Fantastic! I'd been looking for something to scratch the space exploration and combat itch, but nothing in years seemed to do it. Elite Dangerous is a great sim, but an empty universe, SPAZ was close but no cigar... I tried them all. This game is a breath of fresh air, and remarkably it was basically done by one developer with a very small team.
Some have complained about it being on a '2 1/2 D' plane instead of 6 DOF - I couldn't disagree more. The naval style broadsides combat suits perfectly; solid, challenging and just plain fun. There are well done aliens and NPC's, many factions, tons of ships and upgrades, great voice acting , and a fun story you can follow or choose to ignore, The 'verse is huge, each system full of worlds, stations, meteorite fields, drifting hulks, it goes on and on . Controller support, be a pirate, trader or hero, procedural universes for replays... I am having trouble leaving the couch.
Everything looks beautiful, atmospheric and runs great on my 3 year old gaming PC. The developer is ridiculously responsive, and has the patience of a saint replying personally and even providing fixed games to those that had early bugs. (Seriously check the Steam forums)
The soundtrack is spot on, featuring slide guitars and dark country (i.e. Blues Saraceno) for a gritty Firefly feel. You can also add/replace your own custom music playlists for various parts of the game such as ambient, combat, in-station, etc. I've already added some favorites.
I don't usually gush about a game, but as an older gamer who misses the open universe worlds of games like the original Elite and just doesn't have the time to learn something complex like the X3 series - this is just what I was looking for. If you want to play in a world like Firefly or Dark Matter, this is it. Seriously - if it looks even remotely like your thing buy it now. Kudos to the developer and here's hoping he will make expansions to keep the adventures going for ages to come.
