The future promises to be joyful for lovers of cosmic romance in games. A grandiose one is getting ready for release Star Citizen Chris Roberts (Chris Roberts), beta testing has begun for the sequel to the legendary Elite, subtitled Dangerous, there are several more interesting projects on the same topic in early access on Steam. But even now, those who want to independently build their virtual life and career in the vast expanses of space have something to do: for example, try Starpoint Gemini 2.
The first part was released in 2010 and earned mixed reviews. Croatian studio Little Green Men Games promised a lot of what fans love Elite And Freelancer, but in the end it turned out to be a crooked mixture of "Star Wolves" and the ancient “Star Trek” strategy Starfleet Command: flat space, moving ships at the click of a mouse, dead world, meager quests, not the most user-friendly interface. However, there were also positive aspects in the game, potential was felt here, so the developers took on the sequel with particular zeal, promising to correct, improve, supplement and please. And I must say, a lot has really been corrected and improved. But not all..
There is safety in numbers
First and most importantly: the game now really looks like Freelancer — adjusted for more modern graphics and other additional features, about which later. A completely three-dimensional and very beautiful space has appeared, which we plow on our own starship, directly controlling the latter.
The controls are, of course, arcade-style, and let’s face it, it requires some getting used to. But later you will even begin to enjoy flying and the battles themselves. And the latter are implemented more interestingly than in the same Freelancer.
First of all, you are not alone in battle. Having reached a certain rank, the player will be able to use the services of mercenaries. In addition, it is initially allowed to hire officers, each of whom gives certain bonuses: someone increases the damage from certain types of weapons, another increases the power of the energy shield and the speed of its recovery. True, both mercenaries and officers will have to pay regularly. Moreover, you can carry troops with you – this will allow, just like in "Corsairs", capture ships, and then tow them with you to the nearest station in order to sell them at a profit – or transfer to a new starship.
Secondly, in the battle itself it is not enough to simply spin around your axis, slowing down or increasing your speed in order to catch the enemy in your sights. It is also necessary to redistribute energy in time – increasing protection, firepower or speed, in order to quickly reel in fishing rods if it gets really hot. It is again advisable to use various consumable and very useful items in time – here are repair bots, shield amplifiers, and protection from one or another type of damage. You can also use a special radial menu to indicate to officers which systems of the enemy ship to shoot at.
Finally, there are also active skills that https://wagabetcasino.co.uk/ strengthen you or weaken the enemy. After all Starpoint Gemini 2 still relies heavily on the role-playing component. At the start, you choose the class of your pilot – commander, grenadier or engineer, each with its own set of skills that need to be “pumped up” as you gain experience and new levels. One of the commander’s skills, for example, allows you to return part of the damage to the enemy. And the engineer knows how to create dangerous anomalies right in battle that cause great pain to the enemy.
Space as presence
Another important point that distinguishes the sequel from the original is that the game world is now single, and not divided into separate maps. The huge Gemini system consists of several dozen sectors, between which we move absolutely freely, without any additional loading or transitions. And to speed up this process, we make hyperjumps through T-gates, special highways or dangerous Wormholes, which harm the ship during the transition.
Each sector belongs to one of the factions operating in the game. There are more than fifty different groups in total, and the player has different relationships with all of them. Accordingly, if you fly into a sector where they don’t like you, enemy starships will immediately land on your tail and begin to fire at you with all their guns.
You can worsen relations with factions in various ways – for example, by simply attacking their ships or trying to smuggle contraband into a station or planet. But to make friends or at least bring relations to a neutral level at first, there are, in fact, only two options – to carry out “random” free missions and hunt especially dangerous criminals: the game has a special notice board telling you who is paying for whom and what money and where this radish was last seen. Then the opportunity to buy special licenses from factions will open up, opening up new opportunities to earn extra money and improve your reputation.
In each sector there are planets, stations, some kind of artifact storage and repair docks, asteroid fields, landfills, harmful anomalies and radioactive zones, where it is better not to go without appropriate protection. Different ships are scurrying here and there, someone is fighting with someone, news is being updated at the stations. And in the midst of all this, you are, by and large, left to your own devices. At the start, you choose the free play mode or the story campaign mode, but even in the second case, no one forbids you to postpone the scenario tasks for a while and engage in freewheeling.
With all the wealth of choice
There are several possibilities. If you want, just attack everyone indiscriminately, support a specific faction in battle, or again hunt for heads. Work as a miner, drilling asteroids and selling various minerals at nearby stations, or as a trader – there are more than a hundred types of goods in the game, including contraband, and from the news and special trade reports you will quickly learn where and what is more profitable to sell or buy.
Free missions offer several leisure options – repair some stations, deliver cargo from point A to point B, destroy specified opponents. Finally, there are story missions.
Almost all of your successful actions, in addition to experience, bring money. And the main expense item is, of course, the purchase of new ships and their “pumping”. Here the game offers a huge field for experimentation: more than 70 types of ships, from fighters to destroyers, plus the ability not only to buy and change different systems (engines, navigators, shields, weapons), but also to improve them.
My own director
All in all, Starpoint Gemini 2 changed, but the authors still stepped on some old mistakes. Yes, the world has become more lively, something is happening somewhere, prices are going down somewhere, somewhere a pirate has appeared for whom there is a reward. But still up to what we saw, for example, in the games of the series X, to the world Starpoint Gemini 2 – like walking to the moon. You can’t contact the pilot of a passing ship and ask: "Life or wallet?", offer him help in battle or escort a transporter to his destination for a reward. Because all these ships simply materialize within the player’s line of sight, imitate some kind of activity, and then disappear into the deep space of the program code – that is, they do not live their own lives here, as they did in the same "Space Rangers", where cargo frigates actually transported something, docked with stations, bought/sold something and flew on.
This is especially disappointing given the paucity of scenario, side and free missions. The plot suggests investigating the mystery of the death of the protagonist’s father – then, naturally, this will lead us to even darker and more global secrets, swirling around the appearance of a very terrible third force in the dispute between the totalitarian Empire and the free states. That is, the script is glued together from cliches, and the tasks themselves are monotonous – “fly there”, “kill those”, “protect these”, “get the next piece of information” and so on. We have already said about free missions – there are only a few types of them.
If the world reacted more quickly to our actions, we could completely forget about the plot and free missions and just live our lives. In principle, this is what we do, intensely entertaining ourselves, but in the current conditions many (though not all, of course) will get bored with it quite quickly.
Authors Starpoint Gemini 2 they did a lot of work on bugs, noticeably improved the combat and trading parts, created a really beautiful, huge and unified world, but this world is still not alive enough, and the plot and quests are not very exciting and varied. Nevertheless, the Croatians are on the right track: given their persistence and passion for their brainchild, as well as their close connection with the community, let’s hope that on the third try everything will turn out really well.
Pros: beautiful and fully three-dimensional space; interesting combat and role-playing parts; a huge selection of ships and their modifications; convenient trading system.
Cons: the world is not alive enough; meager quests; cliched and poorly staged plot.
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