Star Nomad 2

The game has a simple but nice, fluid look and feel. +1 It reminds me a lot of Void Expanse but with a way more fleshed out galaxy. For example, there are factions and interactions, you can hail other ships, might not have much to talk about but they comment on things going on around them in their environment at times (they'll broadcast), so it helps to create more alive feeling galaxy. +1 The music is varied, but tasteful tracks - it mixes things up so you don't fall asleep, going from epic score to techno-noir "let's kick some arse!"-ness. +1 The game isn't expensive. +1 It's a well made indie game. +1 The developer is active in the community. +1 The game is stable. +1 The game runs well. +1 The sound FX are pleasant in that they sound original and not so much stock. One pet peeve of mine is when some game uses very basic sounds or has bad sound FX. While the "pew-pew-pew"-ness of some weapons are a bit "really?" other sounds like beam weapons or jumping to a next sector stand out. It sounds cool. It sounds kinda of retro like your old Atari 2600-version PacMan spazzed out or something. +1 The game guides you through what type of character you're going to be starting-wise. What do you want to be when you grow up and leave the planet? +1 When you leave the planet, you can go trade or blow stuff up. There are quests to help boost rep with the different factions that are active in the galaxy. +1 Gameplay, you fly around with the WASD keys, aim at a target (or use auto-aim) and press the buttons to fire. The game can be paused too. It's arcadish but with depth. +1 You need money and faction rep to really get anywhere in the game. To get money, you primarily gotta sell stuff. When ships blow up, they rarely drop anything whatsoever. -1 When ships blow up and actually do drop something, it's not worth much. For example, with starting Predator missiles, it costs 100cr PER MISSILE to rearm. So if you expended 6 missiles in a space battle, you'll need 600cr to fully rearm. So if the enemy ship drops loot, it's often worth 100-200cr (at best). So attacking ships to get their loot will cause you to LOSE money. -1 To sell any loot, or anything you bought if you decided to be a Merchant/Trader, requires you dock at planets. You cannot dock at a planet if a battle is going on. In my gameplay experience, half the times I left a planet, it was being attacked by hostiles that appeared to spawn right around it every time I left a planet. Or, the planet was under constant attack. I waited, saw pirates get destroyed. And then TWO fleets from different directions flooded in right toward the planet. Therefore, you spend too much time waiting for a battle to end to buy/sell goods. -1 (remember, if you engage in battle, you can end up hurting your profits with the rearm costs) If you get destroyed, you lose all your cargo. 9/10 times in my gameplay this was the case. Only in 1 instance did I respawn with all my stuff. Add the frustration of being unable to Buy/Sell at a planet because of frustrating constant attacks by hostiles. And then getting caught up in the battle (sometimes, they'll just go after you) and getting destroyed, and losing EVERYTHING. -1 Not just that, but the time you spend in the game when this shenanigans happens is frustrating. You're not going to get that time back. You feel like you wasted your time. All that effort and BOOM! your ship is toast. -1 When you die, you respawn all the way across the galaxy where your game started. -1 Everything is a bloody grind. I've played MMOs less grindy. -1 Fans seek out cheats for this game alot, and the developer is supportive of save editing efforts, but it's not even as easy. 0 There is no traditional save system. Instead, there's only one save you can't do anything with, the game auto-saves. So if you mess up, you can't go back and reload. 0 The ships and weapons do not seem that varied, nor are the choices in setting up your character portrait. Overall, the choices are thin side. A DLC with more stuff would be nice. -1 Overall, I want to like it, but one has to ask is: is it fun? is it worth the time? +12 good -7 ungood =7 final tally My recommendation: If you're a slow walker, if you enjoy investing your time into a games, then you might really like this game. Just keep in mind, it's not very deep, there are limitations to the ships/weapons, and interactions, so go in with minimal expectations so you can perceive just how the gems it does have, can shine and surprise you. Edit: Developer wished to point out how much deeper into the game more weapons and ships open up. +1 For others, it might feel waaay too grindy. I'm on that latter side but can't in good conscience thumb this down because the good waaay outweighs the ungood.