Starpoint Gemini 2 is a beast of a game. It gracefully balances exploration, action, narrative, and RPG elements to create a complete package that thrills and excites… most of the time. Be aware that the nature of the missions are repetititive and ultimately a means to an end: to become the most powerful captain in the galaxy.
TL;DR? This game deserves to be loved and bough, not because tight now it is perfect without bugs and awesome gameplay, but because the developers keeps listening to people an their request and release more and more content! We are expecting the Warlords DLC soon that it will expand the map and let the player has his own base, facilities (if I got that right) and slowly take over sectors and expand, with potentially making the whole map his, under his name.
I will never play the previous game, cause it is not needed. You can literally play this game and see 100% the full story. Voiceactive being it;s weakest point is NOT what I care from my games. I go for the gameplay. What it does, it does well! You will have fun with this game for a handful of hours, as long as this is your kind of game. This game is still developed so it means it has a lot of future potential! The love given on metactitic really made me smile :D
First of all let me make this clear. I give this a 10 not because it is a perfect game. I give this a 10 because it is a game that does not give up. I was happy to see all the 10s here about this game and this is one of the games of the new age that deserves it. It comes from a small and quite successful development group and a really new and quite nice Publishing group.
I have never played it's predecessor, which seems that has gotten a less warm acceptance than this one and I definitely never will play it. This game right now costs as little as 8 euro on a sale, full content and all current DLC and that means that if someone is patient, he can get this game for little money and enjoy a game that deserves even the full price.
If you are looking for a perfect game with graphics that make your PC (or your pocket) cry for help, this is not what you need. The graphics are quite enjoyable an simple and honestly, I do not care to see more shiny ones or ones that when you zoom in to the point the ship is up your face you can see every single detail and scratch. X Rebirth, one of my most anticipated titles did this and currently I do not even care to check what is new about it. I will remain with X3 and forget that high graphics beautiful part of it, called X Rebirth.
BUT, back to Starpoint Gemini 2. First of all I will talk of the voice acting. It ranges from bad, to good or cheesy and silly. This is NOT a bad thing for me. I do not consider Hollywood and people that talk with perfect voices and tones or pitches or that always talk right, normal. In real life people can talk weird, can act weird and can feel like they are from another planet. That does not make me excuse the bad voice actors, but makes me not care enough to either get disengaged from the story or dislike the game. If you want good voice actors then watch a high budget movie.
With the voice acting out of the way, I really have to say the game is A W E S O M E. As I mentioned before, I will NEVER play the previous one, because when you get this game for free you the the Origins DLC, which is the story of the first game, that does not seem to be as good as the second, all with the new engine and graphics! I do not care what people say, but that is not something companies do usually. They try to see older products by packing them along with the newer ones that get a better rate and and make extra $$$. Little Green Men were like "Nope! Forget the old one! If you want to know what happened in the previous game.. here you can see it with the new game too!". AND IT IS AWESOME!
The gameplay is quite >boring< , like most gameplays can be. A lot of games are evolved around; Go there do that, go there fetch that. Yeap, there is no puzzle solving or first person shooter moments. There is also no cooking recipes, racing or even farming in space. What the hell I am talking about? I do not know. I am trying to imagine what people expect the game to offer when they say "It is a boring game of you going to places and pressing a button to scan or shooting enemies and killing them. >
There are still a lot things they could fix, like the casual crashes or giving the ability to skip dialogue sequences, since they can be long winded and the game crashing or you getting shot to pieces, means you have to go through the whole thing all over again. I would say some tweaking of stats between ships or economy is needed too, but I said it feels it is still being expanded and evolved, so I will wait to see what they fix. After all, large games that are loved, like X3 or Skyrim, have mods that people fine tune the game to make it work better and do what you normally can't. The creators seem to support Modding so I am happy, even if there is not much of it right now.
All in all,I say just go watch a let's play and if you like it buy it. I am glad i did and feel lucky! :D
not many space games were released in genre last years. now we are waiting for star citizen, playing elite and I stumbled upon this magnificent game from LGM games. i was amazed when i realized the game was made by 10 people and i cannot find the words to describe how freelancerish this game looks. it brought me back to the time i enjoyed freelancer and it will give me many, many hours of gameplay. elite is still empty, SC is miles away, this is something i chose to spend my time with.
