Step into the laid-back shoes of captain Jonathan Bold as he travels and explores the open world of Starpoint Gemini 3. Encounter amazing characters, engage in unprecedented dawgfighting space combat, mining, freelancing, trading and crafting as You uncover Bold's shady origins.FIGHTExperience...
Step into the laid-back shoes of captain Jonathan Bold as he travels and explores the open world of Starpoint Gemini 3. Encounter amazing characters, engage in unprecedented dawgfighting space combat, mining, freelancing, trading and crafting as You uncover Bold's shady origins.
FIGHT
Experience action-packed space combat that pushes both you and your spaceship to the limit. Outfit your ship with the latest in high-tech weaponry. Do you like picking off your targets from a distance? Check out the cannons. What about doing strafing runs so close to your target that you can chip off paint? Blasters and scatterguns could be your thing. Or perhaps You prefer the middle-ground approach? In that case machineguns will provide an answer. Augment all that with a large assortment of different skill-based boosts and You just might become the ultimate agent of destruction.
EXPLORE
With trusty ADAH, your own personal digital consciousness by your side, explore Gemini and, for the first time, other distant star systems of the former Earth Empire. Scan anomalies, rummage through derelict ships and let ADAH stretch her legs so you can investigate those hard to reach places. ADAH serves as your one-drone away-team. When you reeeeeeeally need to know what there is to find in a massive abandoned derelict or hack into the mainframe of a fully functioning station, ADAH is your girl.
EARN A BUCK
Being a dashing space buccaneer doesn't come cheap. Earn credits by doing an odd job or two, commissioned by your friendly neighborhood bartender for an undisclosed third party. Or perhaps you're a more of a do-it-yourself kind of captain? First acquire blueprints and then with a bit of raw ore mining and some creative haggling with the traders, assemble the parts into something that can get you rich! ... or at least cover your bar-tab. Almost all items found in the game can be combined with other items to create new ones, ranging from composite materials to entire weapon systems. Or you can keep it simple and sell the stuff to the highest bidder.
PIMP YOUR RIDE
Swapping entire ships is nice and all, but what if you really liked the chassis of one and the engine of another? Why not combine the two? Yes, my dear captain, you're no longer confined to the bare metal shapes that form spaceships. Mix and match individual parts to form something special, something new, something that speaks to you. Incidentally, if it actually does start speaking to you, we advise seeking medical attention.
KEY FEATURES:
The largest game universe in the Starpoint Gemini series spanning three different planetary systems
Adrenaline-pumping, action-packed space combat that allows distinct play-styles and on-the-fly weapon switching
A complete set of RPG skills to boost the player's capabilities
Modular ship upgrading system
Crafting system that allows the player to create new items and weapons to sell or use
A variety of available activities including mining valuable materials and exploring the vast universe
A unique chance to explore the shocking truth about the other imperial colonies and the fate of alien races
A large variety of characters with unique personalities, different questlines and factions
An engaging storyline written by Darko Macan, an official writer for numerous Star Wars and Marvel comics
A unique digital companion, ADAH, that assist the player in uncovering Bold's shady origins
Detailed interiors on different planets; visit them all!
My suggestions to the developers: drop the abysmal main character, drop or at least rewrite the "comedy" story-line and let players create their own character. Your created character could simply be called "captain" during the story, if you must continue using it.
They should take a page from the first Rebel Galaxy and just create a universe with an ongoing plot that you can choose to partake in or not instead of saddling you with a ridiculous main character that literally no one will identify with or actually want to play. This would allow for the easy introduction of additional story based DLC.
There are some great ideas in this game, and if done properly they could turn this into a very compelling, budget Star Citizen, or if that is way too much of a reach, then at least a worthy competitor to Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. The graphics are nice, and the ship designs are solid. Unfortunately the combat in the game's current state feels a bit weightless as if no physics are at play. I enjoyed this studio's other games (although I never played Starpoint Gemini 1) and I have great hope that the end product will be much better than the current In Dev version, but only time will tell.
