I played a lot of Spaz 1 and I really loved it. I used to play Realspace 3 over and over because I love that style of gameplay. I went into SPAZ 2 hoping for something similar, but with better graphics and new mechanics. From that angle, you probably won't find what you're looking for. SPAZ 2 is it's own thing. Even if you set a top-down view and tire manually, it's nowhere near as smooth as it was in SPAZ 1. I found in SPAZ 2 a new genre I also liked. I found that the combat is no longer the highlight of the game despite being extremely beautiful. Activate battlewagon mode, ram the enemy once to break the shields, and watch as colorful explosions occur. The highlight of this game is it's ability to let you play as long as you want with any strategy you might have. For exemple, I had finished a normal playthrough, and wanted to try becoming a major force in the Universe by myself; no allies allowed. Sure enough, after a lot of hard work I could win a fight against their capitals, and I established myself in the middle of the universe. I slowly expanded until my many bases became the meeting spot for all captains without factions. By trading with my bases we got along to the point where they would actively defend my bases despide not being in my faction. I kept expanding, slowly reducing the forces of the other factions. I looted everything, and donated the parts to neutral captains who did not have good standings with me, mostly because I killed the escape pods of the enemy factions to reset them to neutrals. Long story short, you can try to find any playstyle you want, it's awesome, it has a lot more selling points than SPAZ 1 despine not being a direct sequel gameplay-wise. I highly recommend it, even more so now that it's on sale.
