I will flip this review as it looks like they have fixed the issue within a fairly timely fashion. I haven't fully tested it but it's still at least being fixed. There are annoying things, broken saves is really bad though. I suspect they got blindsided. With mods and updates you have to tolerate some degree of save incompatibility and that probably led to a false sense of security dismissing the problem until a bug just breaks saves not due to the excusable reasons. The game has some areas that are not ideal but the core playability and value is still there.
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I could go into detail about the small things but then there is this:
[16:15:37.6439452][ 33300][ binary_stream_reader] Error reading [C:\Users\God\AppData\Local\sins2\saved_games\1044\single_player_user\xxx.sins2_save] : Read collection size that is too large : 4294967297
I try one scenario. I come back the next day to start where I left off. No mods, no cloud, no updates save simply doesn't work out of the box. All save files corrupt. Every single one. There's nothing that should do this, it's in the code. It's probably using OOP and serialisation or something like that writing out memory straight to disk then having alignment issues. I always hated this kind of ORM like serialisation as for many reasons it just never works but then I can't see the code. Turning off checks isn't viable as it's most likely just going to create bigger issues with loading memory corruption. There's hardware specific stuff in there. It's a gaming laptop and I suspect perhaps it got the CPUID wrong or something of that nature but you know what? Six hours gone. After being burnt like that, the game is unplayable.
> large :
This is always a telling sign of problems in code when the punctuation is foreign or joined badly and not correct.
The voice acting has issues. It makes some considerable effort to match the original but the problem is that it's not theatrical. You should have gotten proper voice actors like from Metalocalypse to say prepare the lazy beam. The ones you have are from advertising or television and it shows. They have these annoying tones which they do on television or in advocacy to try to by pass your sensory filters. They also have these kind of infantile tones that are too self indulgent, put on, forced or aggressive. Those eggy mouth noises. It's very popular in the upper classes but that's not most customers who really don't like things like the BBC over emphasised put on fake northern working class accent. It's especially annoying when it keeps playing an annoying voice over and over again. You then really want to annihilate that minor faction to shut it off.
The art styles isn't always in line with the previous nor does it quite match it well. The command ships for example for TEC aren't the same heavy iron kind of construct but instead are the flimsy aluminium or plastic style. There's also something about the TEC replacement for the Kodiak. Just generally speaking the textures have lost their metallic touch and look like smudged UV maps. I have no idea why you would even change this one ship like that as there is no need. In many cases it's close enough you can get away with it but still detracts from the style with a path in the wrong direction. Phonetically the name is mismatched with the conventions for TEC ships and the design alone with the auto turret defence is kind of babyish.
A lot of styles are misplaced artistic styles that are not what the original game went for. I have heard people complain about the use of AI content. I don't necessarily object to this but the tool has to be used right and I don't think it's the source of all the problems with artistic direction. I do see styles I recognise that are more consistent with other franchises than with this game. Consistency is key and the new version hasn't quite hit the right notes with things like 2009 and beyond "Star Trek" styles or the kind of style you might expect from something like Ratchet and Clank rather than the original grunge design. It's lost the space is dark, vast, lonely, unforgiving but mysterious vibe. I suggest compare the original design of the Kol with the new one in the image search or screenshots. You'll see what I mean in terms of atmosphere and character. The original Kol projects an attitude and a personality alone in the void. It has a presence and speaks as to the nature of its existence. The new Kol is a decorative model that poses and only poses. One says I'm here. The other says look at me.
When you look at the original Javelis it's not purely toy like. There is an attempt to imagine how it might emerge from form and function. It looks awkward for a reason that makes sense such as a large dish for the missile uplink (though it should probably have been forward facing). The important thing is that it looked legitimately mean in fitting with the military nature. The new design looks fragile and awkward. Though missile boxes should probably have been a quad box not a flat wall. It then has an angle spur that looks daft like a weird stylistic high heel or 60s silhouette leg pose that I think is a failed attempt to add some consistency with the prior angular design that they might have likened to a foot or show though it also has some overlap with the kodiak. I believe the original design was meant for moving parts as in the ship might take a vertical form when missile guiding. I don't think the designers really examined the previous designs thoroughly enough to reverse engineer the rationale.
There is something weird going on with the fleet view in the top right corner. I don't get it. Am I missing something or it is unfinished. What the hell is the order of it? I can't see the fleets or control groups there. I don't quite get it.
This game is largely a repeat of the last game which is viable if it actually really improves it but I don't see the greatest deal of that. I don't quite get it really. The core game play changes are viable from what I can see for the most part but then there are issues. Cancelling a station is unnecessarily annoying. Structures that don't build because they are too close. It doesn't seem to alert you well of important things. The game speed seems to be doing something very strange unless I'm missing something. It's basically the quality of half way through a beta testing cycle. It seems to stop short where more polish is needed. It's a shame because this could have been done a lot better. These design issues are annoying but broken saves out of the box in the most favourable conditions is an outright fail.
