Taken at surface value, Rebel Galaxy should be excellent: A space shooter based around Assassin's-Creed-like ship combat and light trading mechanics. However, the limitations of the game's indie background become apparent early on; outside of the decent-but-bare-bones story, the gameplay flow is procedurally-generated, giving the game a generic vibe even before finishing the campaign. Don't get me wrong, it plays fantastically, I just wish there was more to the game world.
I don't know whether it's because of my playing on an integrated graphics card or what, but the game crashes all the time it's infuriating.
The game itself is good. Kinda repetitive but I'm okay with that. I don't see much point in continuing to play it after you unlocked the biggest ship and finished the story but it's a fun experience. The music is good or even great if you don't mind it repeating quite a bit, it still feels relevant after a while.
All in all a good game with a lot of great ideas and an astonishing optimisation of the graphics engine (Again, I play with basically no graphics card). But man the crashes will drive you crazy.
If you like to shoot and fly in space this game offers that and adds a story that gives you a reason to be so violent. Save your dear old aunt you must, don't you know?
OK, so she is not so dear and she ran afoul of the law, but she is still family. She also found a mysterious ancient relic that she left for you...
Add hours to your space adventures with this title.
You must level up to progress in this game. Many things you need will not be available to you on your relic ship. A faster and more powerful ship will help you survive. You need a jump drive to leave the beginner solar system. From that jump you will find fiercer opponents and more lucrative trades...
I found this more entertaining than Sins of a solar empire. the voice acting makes you laugh and the feel of the game is very much a simple cowboy survival story. Have some fun and later help the community of players document the cheat codes. I sure would like unlimited credits, ammo, a indestructible ship, and a can of beans!
I reckon that's all folks.
The game is too easy most of the time, to the point where it gets mindnumbingly boring. With the first really difficult main mission ("Rescue Attempt") the difficulty suddenly goes up by 400% or so. To be able to survive here, you need to gain access to the second sector and upgrade to MK3 equipment. Your flight skills matter not, as this game has a ridiculous flight model (two-dimensional flight in space!!!) with sluggish controls.
So to get the equipment needed, you have to do a ton of grinding to earn the money. No thanks.
What totally turned me off from the game is the lack of game save management. There is no option to save a game to a certain file, it only auto-saves when you dock or exit the game. I found out the hard way that there is only ONE saved game status. On a high risk mission, this piece of garbage software put the mission-board mission RIGHT ON TOP of the unmanageable "Rescue Attempt" mission. I suddenly found myself with two high risk missions in the same place and attacked from all sides. Not survivable. Exiting the game to cool down for a minute was my mistake. The only game I could load was the one where I sat in the non-survivable fix. No other save existed. Uninstalled, sorry about the two days I wasted on this.
I got the game for free in some GOG sale. I got exactly what I paid for. Why can I not give zero stars?
Once you've gotten used to (or gotten over) the 2D space mechanics, the general gameplay experience is very reminiscent of Privateer and Freelancer: grind a bit with trading to acquire nicer gear, then grind on missions to earn more money, etc. Like those games, there's an inconsequential story plotline to follow at your leisure -
Rebel Galaxy's kind of felt derivative of Freelancer's (there are aliens, you're the snowflake to save the galaxy) and a mobile game called Asteroid Miner I played a few years ago. It isn't interesting.
Stations have a bit less atmosphere than its inspirations, and the various star systems are pretty much indistinguishable from one another, unlike Privateer or Freelancer.
Depending on how maneuverable a ship you've got, combat can range from dog-fighty to broadsidey. It's different from most action-oriented space sims.
So the gameplay is an interesting pastiche of the past, it mostly obscures the all the spreadsheets that make a game like this tick.
But the music - it's an excellent space-western, Firefly kind of soundtrack. Although the lyrics are a bit odd for games - one song's lyrics are about suicide, another is something like "she's a cold-hearted sleeze".
