I've heard about this game some time ago, but apparently the publisher screwed the dev over, or something like that, so the dev re-released the game on their own in May 2015. This is a "HD" re-release with some graphical advancements and bug fixes in contrast to the original game, but I personally can't witness those fixes since I didn't play the original one.

So, what it is about? In short, it's an old-school homage to Elite-style of titles, where you can play in two game modes: Story or Free. In Story mode you have to follow the main quests, but honestly I didn't play much of that. I sticked with the Free mode, because in this mode you can go wherever you want, trade, fight, explore and generally do whatever you want. But, it has a steep learning curve, so you'll have to learn the basics. The lack of the official tutorial might be a minus for some folks, but there is a beginner's guide available.

I'll try to break it down with "pluses" and "minuses":

+ Open-ended Elite-like space sim
+ Two game modes (Story Mode and Free Mode)
+ Crapload of sidequests
+ Good gameplay mechanics
+ Solid graphics
+ Awesome music
+ If you like Elite, you'll dig this

- Lack of tutorial (there is a beginner's guide available)
- Just a partial gamepad support, but you can configure the buttons

I liked it and I'm still playing it.

8/10

I picked up this game today and I have to give it a thumbs up. It's a little bit dated but it has a lot going for it. The graphics are very nice on max settings. The atmosphere really nails it. There are things Elite Dangerous could learn from this game. My only complaints so far in my couple hours with it are that I wish it had full HOTAS control and that they would update the bad voice acting. Other than that it seems quite enjoyable much like Evechron Mercenary. A small item they could fix also would be the ability to look left and right inside your cockpit. No complaints here for 10 bucks. I hope they make a Spaceforce Rogue Universe 2 or an expansion. I'm not sure how I missed this on my radar.

I played a good 8 hours of this game before I finally put the game down and I've come to the conclusion that it's simply not worth anyone's time.

Story - It's honestly not worth your time. But that's not really a big deal. The game offers freeplay mode and it is much prefered. With all the exploration the game gives you, you don't really care to follow the generic naive-hero plot. Another problem the story presents is that the difficulty ramps up immensely. The first mission isn't so bad but I had to grind out ship upgrades and weapons for a solid 3 hours before attempting the second mission.

Graphics - It was made in 2007 so I can't say much here. Honestly it doesn't bother me and since you're in space 99% of the time anyway, the only graphics you should be focused on is the background. Fights are usually so chaotic that you don't notice the dated textures anyway. For 2007 not bad though by today's standards it certainly is dated... Which is strange considering "HD" is in the title

Audio - Laughably bad. The voice acting is cheesy and not in a good way. Characters constantly repeat the same damn lines over and over and over and over and over and over and there is no button to turn them off from what I've seen. Surely the devs would have come to their senses and said to themselves - "Man, our audio is abyssmal, lets add in a feature that turns off voices". But surprisingly they didn't. The rest of the audio sounds like stock sound effects and random pew-pews etc. It sounds very 1998 Starcraft-like. The only Voice acting that is cheesy in a good way is the Ord.

Gameplay - Boring. I spent 7 out of my 8 hours just mining asteroids because the game starts you off in such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ state that you have no option but to grind out upgrades and wepons just to find a single lowly ship (Which, by the way even with many missiles takes up to 10 minutes to kill). Don't bother fighting more than 1 enemy, you'll die, a lot. Because of this, you're stuck in the first two or three sectors going back and forth mining asteroids and doing the crappy fetch-quest missions of 'repair the satellite' because you can't fight in your tincan ship. Whatever more advanced combat in this game exists, I don't care. It's not worth spending another 10 hours getting to level 3. Yeah, I spent 8 hours going from level 1 to level 2... and most of the enemies start off at level 4. Enjoy your MMO grinding.

Over-all - I see the potential, I really do. It has some interesting civilizations, but they never interact beyond a random dogfight here and there (Don't rely on your allies to help you kill bad guys). The exploration is fun, but you aren't allowed to explore a whole lot because of the grind etc. Over all not even worth the 3 dollars I spent on it and I was excited at first. I thought it was amazing but the deeper I dug the more I noticed the smell....

This game makes me want to play Freelancer.
A game where interface and controls are done right. Where story is amazing.

This felt like a bunch of guys got together for a beer one day and decided to make a space shooter.
And made all the choices while drunk.
It's horrible.