Pros:
- Decent soundtrack.
- Decent story (main character is a crybaby, but he's actually quite funny once you get used to it).
Cons:
- Space feels empty and uninteresting. Every part looks the same and the factions look the same.
- Modular ship sounds like it allows you to tailor it to your playstyle - it doesn't. 1 setup is best in every way. Noone will play freighter when the quick fighter has 90% of the freighter hull size and 0 disadvantages.
- Money is a non-issue if you know how to look for poorly designed mechanics.
- Trade is non-existant. Commodity trade yields close to zero credits.
- Controlling your drone turns the game into a 3rd person shooter in many parts of the game. This is really cool the first 2 times, then it turns into a chore (I seriously considered not finishing the game because of how boring and unavoidable those sections are).
- Community is dead. Completely dead. Almost no useful information on game mechanics in forums/wikis.
Verdict:
It's safe to play it if you need to kill some time, but don't expect anything even remotely close to games like Freelancer. You probably won't regret playing it, but you will probably feel "meh" after finishing it. Game is not worth more than EUR 15.
Just like the previous games, the general design is pretty good, the music is nice and customization of your ship is interesting.
However, unlike both of the previous games, they have set up the controls so that there is NO auto fire key.
Anyone who played the previous games will know what I mean.
For those who don't understand: There is a toggle key in both SG2 and SG:Warlords that causes the guns to fire automatically at enemies.
For those like me who usually miss 90% of the time in this type of game, it is absolutely necessary!
While there are auto homing missiles, they do no where near enough damage to compensate for not using guns... in fact the missiles are severely under powered in this game!
Starpoint Gemini 2 is probably the pinnacle of their game design.
Starpoint Gemini Warlords is good if you want to sit back and watch your fleet fight the enemy fleet.
This one is just unplayable.
At a glance this game seems fantastic!
* Good graphics
* Plays smoothly
* Custom build a ship with modular pieces
* Paint / Decal your ship
* A skill tree to invest in as you level up
* A crafting system
* Multiple factions
* Various system, stations, and planets
* A campaign and a freeroam mode
It looks great in the store and the feature list is exactly what you'd want in a space game, but thats all it is. A game that looks great in the store. Its a terrible game.
I bought this game early in the development stage and when I check it out it felt like it had all the framework necessary to make a good space game and it was justing waiting to be fleshed out.
After its actual release, my opinion is still sadly the same. Its got all the necessary stuff to build a great space game... but its still waiting for that to happen.
Honestly, aside from how custom waypoints get plotted on the map and the sound effect of some weapons I didn't really notice any differences from the initial early access sale its "final" state.
The story line took me ~13 hours but that's with me grinding for some pointless upgrades trying to get my moneys worth from this purchase. If I had ignored all but the essential (sort of) upgrades the story likely would have taken me ~6 hours.
As for the game features...
The skill tree is shallow and pointless. The upgrades are all so minimal that you can't even tell if they actually do anything. The "big" skills in a branch are the only useful things and they are all passive and largely unnoticeable as well.
The weapons are boring. They all feel about the same and perform about the same.
Custom ship is neat, but mostly pointless. You just pick the highest stats and there is no meaning. Unsure if engines even do anything.
The world seems alive at first, but in an hour you realize every system and faction is the same and the missions and "events" are all the same.
Honestly, the story is terrible but it was the only thing that kept me going.
I've played about an hour so far in the campaign and I am enjoying it.
Some reviewers don't like the main character but I like his attitude. It's nice playing someone with a personality that is not the typical noble personality. This person is actually believable compared to most. I have friends like this guy, indeed I act like this guy at times for fun. It's all in good humor, ribbing, jest or whatever you want to call it.
The graphics are decent, the ships fly well enough, shoots, etc. I was able to play it with my PS3 controller but I suck at using it for flight games. When I tried to switch back to keyboard and mouse the game would not cooperate and I had to shut the game down and restart it. I expect issues like this since it's an early access title.
This will give me something to play while I wait for the next Star Citizen patch.
