I really can't recommend Starpoint Gemini. This was LGM Games' first project, and I'm afraid it shows. I can see what they were going for, but it just doesn't come together in a satisfying way. Presentation-wise, the game manages to look dated (ship models) and beautiful (nebulas and planet vistas) at the same time. I can live with that. I could't live with the voice acting though, which I'm sure must be done by the dev team, or someone they kidnapped off the street. Fortunately for the sake of your sanity you can turn this off. More worrying though is the UI, which is confused, overly complicated, and a royal pain in the ass. Even basics such as turning your ship aren't handled well: you can either left click to turn the ship towards the point you clicked, which is useless for anything to the side or behind you, or you can hit the A and D keys which turn the ship in what seem like 30 degree increments per press, with multiple presses resulting in prolonged spinning until the key presses wear off. It's manageable once you get used to it, but it's painful and makes combat a drag. That's a pity because the combat engine is fun at first, it's nicely tactical and lasers sizzle and whump appropriately, but I found it soon became frustrating due mainly to the very high early difficulty; your ship only has a narrow firing arc, everything else it seems can out-turn you, so lining up to take a shot means your front shields are quickly toasted with you being barbequed shortly afterwards.

The other problem is that the living universe is merciless, and high level rogue (pirate) ships crash your nice low-level party with frustrating regularity. I had to replay the first mission about four times because I kept getting jumped by high level pirates that laid waste to everyone including my puny level 1 ship. It's a pity the quicksave button doesn't work, because you have to save a lot... except it doesn't actually let you save during the prolonged and tedious dialogs and during mission events. Eventually you start to get a handle on things, and there were moments such as the first time I flew inside a nebula that the game almost starts to sing, but then it's gone. Side-missions from stations largely involve flying to a point and clicking a couple of icons, or flying to a rogue ship and getting blasted within seconds. After a few hours I realised that I just wasn't having any fun because I'd played this game before in much better forms. However, the silver lining is Starpoint Gemini 2, which is apparently so massively better as to be a completely different game. I'd start there if I were you.

I really can't recommend Starpoint Gemini. This was LGM Games' first project, and I'm afraid it shows. I can see what they were going for, but it just doesn't come together in a satisfying way. Presentation-wise, the game manages to look dated (ship models) and beautiful (nebulas and planet vistas) at the same time. I can live with that. I could't live with the voice acting though, which I'm sure must be done by the dev team, or someone they kidnapped off the street. Fortunately for the sake of your sanity you can turn this off. More worrying though is the UI, which is confused, overly complicated, and a royal pain in the ass. Even basics such as turning your ship aren't handled well: you can either left click to turn the ship towards the point you clicked, which is useless for anything to the side or behind you, or you can hit the A and D keys which turn the ship in what seem like 30 degree increments per press, with multiple presses resulting in prolonged spinning until the key presses wear off. It's manageable once you get used to it, but it's painful and makes combat a drag. That's a pity because the combat engine is fun at first, it's nicely tactical and lasers sizzle and whump appropriately, but I found it soon became frustrating due mainly to the very high early difficulty; your ship only has a narrow firing arc, everything else it seems can out-turn you, so lining up to take a shot means your front shields are quickly toasted with you being barbequed shortly afterwards. The other problem is that the living universe is merciless, and high level rogue (pirate) ships crash your nice low-level party with frustrating regularity. I had to replay the first mission about four times because I kept getting jumped by high level pirates that laid waste to everyone including my puny level 1 ship. It's a pity the quicksave button doesn't work, because you have to save a lot... except it doesn't actually let you save during the prolonged and tedious dialogs and during mission events. Eventually you start to get a handle on things, and there were moments such as the first time I flew inside a nebula that the game almost starts to sing, but then it's gone. Side-missions from stations largely involve flying to a point and clicking a couple of icons, or flying to a rogue ship and getting blasted within seconds. After a few hours I realised that I just wasn't having any fun because I'd played this game before in much better forms. However, the silver lining is Starpoint Gemini 2, which is apparently so massively better as to be a completely different game. I'd start there if I were you.