Most of the options available to you in Starpoint Gemini 2 will relate back in some way to the market and the economy. If there is an escape from its all-encompassing dullness, it can be found in restlessly wandering.
This is an entertaining space sim with RPG influences, but it does not hold our attention for too long. The story is delivered poorly and the RPG gameplay is not deep enough to really touch us.
It is a vast universe with endless possibilities - nothing more, nothing less. If you prefer solo play and you have a vivid imagination give the game a chance. Otherwise leave it be. [Issue#247]
As far as tactical combat simulators go, this one hit the bullseye. With a right amount of combat, leveling, RPG elements and exploring, this game is a keeper. I didn't expect much, but I got much, much more than I expected.
Starpoint Gemini 2 is a Freelancer clone. The story is interesting, there is a huge universe to explore and you have, like in Freelancer, a good choice of career. It's overall a good game but it's unequal game-play will soon wear your patience thin.
The Good: Choice of career, customisable ship and vast universe to explore. Interesting quest story but you can also choose not to follow it and do your thing: Trade, fight or smuggle. Unfamiliar but easy to get used to interface.
The Bad: Bugs. Expect crashes. This is complicated by the fact that you can only save at stations forcing you to quit whatever you are doing and dock at a station rather than racking up side missions after side missions. Game-play is totally unequal and mostly unfair. You can manage to kill four enemies on your own to complete a mission just to be blown up by a single shot of suddenly appearing "impossible to kill" enemies. Missions are supposed to be evaluated by level but you can't trust it. Progression through rank is painfully slow limiting your ability to get better ships.
Conclusion: Get it when it's at a discount. Lower your expectations. Play it once in a while, a few missions at a time and you'll get to enjoy the game.
To sum up SG2 in 1 sentence:
Eve Offline with less depth but more FUN.
Graphics: Some awesome ship designs, each area has a distinct feel and graphical style (there are no loading screens, it's all seamless transitions), some of the fog shaders are a little overdone (they can look "blurry") but it's nothing that will put you off the game. Overall graphics are acceptable/good and actually are very impressive for such a small dev team.
Sound: The sound design is OK, it's nothing to write home about but it does keep you immersed. I find the music sometimes cuts out leaving the soundscape a bit empty but it's not a game killer for me.
Gameplay: The campaign is lack lustre and not really worth your time in it's current iteration: I would advise new players to just play in "free" mode. The game can become repetitive and it would be nice to see the ability to take over sectors and build your own stations (like the X series) however having said this the game is still very fun as it does feel like you are in a dynamic universe. This dynamic feel could be improved by having random galaxy wide events (such as alien invasions) or by providing more end game content as it can get a bit stale.
Flight mechanics: Somewhere between Eve online and X3:TC, you do have direct control over your ship but it doesn't feel like you are controlling a space ship - it feels more like you are controlling the camera and the ship just rotates in front of the camera. I think they could do a lot of work on improving the physics engine as collisions feel very "bouncy" and unrealistic. It's not terrible but it's not great either.
Economy: If you like trading the system in this game will keep you happy for a while although there is no way to see market data and because the player cannot build their own stations it can feel a bit like you're not having any affect.
UI: The UI is acceptable and some parts are actually really well done, I like the context sensitive radial menu and power distribution UI; it's elegant and gets the job done fast.
Size: The game world is huge so you can definitely get immersed in the world, it's just a shame it all feels a bit generic (from a gameplay perspective) different regions don't offer different styles of gameplay or missions.
Re playability: Your mileage will vary depending how much you like space games. For me I think I could get a good 100+ hours out of the game and feel like I definitely got my moneys worth.
Difficulty: Put it on extreme or you will find it far too easy.
Overall: 7/10 - with expansions that allow for station building, sector takeovers and larger fleets, wars and rando galaxy events this could easily be 9/10
Thumbs up if you found this helpful
I really like this kind of game, but it is really hard to enjoy. It is really buggy and unbalanced, even after the third patch. The story and the voice-acting is also aweful.
There is only one thing I love: It is really fun to board and capture enemy ships
SummaryStarpoint Gemini 2, like its predecessor Starpoint Gemini (2011), is an open-world 3D space simulation that combines powerful RPG mechanics with the frenzy of space combat, creating a particular blend that sets itself apart from all other games in the genre.