** A gorgeous space game marred by painful lore elements.**
[[Recommendation comes with strong suggestion to play in sandbox mode only]]

This game was an odd experience. The longer I played it, the less I liked it.

When it started, it took me back to the wonder of games like Privateer. Sandbox, big galaxy, lots of options. And it's really gorgeous, from the ships to the planets to the nebulous backgrounds. Some of space stations look oddly low-res compared to everything else, but that's minor.

However, things went downhill when I started to follow the main story campaign. The voice acting is truly atrocious, and the writing isn't much better, from the minor (bad grammar) to the median (dialogue) to the major (an incoherent plot with characters whose motives don't seem to correspond to events). And when you get to a more difficult mission that you have to try several times, the lack of any button to skip the dialogue becomes truly unforgivable.

Speaking of retrying, there are several design decisions that make sense on their own, but quickly become annoying when you have to replay a mission because it's difficult or bugged (like the infamous mothership mission). First, you can save only at stations or planets. OK, there's a sort of 'realism' sense to that. Second, there's a lot of empty space between points of interest. That actually worked for me at first, because it added to the sense of scale and exploration. But when you have to retry a mission and reload to find you are about a 5 minute cruise from the action -- and then remember that you'll have to sit through 3 more minutes of unskippable community theatre auditions when you get there -- it gets really difficult to stick with it for the next attempt.

There were also a number of minor annoyances, like the fact that missions seem to get reset when you load a game (so if you pick up someone or something to deliver, you must do it before you end your current session or forever have that passenger or item in your non-cargo inventory), some inscrutable elements, several mechanics that seemed incomplete, and a handful of crash bugs.

I think there are the ingredients of a good game here, with a good core and beautiful graphics, but the lore side of things really lets those elements down. Perhaps the best strategy would be to ignore the story and play only in sandbox mode.

** A gorgeous space game marred by painful lore elements.** [[Recommendation comes with strong suggestion to play in sandbox mode only]] This game was an odd experience. The longer I played it, the less I liked it. When it started, it took me back to the wonder of games like Privateer. Sandbox, big galaxy, lots of options. And it's really gorgeous, from the ships to the planets to the nebulous backgrounds. Some of space stations look oddly low-res compared to everything else, but that's minor. However, things went downhill when I started to follow the main story campaign. The voice acting is truly atrocious, and the writing isn't much better, from the minor (bad grammar) to the median (dialogue) to the major (an incoherent plot with characters whose motives don't seem to correspond to events). And when you get to a more difficult mission that you have to try several times, the lack of any button to skip the dialogue becomes truly unforgivable. Speaking of retrying, there are several design decisions that make sense on their own, but quickly become annoying when you have to replay a mission because it's difficult or bugged (like the infamous mothership mission). First, you can save only at stations or planets. OK, there's a sort of 'realism' sense to that. Second, there's a lot of empty space between points of interest. That actually worked for me at first, because it added to the sense of scale and exploration. But when you have to retry a mission and reload to find you are about a 5 minute cruise from the action -- and then remember that you'll have to sit through 3 more minutes of unskippable community theatre auditions when you get there -- it gets really difficult to stick with it for the next attempt. There were also a number of minor annoyances, like the fact that missions seem to get reset when you load a game (so if you pick up someone or something to deliver, you must do it before you end your current session or forever have that passenger or item in your non-cargo inventory), some inscrutable elements, several mechanics that seemed incomplete, and a handful of crash bugs. I think there are the ingredients of a good game here, with a good core and beautiful graphics, but the lore side of things really lets those elements down. Perhaps the best strategy would be to ignore the story and play only in sandbox mode.