There isn't even a simple help/hint/tutorial to explain what GUI objects mean and you need to figure it out.
Everything that you'll learn you'll learn the hard way.
And story... bleh. Laughable at best. Zero engagement.
I didn't care for my own character, let alone other people.
Now that I think of it, I don't even know what was my character's name.
He was that dull.
I'll call him Joe.

I wanted to like this game so much and gave it plenty of time to prove me wrong.
But it's just not worth the time :/

Full review here: http://www.thegamesshed.com/spaceforce-rogue-universe-hd/

For some reason It refuses to let me add the whole thing so below are snippets.

Spaceforce: Rogue Universe HD is exactly what it seems to be, a HD re-hash of a 2007 twitch space shooter for Windows, it is also far more. As ever with games of this ilk it derives a lot of its gameplay from a rather popular and famous space combat and trading game, namely, Elite. This, in my opinion, is where the game may fall down to those who do not give it enough of a chance. Back in 2007 there was no new Elite game, there were Elite ‘clones’ dropping like flies and have been and no doubt will continue to be for many years to come. Spaceforce appears at first to be yet another one of those clones destined to drop by the wayside of its bigger and arguably better brother, Elite Dangerous. With that said there is something to offer here for those with and without the new Elite experience.

Let me deal with the HD in the title before I go any further. This is a pretty game in the sense that it is a eight year old game with sharper resolutions. It runs smoothly on older systems and as the title implies it will happily run at 1080p with everything turned on. Now, no, it does not look as good as Elite Dangerous, nor should we ever expect it too but for those interested in the game this will matter less than you think.

Spaceforce: Rogue Universe HD is about missions, in this it has more in common with another staple classic of the genre, Wing Commander. You choose a mission, you head to the jumpgate and jump through, complete the mission and head back or dock and repeat to fade. Elite was always more about exploration and trade and whilst you can do those things in Spaceforce it feels as if you are not really meant to.

As it stands, Spaceforce: Rogue Universe HD is a very competent, combat heavy, mission based RPG that, if you are a fan of this genre, you would be silly to ignore. It is priced perfectly, as a game that whilst never intended to be a triple A title or compete with its more complete brethren will give you many hours, weeks and months of fun. Yes, it can be repetitive but then again the same can be said of Elite Dangerous and some of us enjoy that repetition because it is safe, because we can master it and then beat it.

I have the old version of this game that isn't sold on steam anymore, but I wanted to buy this again to give the devs money and get the additional fixes.

It's an older space sim, but it's really entertaining and it has lots of places to explore. It takes some time to learn to play, basically you just have to check all the controls the game has and eventually it all "clicks." Whenever theres something new you can do, the ship computer will tell you briefly what anything means, so make sure you read those messages! Otherwise, the game doesn't hold your hand, and I suggest trying to play in the free mode (make new profile and set it to freemode) if you don't find the story mode enjoyable.

I remember playing this back like.. 2008-2010. I'm not even sure, but it was long time ago and I was a lot younger. Back then I had more trouble playing the game than now, but it still was fun. It lacks the Quality of Life -design choices many modern games have, but it still has it's charm that makes me play it.

Graphics are still really beautiful, even it's dated. Maybe it's just nostalgia in me but I enjoy them a lot.

I recommend this game to anyone who isn't afraid of playing a bit tougher, maybe slightly clunkier spacesim. There's a nice universe to explore out there. Just learning the game mechanics can take some time.

This game is a little rough around the edges, but overall it offers many hours of entertainment and exploration for a very small price.

Pros:
+ Decent graphics despite its age.
+ A lot of freedom.
+ RPG elements.
+ Exploration.
+ Fast space combat.

Cons:
- No real tutorial.
- Some things have no explanation.
- GUI is a bit basic.
- Voice acting isn't very good.
- Story is somewhat mediocre.

Overall, I'd recommend Spaceforce Rogue Universe if you are into games like Elite and want to scratch your space exploration itch.

There's something about open-world space simulators that is inherently appealing to me. That's why I think I was more forgiving of Spaceforce Rogue Universe HD from Dreamatrix Game Studios despite having a number of issues with it when it came to stability and execution.

The game itself may be showing its age, but the transformation to HD has helped considerably. While the cut-scenes look dated and pixelated, the in flight models are attractive, and the backgrounds are just filled with interesting things to look at. Ship and creature design are both intriguing and weapons look powerful, if not exotic. What really impressed me were the explosions, with cool looking shock waves and flying debris, and the incredible reflections and distorted images in the cockpit view. The visuals were aided by a good soundtrack and sound effects. Unfortunately, the already weak cut-scenes were hampered further by absolutely dreadful voice acting. It's actually hard to fully fault the acting, however, because so much of the dialogue was ham-fisted or downright schlocky. It's a shame because it's clear the team was trying to tell a heart-wrenching story about family and the horrors of war, but I found myself wanting to skip over it and just continue flying around performing tasks.

