I believed the reviews but they were not truthful or obsfucate the issues: - Can't save whenever you want unless you find a bed or finish a quest. Forget the exit save, mine would disappear. And Save Schnapps (used to save whenever you want) are too rare and expensive. - Combat system is the worse, ever! I swing a sword and 5 secs later it may swing. (not due to my Threadripper and RT 5700 XT system, it's fast) I hit A and D to move left and right but I don't It worked in the practice fight but in any subsequent fights it was too slow to use so you have to go straight in to hit them before they hit you. Fat chance. Unarmed combat is even worse. In the first hour and a dozen fights I won twice after saves. Yet some fights are required so prepare to lose. - After losing in a required fight it feels like you are back to restarting progress since you loose weapons and cash after the Homecoming quest. Another knockdown. - Lockpicking is THE WORST EVER. After a dozen tries and saves I somehow picked a very easy lock. An mouse-controlled inflated ball in a specific spot in a round maze which rotates using the D key and don't touch the sides? The game Operation anyone? It doesn't make sense to any lock on anyone's planet. - Some reviews said it's an open world but it definitely is not. - Some cut scenes are literally 5 minutes long. You can get around it but it's annoying and tedious. - Interaction. You have to keep looking from the center of the screen where all the graphics are to small words in the very bottom right to see if you can interact. The area of interaction is broad but this is not helpful where there are a lot of ineractions together (i.e. lots of bodies to loot, which one did I loot?). I expected Skyrim, Fallout, Gothic 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk, Witcher type of games but no. I've played those for decades so I know what I like and don't like. I was entertained by those games but not by this one. Good thing I got it on sale.
Played a few hours and quite turned off by a few things: - Number one reason by far - not an open world yet it is classified as such. I have no problem with scripted games but I hadn't thought I bought one here. - Save game time is few and far between, not clear when one "quest" finishes as there are overlapping quests. - Can't collect arrows except one group at a time in approximately 5 to a group? You have to shoot those arrows before you can collect another 5 to use? Why can't it be more, why just 5? - Just a tenuous connection to Middle Earth and less to LOTR. The mention of the game title pulled me in but I feel it spit me out when played. Talion is not Aragorn. - (minor) Accidentally discovered health recovery. Hit "E" on a bad guy and there is a weird glow along with a vamperic draw to restore health? Not exactly like any magic I know of in Tolkien's books. There are things that earned it two stars from me: - Stunning graphics. No doubt it's beautiful. - Movement and fps makes character usage fluid. Very responsive. - Super easy to kill individual bad guys, white then red outlines appear. Almost too easy (I'm on normal). Probably didn't play enough for this Nemesis thing to kick in so I can't comment on that.
I read the reviews and longed for a Privateer "update" and Rebel Galaxy is it. I've gotten about halfway through the story line which is engaging. It is worth getting even at the price it's at because it continues the Wing Commander/Privateer/Freelancer universe I like so much. Some in notes in no particular order: - Combat is different but doable. No forward firing guns, everything is a +/-15 degree angle from broadside (90 degree from forward travel). Turrets are different, they are all over most ships can shoot at any angle but are not useful in manual mode except for mining, leave them in auto-aim mode. Secondary weapons need to be replenished so I rarely use them. Deflectors seem a last ditch, manual defense so I never use them since shields and armor are usually sufficient. - The saving system is the strangest I've ever seen. Saves only entering a station or exiting the game. There are 12 slots (file#'s 0-11) but you cannot switch slots unless you copy files over to another slot outside the game or start new games there. I wrote a Windows batch file residing in the saved game directory (C:UsersuserDocumentsMy GamesDouble Damage GamesRebelGalaxy) to alt-tab out and save the game I'm always playing in slot 2 (file# 1) to another slot 3-12 (file#s 2-11). ----- @echo off :Copy savegame_dat1.zbs to temp directory; overwite old copies of savegame_dat1.zbs. set TEMPSAVEPATH=%CD%screenshots copy /y /v "%CD%savegame_dat1.zbs" "%TEMPSAVEPATH%" :Get the saved game file number to eventually overwrite. set /p FILENUM="Enter saved game file number to overwrite (from 2 to 11): " :Loop through 2 to 11 for /L %%G IN (2,1,11) DO ( :If the entered number is one of the legitimate loop numbers (2 to 11), then overwite if %FILENUM%==%%G ( copy /y /v "%TEMPSAVEPATH%savegame_dat1.zbs" "%CD%savegame_dat%FILENUM%.zbs" echo Saved game "savegame_dat1.zbs" saved as "savegame_dat%FILENUM%.zbs". goto END ) ) echo No files saved. Saved game file number "%FILENUM%" is not a number 2 to 11. :END pause -----