This or Space Rangers HD?

[FacePoppies]

Which one! I need to decide before the sale ends!

[Infyra]

I have had Space Rangers 2 (not the HD version) for a while now, the main thing with that game is that is a lot harder, but it also has a lot more going on.
Drox is really more of an ARPG then Space Rangers HD is, personally I like Drox more, but it really depends on the mood that strikes.

[Tuidjy]

I've played both games an awful lot (my Steam stats don't reflect this, because I had both games long before I got them on Steam)

I played Space Rangers 2 (original and HD) three times, to get three significantly different endings. I have gotten a hardcore dozen Drox ships to ship level 100, and taken three of them to sector level 200. I have played Drox longer and for more hours, and I still play it regularly, so I guess I would recommend Drox if you are looking for a game to play a lot of times.

The two games have a lot in common, but there are still differences.

1) Drox is real time, while most of Space Rangers is turn based, although there is a decent RTS in there. Thus the action in Drox can be more nerve racking, especially with a hardcore ship. In Space Rangers, you never really feel that you aren't in control, you can always stop and think.

2) Ship customization is very different. Drox has much more varied weapons, and presents you with more varied tactical challenges, at least in space. Both games allow you to build a ship that can utterly dominate everything of similar level. The big difference is that Drox allows you to generate sectors at level 200 while your ship is capped at 100. None of my ships, even the one with equipment that I customized for 3 real days (72 hours) is fully safe at sector level 200.

3) Balance is rather poor in both games, but that is only to be expected in complex, highly customizable games like Drox and Space Rangers. You can build very different ships in Drox, much more so than in Space Rangers, but not all builds are nearly as powerful, or as straightforward to play. No build comes close to a stealth ship that melts enemies at point blank (all of my sector 200 conquering ships are a variation of this). But even totally weird builds like hyper-regenerating shields-only ships can make it to sector level 100 (200 is another story)

4) Space Rangers beats Drox hands down on the story... unless you roll your own. Space Rangers gives you structure, a narrative, good and bad guys, and multiple, significantly different endings. Drox gives you a canvas, and a bunch of races that look and sound the same until you play for days and realize that they all have their personalities, and that most of them are quite different. This is the one thing that Drox fails to deliver in my opinion. You have to play the game for months before you come in a position to care and enjoy shaping the galaxy.

5) You can nurture and shape a galaxy in Drox in ways that Space Rangers cannot quite match. My latest ship in Drox is genociding every biological race. Only Utopians, Legion and A.I. are allowed to survive a sector, even the Cyborgs are exterminated, and I only use Drones and the three races above as crew. But it is all in my head. After quite a few sectors, the game engine is barely starting to set the live races in opposition to the artificial ones, and while the artificial ones are already hanging together, the meatbags are still shooting each other in the back, and are willing to hire me to help. I hope they learn at some point.

So... I have enjoyed both games, but Drox is more fun for me, and I still have ideas about things I want to try. I have only really played a few of the races: Fringe, Brunt, Drakk, Hive, Scavengers, Infection, Utopians. I will definitely also try a Clone ship at some point, and I have two more roll-your-own stories that I want to write in permanent galaxies.

[Vaultdweller]

@Tuidjy Thanks alot for the comparison, you should use this as a review!

[XorUnison]

While the comparison posted by Tuidjy already brings up the most important points, I think I can elaborate a little more.

As for the first point mentioned by Tuidjy, there is however the IRONMAN mode in Space Rangers, which means you can not save manually, you can only ever save automatically during takeoff from a station (and that's just 1 autosave slot). If that is a Military Base deep within Dominator controlled space, and you're not superbly equipped, the result might be the same as with Hardcore in Drox Operative, you're dead. Just that instead of having your save deleted, you'll end up with an useless save you'll have the honor of deleting or overwriting yourself.