Flying around in Spaceforce Rogue Universe HD is fun, but it takes FAR too much setup to get everything working properly, and the game has bugs aplenty. First off there is only partial joystick/controller support, which is frankly unacceptable for a spaceflight game. It's annoying watching enemy craft pull off maneuvers you can only dream of because you need one hand on a joystick for pitch and yaw and one on the keyboard to handle roll, which makes dogfighting more awkward than it should be. Sure, once you get the hang of things, it becomes easier, but flight never feels second nature the way it does is something like the Evochron games. Couple this awkwardness with a glitch that prevented me from firing weapons with my first craft (which later solved itself- I don't know whether the Logitech profiler was acting up or if the game itself was glitchy), and I nearly stopped playing right out of the gate. It also doesn't help that the tutorial is inadequate, and there are no button prompts for actions. I like that the game used context sensitive icons to denote things like docking and initiating trade with various crafts, but it would have been nice for it to also tell me in flight that I needed to hit Enter to perform those actions, or which buttons I needed to jump to a station or wormhole rather than making me consult a guide.

There's a LOT to do in this universe, and I liked the freedom the game gave me to explore/fight/trade/pursue the story as I went along. Unfortunately, that freedom came with a price. While trading itself was fairly straightforward, equipping weapons/upgrading my ship's systems was more problematic. I was able to figure it out, and the system is fairly intuitive once you know what you're doing, but again, it would be nice to have the basics covered in-game. It also would have been nice to know what weapons/systems I could install immediately on my ship and which ones required me to upgrade my systems first. I could always sell back items for full credit, but it wasted time when a simple heads-up display of usable items could have been implemented.

Missions themselves are plentiful and easy to find, but it wasn't always easy to determine just how difficult a mission was. It was nice to see that enemies had a level ascribed to them and that missions were apparently color-coded for ease of completion, but I often found myself hopelessly outclassed by enemies I thought I could defeat. Between not being able to remember (or properly execute) commands due to the incomplete controller support, and the ability of my enemy to absorb simply ludicrous amounts of damage, it made flying missions seem like something I should wait on. I'd rather have the choice of whether I want to be a soldier or a trader, and not have the game feel like it's making me perform actions I don't want (mining, etc.) just so I can level up.

The weird thing is, despite everything I said above, I'm still somehow enamored with Spaceforce Rogue Universe HD. The universe is immense, there's a lot of bang for the buck, and flying can be enjoyable once you work out the quirks. Do I think it's worth the full price? Potentially, if the team is able to patch the rough edges. The game is still charming in its own right, and worth playing, but you will want to either wait for a sale (or patches) and bring plenty of patience.

8/10

With improvements, Spaceforce Rogue Universe could be one of the best space simulators.

For about 10 €, you will get the following features:
- excellent combat mechanics (space battles in this game are really satysfing)
- challenging AI (if you're not careful, you will die)
- a good diplomacy system involving different races (10 civilizations)
- a good trading system (you can trade over 50 goods, included narcotics)
- scientific, headhunting, escort and other special quests
- you can recruit wingmen (up to 3) for personal defence
- many systems to explore (over 35)
- you can mine asteroids to sell materials or use them to upgrade your ship
- good graphics (it will runs easily even on crappy laptops with integrated graphic cards)
- good background music, pretty enjoyable while you travel to the next jumpgate
- a campaign and a sandbox mode
- apparently no bugs, if we don't consider the occasional crash.

If you like sandbox games and don't mind if a game doesn't hold your hand, you will love Spaceforce Rogue Universe HD. Here you can be a trader, a headhunter, a pirate, a spy, a hacker or simply an adventurer but you will have to create your story by yourself.
This game will give you just the basic tools to do that, so if you want to be story-driven or want to have a real reason to do this and that, you will be disappointed for sure.

Honestly, I would pay even 20€ just to see a DLC for this game.

I played this back in the day on my dads computer and saw it pop up on steam, so i got it, for me its worth the nostalgia value, and a decent game given when it was released, enjoyable despite some flaws, like no proper tutorial, or starting with no weapons, hard to figure out controls etc..