Starcom: Unknown Space

Starcom Unknown Space is the sequel to Starcom Nexus, and is overall quite similar in most aspects, with incremental changes to the gameplay (such as new weapon types, a more involved ship building system with heat now being a consideration, somewhat dynamic prices for trading, better autopilot capabilities for deep space cruising...). The problem is, both Starcom games are ultimately not about shipbuilding or combat or any of the small steps along the way, they're about the broader adventure of exploring a new world and figuring out what's going on: and while Nexus managed to craft a compelling adventure, Unknown Space sets up a lot of mysteries and hints and conflicts but doesn't answer any of them in a satisfying manner. Example: there's a legendary hero flying around in a fabulous and nigh invincible pink ship, which is cool and makes you wonder what his deal might be, and you can eventually figure out that he used to be [spoiler]an officer in the Empire's First Legion[/spoiler], which is... nothing, none of that matters, if you scour the whole game world you can get the vagues idea of what that means [spoiler]as the relevant paragraph is like one of the three pieces of info on the First Legion across the whole game[/spoiler] but even if you find out all of that there simply isn't enough substance for the discovery to have actual meaning let alone any sort of emotional impact. The big secret ending that is intertwined with the main story isn't any better, and without hyperbole can be summed up as [spoiler]helping some minor enemies you couldn't communicate with reach a distant place both you and them know nothing about[/spoiler]: all info that is dropped on you at the 11th hour by the way, no build up, no foreshadowing, nothing. Sure, Nexus had its fair share of issues especially towards the end, but they were mostly gameplay annoyances that Unknown Space not only didn't solve but supplemented with far more fundamental problems. For the most egregious case, progressing the main story is locked for no sensible reason behind [spoiler]turning the Kyrnan-Nimion cold war into an open conflict[/spoiler], which requires the player to "fall" for what is obviously a trap [spoiler](that is, finding the Nimion homeworld and delivering a Krynan "gift" there)[/spoiler]: up until that point, the game has taught you that solutions aren't always obvious and that you should be careful if you notice something odd, but here you're supposed to ignore the information that [spoiler]the Kyrnan-Nimion hostility is being orchestrated by the main antagonists[/spoiler] because the option to act on it will only open up after you go along with the trap. Finally, even the incremental gameplay changes aren't all that good: the autopilot becomes less and less reliable as you unlock bigger ships and more powerful engines, the new weapons are mostly ineffective and the ones that used to be ineffective (such as lasers) have not received any changes, heat management receives barely any explaination and is quite unintuitive (big vents look like they vent above the ship but actually they don't and vent heat in the hex they're pointed at, fixed cannons can cool down from the sides into empty space but not into vents...), warp tech is now a total meme that can't even get you out of slow nebulas in a reasonable amount of time... Just play Starcom Nexus instead.