So how's Star Rangers 2 treating you E.T?

[Suicides-by-Steve]

Any complaints or features you like?

[E.T.]

Thanks for thought on SR2; I ran across a lone copy @ BestBuy the other day while shopping for Gothic2 Gold [but didnt pick it up]. From what Im hearing I may have screwed up not buying it when I had the chance .

Would you say its worth a trip back & paying $30 for? I'd love to find something TBS to get hooked on.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

Would you say its worth a trip back & paying $30 for? I'd love to find something TBS to get hooked on.

Thirty bucks?! American? LOL No. Careful of calling this a TBS game, though it has many features that emulate a TBS game... You have to do certain missions within a time-frame, and within a dynamic universe; you can pause between day-to-day activities such as flying, fighting, and picking up resources, but generally, it's a slow paced game that would play great on a lap-top or even hand-held gaming pad such as the PSP (I wish).

As a full-fledged PC game for that price? Hell no. It's fun, and a great time waster, but there's too many localization bugs in the game for it to make much sense. I would love to read through the text in English, and not as if it were through Babel-Fish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/). You saw the game (much like I did) recently because www.Cinemawaremarquee.com has recently (2006) released it in NA. They're promising patch releases and such, but considering the initial developers have disbanded, I find this highly unlikely. Buy the game for 20 bucks, and you'll be happy. If you have a lap-top, and a lot of time to kill while travelling, sure, get it for thirty bucks. It's easy to pick up, put down, rinse and repeat, while operating smoothly on the road (eg. - a laptop).

Overall though, while not forgetable, it's something that can become tedious at times, especially failing a mission because someone gets jailed (on a bounty-hunter mission), or simply failing a quest (text-based) mission due to horrible translation (localization). However, for me, it always seems like there's some other mission waiting for me, or another ship to blow up, etc. There's a ton of upgrades, artifacts and planets to explore, easily rivalling the "X" series of games. To boot, the universe is completely randomized each time you start a new game (though the quests aren't). The difficulty level settings are easily adjusted to match any play style or aptitude. As per a good, standard TBS game, it follows the "just-one-more-turn" formulae. If they patched this up and corrected the localization, it'd be really cool, considering the game comes with 2 games (the original and the RotD), a poster, and a well documented manual.

[E.T.]

Well written SbS, your response more than answers my question[s]; including those I failed to ask; though I have a few more. [wouldnt take much to turn reply post into a review, hint-hint].

Couple more "Q's" :

[1] Game camera, appears top down [I like], is control/effect good to you?

[2] AI, aggressive enough to provide lasting challenge....path finding issues or ??

[3] Interface curve?

Spa`sibo!

[Suicides-by-Steve]

Well written SbS, your response more than answers my question[s]; including those I failed to ask; though I have a few more. [wouldnt take much to turn reply post into a review, hint-hint].

Couple more "Q's" :

[1] Game camera, appears top down [I like], is control/effect good to you?

[2] AI, aggressive enough to provide lasting challenge....path finding issues or ??

[3] Interface curve?

Spa`sibo!

Heh, I write reviews for games, not for free! ;) This is all for you, baby! LOL

Game camera is actually very nice. The top down perspective follows your vehicle all around, though it is able to scroll around the particular solar system you're in while a locator button allows you to centre on your vehicle and any pop-ups that occur. You have a scanner (that is a green circle) that shows things in your vicinity. The better the scanner, the more you can see and contact in the system you're in. Again, every component of your ship is upgradable, so there's alot to find and collect.

The AI is good, albeit a bit aggressive at times, especially the Dominators. The settings menu allows you to set the difficulty of the game from anywhere between 50% and 200%, and anything inbetween. Many things can be made harder or easier depending on your preferences. If you want Easy trading and Hard Dominators, with Genuis scientists... no problems. No path finding issues at all, your ship can fly through (over) everything except stars, and asteroids.

The GUI can be learned (despite the bad engrish) either through the ingame tutorial or by reading the manual. You'll be up and playing within minutes. Like I said, this is a travelling game for sure. Can be played mostly with the mouse, but some "arcade" segments exist in which you have to move you ship with the keyboard...

[Suicides-by-Steve]

LOL I just realized I called the game Star Rangers 2... Correction, it's Space Rangers 2. Too much to drink last night! ;)