I'm reviewing the Advanced edition. As other reviewers have mentioned, a bad event can ruin a long game, without you being able to do anything against it. There's no strategy involved. A successful run mostly depends on getting the right weapon setup: and most weapons are crap, you have to find out which are the good ones. But it's purely a question of luck, if you can find these weapons or not: not all shops have weapons, and even less have good weapons. This almost works in the 'normal' edition, but with the extra content of the 'advanced' edition (that is optional at least) I found the game basically unplayable. Add to this that this is essentially an RTS, but without a speed slider, so that if battles are easy you have to stay there for minutes just watching, to see maybe everything ruined in 10 seconds after one jump in space.
I didn't play the other SR, just this one. And I played it (on Steam) to death. It's one of those rare games that made me spend time trying out different alternatives during missions, quests and even dialogues, just to see wht's different. The story is the best one I've found in an RPG, bar none. The price has always been low on discount, a reason why I don't like to dish out more than 4$: will it be better than SRDF? Probably not. This game has everything. Must play!
First time I play a "tower defense" game and it seems I'm landed well. Very solid game design with some RPG elements, different classes with different ability trees, so that you can specialize characters of the same class to cover different roles, I won't comment the story since I always skip cutscenes, it doesn't look interesting in the slightest, just the usual bad guys. A bit tiresome near the end, where you've uncovered all classes and there's not much else to see.
The good: + very good story, writing and excellent cyberpunk atmosphere + good 2D graphics and ok soundtrack The bad: - the combat and the general lack of challenge - animations are rather basic Think of this game of something that tries to be a 2D/Platformer Deus Ex. It's basically and adventure game, around which an action game has been wrapped up, but where the adventure part is at times brilliant, the action part is generally weak. The story would have worked probably better in a point-and-click adventure. It's still there, though, so if you ignore the action sequences and play the game for the story and the setting, you can still enjoy it. Some mechanics (concealment) seem borrowed from Mark of the Ninja, but Dex is very far from that perfection. While graphics are good in general, animations are much less inspiring. The RPG aspects are rather generic, weapons are totally forgettable since hand-to-hand is about as good. Fights remind Double Dragon but they aren't as challenging. If I were to rate the game as an action game I'd give it one star, so it's clear it hasn't been the action that made me keep playing. The story and the writing, instead, iare almost on the level of Shadowrun:Dragonfall, that is very good. The ending is disappointing: there are different decisions you can make, just as in SR:DF, but differently from that game, the game doesn't care to explain what changes thereafter. It's just as if the endings haven't been properly finished by the development team. Bottom line, this game stays definitely below Deus Ex and SR:DF in the list of my favorite cyberpunk games, but for those who like the genre and play for the story and good writing, it's still a very good title, just don't expect much as an action game.
Playing the official Stardock release with the CU update that is now official and included in the game. This game has a reputation for having a good AI but I don't find it's the case. I still have to try mods, but fighting against an AI that never use shields on ships (only offense) is lame. There's too much random element, rarely you get a good starting planet and/or a good spot in the galaxy, mostly you get such a crappy start that makes you restart the game, hoping for some decency. Not hopeless but it doesn't hold up to its reputation. Maybe mods can save it, I don't know.
