This game is so much like Privateer that "inpired by" is not the whole story. I loved Privateer and liked the obvious similarities between these two games from the beginning. The mechanics, the missions, the trading all are quite alike. The universe building isn't quite on the same level though. It's basically Privateer in Space-Dixieland including huge gas stations, drawling radio hosts, and a round or two of pool in run-down bars. T Unlike in Privateer there is a greater variety in missions, there is mining (which is superb) and piracy really is an option. It took me some time though to learn the nuances of the game. E.g. I did not know that mining is an option until the second playthrough, when I descovered that there are interesting mining spots on the map without waypoints that you have to zoom in quite near and then manually mark them and navigate to them. Also the weapons didn't quite make sense in the beginning. The game modes are not that easy to understand (I recommend doing the flight training before starting the game to know what is meant by flight assist and weapons assist - I am an old Privateer veteran and made my firt run-through in old school but doing my second on vetran). What really shines in my opinion is the humour of the radio stations. The stereotype presenter of the classic radio station for example or the honest ads just make me laugh again and again. I still don't like the colourful art style but you can't have everything I guess.
I am completely new to the game and I do not know the game from my childhood or something. This is the third time I try the game. The first time I was put off by the looks. The second time I was put off by the interface. This time around I read an online game guide and took the time to read the manual and the keyboard shortcuts. And I love the game. It is easily interuptable which is a must for me and it is just lovely. The good: Some hand-drawn graphics are charming. The open world is captivating in its simplicity. Low-fantasy real-world setting is just unique. Alchemy and prayers/saints are not important but a really fun part of the game and has me hunting for recipes and ingredients and look forward to craft a potion and use it. Gameplay is interuptable and savable most of the time. The combat is not simple but also not overly complicated - there are shooting weapons, three stances and different types of weapons and armor. But no special abilities or cool-off castables or whatever. The bad The combat looks just kinda bad to me and has clunky controls if you do not use the keyboard. There is no in-game notepad that I know of. World map not scrollable. There seems to be no story-liine I am aware of. Maybe something pops up later? The ugly The controls are all over the place - you can click most of the interface. There is also a menu that is operated by clicking and holding the right mouse button. Then there are the function keys. And then there are normal keys. And then there are ctrl+function key commands. Scrolling is atrocious (you need to move the mouse to the edge and then press shift - who came up with that?). Also scrolling is not supported on the world map. Also it runs in dosbox which means if you want to look something up in the manual and alt+tab out of dosbox then it is minimised and you have to alt+enter to make it fullscreen again.
