I am quite perplexed why there are so many high star ratings for this game. I read all the glowing reviews and felt like it would be a solid title and something I would enjoy for some time. Problem Examples: Getting pinned down on a planet with three pirate battleships camping your location. I tried fighting them – end up dying in short order, waiting them out – after 14 days they were *still* there parked and absolutely focused on anything that I was doing. My only solution was to go far enough back on save games to get out of the no win box. Oh and I tried the bribe option as well, they would take the credits yet continue to fire away without missing a beat until my ship was space dust. The tactics behind ship combat is completely bizarre. I have had several battles where my ship would lead them right to a safe planet so they could happily land and repair. How is this possible? Seriously! Why would my ship be in front of them and somehow magically lead them to a safe planet during combat?? I tried changing heading and it would show a path that it was going to do a 360 and instead once again my ship would perfectly lead the pirate to a safe planet. After finally getting some upgrades, I went to chase down some bad guys – they would stay to fight then magically know exactly when to retreat – to a friendly to me military base with 30 health left. Huh? How are they able to dodge the law so well, why would the base harbor a pirate – someone who is a threat and attacks everyone in the area?? The RTS portions were very simplistic and most maps the enemy had lots of home team advantages – terrain, resources etc. Compare this to most RTS’s out there and its really thin. Granted RTS is not this games focus but still it’s very lacking. It’s one of those situations where it is more than a token effort but because it is not fully fleshed out, ends up falling short The blackhole space combat controls are broken as well. First time I went in it sort of made sense as it reminded me of the old arcade game that I played when I was younger. The second time as I tried to use the controls the ship just took off on its own. Even going hands free and trying to stay in a corner to work out its interface, whoosh off the ship went to plow headlong into an enemy ship it was not prepared to deal with. – reload game again time…. I also found that the interface fails to respond to user requests as well. For example: I set the music to ZERO so I could play something in the background from my own library. Out in space its fine, then when I land at a base I hear the in game music…. I checked the music settings, yup still at ZERO and yet the in game music is happily playing away… Lastly, there is the arms race, you get new gear and everyone else in the universe is easily able to keep up as well. If they are behind a bit in tech they will simply gang up on you 6 on 1 and all your hard earned technology upgrades are of little help as they turn your ship into space junk due to all the weapons fire. The overall feel of Space Rangers 2 (SR2) is like when the first card games came out for the computer. At first you’re like “wow this is great!” Then later start wondering about the one coincidence happening after the next. “Oh I would have one that hand for sure! Yup, it was just pure luck the computer pulled the exact card it needed to win….” This situation keeps happening over and over again…. After awhile it’s so far past coincidence that you just stop playing because well, the computer completely cheats and it sucks all the fun out of the game. Right there that feeling, I wanted to like Space Rangers 2 but the game breaking items just keep popping up over and over again. The above list is just a few of problematic issues. Is there anything to like? Well the graphics are polished and has a solid look and feel, the overall presentation of SR2 is light hearted and it tries to offer variety of ways to play the game. The music is not bad, several of the tracks I enjoyed while some of the others were way too mellow or so down tempo that it clashed with the rest of the music sets. With SR2 current state I can’t recommend it at all. Even with the promo price and the 1.2GB download – it is just not worth bothering with. Games are to be enjoyed and SR2 has way too many bugs/issues to be enjoyed at all.
** Summary ** TA is really a great RTS that has plenty to offer and especially for those that enjoy longer battles that are still held in real time. There are many nooks and crannies to discover in TA that create that nice Ah ha! feeling as you play. Detailed version: Pros: True 3D units that take positional calculated damage - all in real time Intelligent repair unit design - I cant stress this enough how vital this is in making TA great Repair units can be assigned a patrol and they will: repair units, defenses, gather resources etc No magic bank! - see below for info. Infinite over time resource model - defender or playing expanding empire strategy - can achieve victory. Rewarding combined arms - keeping a mix of units such as air & ground defense etc. Terrain bonuses, shooting down from a hill top, from behind terrain, etc works! Units actually will miss, plus electronic warfare is available as well. Fantastic Unit variety, combining the right set of units for the object is rewarded Land, Sea or Air - can have any battle from any direction Lots of mods are available and still being developed today Enemy units, structures, etc. can be captured or recycled and added to your resources Adjustable game play - can toggle units, structures etc on or off with each multiplayer map. Unique unit - commander unit - it can all begin and end with this unit : ) Uses pyramid style construction, basic units are needed to build more advanced units - tiers I - IV etc. Cons: Story is very dry but has some potential. Not much unit or character personality - I mean its dry, no colorful story : ) Some people get frustrated due to so many units - not sure which ones to pick. Did I mention it has not characters/personality and the story is dry? Total Annihilation is in my opinion Chris Taylor & co's best work. Supreme commander is quite good but it does not seem to capture the epic feeling that TA did. Also I liked TA's missions better as again they feel massive. Even while writing this I am greatly tempted to go grab my cd's and reinstall just to enjoy it all over again. RTS design pros and cons: Magic Bank: this is when you gather from a limited set of resources and store them away into a magic place that cant be touched except by the bank owner. Sounds great right? Well its fine for a ton of less work in designing an RTS but it turns the game into hungry hippo grab for resources vs focusing on a bit of longer term strategy. Basically burst mode short attention span of 5-30min battles at best. About every RTS uses this simplistic model with the special exception of a very few. Total Annihilation design of infinite over time resources focuses on the importance of controlling the resource areas over time so you can continue to grow. Even more important no magic bank. In TA when you gather something, just like oil, where do you store it? It has to be protected because if you don't it can be destroyed or worse stolen! In TA you have energy and metal storage structures. You can place them just about anywhere, squirrel them away in a map corner and hope that the enemy never finds them or maybe put them deep into your base center under all its heavy guns. Even more split the difference, keep your resource storage spread out and never one easy target. Its all up to you! Eggs, Baskets, how many and where? : ) The summary difference in TA vs other RTS's is that you have to keep a more complex attack/defense. So the enemy knows where a good portion of your storage tanks are, will they go for them or go after your main base? What if the first attack is a diversion and the main force somewhere else? In TA having good up to date info on the enemy is greatly rewarded so sending out that spy plane to do a quick fly over their territory can really pay off. Example, keeping patrols can tip you off of an invasion force that is building up. Depending on what you allow on/off you can get get into heavy electronic warfare, radar jammers, nuclear weapons, anti nukes etc. So again one fly over could be all that's needed for your heavy weapons to fire all the way across your map and drop the big one on them or even a nice group of task force teams ready to respond. Think of piles of tanks or bombers, battleships etc. Another key TA feature is unit control: aggressive, defensive, passive and three levels of how far will it roam. For example, if you set aggressive and free roaming then it will chase an enemy unit to the ends of the planet and beyond. lol If you set it to aggressive and mid range it will break off the attack once it gets a decent distance out and return to its home position. This helps keep your patrolling units in pattern defense units holding the line. I could keep going but my review is too lengthy already. I enjoy TA and hope that others will enjoy it as much as I have. **minor spoiler alert** One neat thing about the story - it starts at the END of the story. Huh? Yeah the war has gone on for thousands of years. You and the other commander are the last that are still standing. This story is about who wins this last epic fight that ends the entire war.