Relations to Races: Personally I feel both games have some major problems, both however entirely different.
In Space Rangers you can start as one of five races, with one of five presets, those presets basically go from pirate to merchant to warrior. Obviously a pirate will be liked by pirates and disliked by coalition races. Each oif the 25 different combinations starts with different relations to different races. However, how much a certain faction likes you is rather irrelevant, as you can just go to the pirates change your nationality (or plain renew it) for an insignificant fee and everyone will like you again. No strings or problems attached. While the possibility to do so is sometimes important, I feel it's much to easy, and it just doesn't friggin matter how you treat anyone. Kill everyone in sight for as long as you want and if you feel like trading just fly to a pirate station you haven't antagonized personally yet (killing pirate ships doesn't matter here as well) push a few buttons and everyone will forget you just massacred half the galaxy. Doesn't feel right.
Drox Operative is very different here, there is no short cut to get on the good side with any race, or let's say, the price is much higher and more often than not it's simply not worth using resources to go from zero to alliance. While it is relatively easy to forge an alliance with a race by helping them a little it is relatively hard to make other races ally up, unless you spent some time in one galaxy, setting the stage, long term planning is a must here.
This all feels relatively okay but I'm definitely missing some ways to influence relationships.
Like say you had 2 weak races left in a sector telling them something like: "Look, you both have 1 planet left with some pesky underdeveloped ships and you could get annihilated easily, by monsters, or me for example. How about you sort your problems with one another out, ally up, and we're all happy? Or I eradicate both of you and move on. Whatcha sayin'?" would be pretty cool.Using rumors to make races like each other is just a tedious work of pushing buttons and wasting money and time. What happens when 1 race is allied with 2 races, and those 2 declare war to one another is also more often than not senseless and/or outright stupid.

That being said, all in all the relations in Drox Operative have annoyed me much more often than in Space Rangers HD, but they also feel much more realistic, in the way that in reality and DO, things just don't always go your way, which adds a lot to the challenge and feeling. In Space Rangers HD challenge and feeling come from entirely different things.

Music: That is something where I, with my personal taste, have to compliment both games.
Drox Operative doesn't have outstanding music to be honest, even if it has a few better than average tracks for videogame music in my opinion. But what's really cool is the fact each faction has its own track, which adds a lot to the feeling of whom I'm speaking to at any given moment.

Space Rangers always had a few really nice tracks, a few of which I also listened to outside of the game. Now I must say, most of the time music thrown into a game years later will mostly not fit into the feeling and is more often than not subpar. Maybe only my personal experience. Not so with the music that has been added to Space Rangers in the HD version though, in total there are roughly 30 new tracks to be heard throughout the game, and I dare say I even like them a lot more than the original tracks (which coexist with the new ones quite well). The pirate remixes of the coalition planets strike me as highly odd and unusual though, they sound and feel much, much calmer and deeper than would expect, especially when compared to the originals, given the possible endings I guess this might be somewhat intentional, though I won't spoiler why exactly.


I hope that gives a little more perspective to anyone trying to compare the games in the future to decide whether to buy one of those games or not.

[Megaflux]

sorry i dont see them as very similar at all. no more than i would say final fantasy 7 is similar to morrowind.

[TARTrazine]

After that candidate got "outed" as a World of Warcraft player, I can't wait to someday see an attack ad along the lines of "Senator Tuidjy SAYS he'd be a fair and inclusive governer...but he actually spends his free time purging the galaxy of all organic life! He's only doing it in a game FOR NOW, but do you really want this man to have any power in the real world?!"

paid for the coalition of only playing the solitaire game that comes pre-installed on Windows

[XorUnison]

You, sir, just made me laugh damn hard at this. Good day to you, and keep on pointing out the relevant small details.

Първоначално публикувано от Megaflux:

sorry i dont see them as very similar at all. no more than i would say final fantasy 7 is similar to morrowind.

Well, they are not very similar, but there are some similarities nonetheless. The point is, if you'd have to compare SR with any game out there DO would either be the closest, or at least one of the closest.