unlike many developers from other games, this small group listens to community suggestions and acts accordingly. The game itself is awesome, I spent more then 150 hours in the game and plan on spending much more. I don't know how to describe it, but the feeling that you get from being a captain in space, commanding your own ship with or without a small fleet, its just amazing. Ever since Freelancer I was searching for a game that could give me the same feeling, and Starpoint Gemini 2 most certainly gave more than I hoped. I love every aspect of the game. And from observing what developers did so far, I can't wait to see whats next. I recommend this game to anyone, people that already play space-sims, people that didn't play them yet. I want everyone to experience the feeling I have when playing this game.

You don't know what I mean? Go play Spaceforce Rogue Universe I played an entire day in sandbox mode on easy, because hey I just wanted to be an asteroid miner so cut me some slack. The game doesn't come across very clear on the 'How' of doing things as it seems content to just throw you an encyclopedia that revolves around numbering dots. The interface is plain terrible for figuring out whats going on & Cluttered. I still don't know where my shield strength is suppose to be and that should not take an encyclopedia pop up to enlighten you in a space combat game. Did i mention space is cramped? The map tiny as it is in what 64x64 hexes is LITTERED with worm holes and T-Gates. That being the case you'd think why would anyone ever travel in the depths of space; but do so and over about 20 hexes you will find yourself with nary a moments peace. In fact space seems more populated than any of the planets in the game as there never seems to be traffic to and from their nearest station. You try to mine an asteroid bam 3 hostile ships closing on your position before you've even got a quarter of it's health down. I don't know if ships are meant to look huge or the weapons meant to be weak, but I could piss out a stream of justice further than weapons in this game shoot. Because of the floaty controls combat tends to be a warp in park ship in neutral and hope your strong enough, If not engage engine plus cloak & don't worry about it. Ship upgrades aren't engaging: A list of different names with energy this and crit dam that, but it's hard to care when it's just so generic looking and you have an exhorbitantly priced actual cargo ship to a)find & b)sell an entire stations worth of kidneys for. Finding a ship yard is almost impossible and they seem to hold only 1 ship, funny when there seems to be an almost limitless amount of stations around (albiet most of them hostile). You also start as the arch nemesis to entire galactic empires, go figure. Trust me buy spaceforce

The game runs well, looks good and has lots of mechanics that sound cool - but is very confusing at best. So there are 50 factions, but it would make no difference if it had just been 5 since they don´t have anything that sets them apart from each other except their label. The controls feel awkward and most of the time enemy ships fly just out of sight, while your laser turrets take them dowm automaticly. The story fails to captivate and the characters don´t mean anything to you, while the endless mode is pointless and generic. I love space-sims, but this one is a mayor disapointment. Maybe the game´s meant for experienced gamers that have plaed the first part of the series, but to a newcomer it´s just a mess of joyless features that would have benefitted from a much tighter design, a tutorial or first chapter that actually introduces players to the gameplay and the in-game-world and from a story that gives you something to care about.

It's a third person space combat sandbox. You won't be getting into freespace/independence war/xwing style dogfights. it's a real time rpg with an active pause system if you want to use it. once you've done a few upgrades on your ship you'll have your ship autofire on nearby enemies. You can upgrade a variety of things about your ship as well as plenty of ships to try out. You can hire crew that give stat boosts and buy and sell trade goods. the world is pretty big but maybe a bit busier than space should be as another reviewer said. The main store felt like it was put there as an afterthought. The meat of this game is the sandbox gameplay. The graphics are nice and there is plenty to do. There are a variety of factions you can work with or piss off. I put about 20 hours before I felt burned out but it's not exactly my type of game. I've read about some who put HUNDREDS of hours into this. That's pretty wild to me...but if you end up liking how everything comes together in this package I could see that happening. That's how I am with the mount and blade games. Starpoint Gemini 2 isn't exactly my kind of game (and I like space combat games...) but I could definitely see this game being perfect for certain kinds of gamers out there. This is a 7.5 from me with a 4 star rating because it really does have a few things going for it.