Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, czyli powtórka z rozrywki (świetnej skądinąd) części pierwszej, zbombardowana przez niezadowolonych steamowców wkurzonych na fakt, iż był to tytuł przez rok dostępny wyłącznie na Epic? A może gra, która nie jest za wiele lepsza od poprzedniczki przez co odrzucona przez graczy jako produkt nie spełniający rosnących oczekiwań? Po poprzedniczce przez myśl mi nie przeszło, że może być to po prostu słaba gra. I nie jest! To beznadziejna gra stworzona przez osoby, które wzięły się za coś, czego robić nie potrafią. Ci, którzy polubili a nawet pokochali pierwszą część raczej w to nie uwierzą, twierdzę tak, bo jestem fanem jedynki i nie wierzyłem w te mierne oceny. 66% ocen pozytywnych? Jakim cudem aż tak dużo?

Strona techniczna:
Działa dobrze, dużo fps, wysypała mi się tylko raz. Minus to opcje graficzne tylko w launcherze, co wymusza uciążliwe restarty.

Storna fabularna:
Część pierwsza niczym mnie nie zachwyciła tutaj tak samo. Ale to nie jest jakoś ważne, to nie gra AAA. :)

Udźwiękowienie:
Jest słabiej niż w jedynce, choć coś tam z tej muzyki zostało. Dźwięki są dobre. Fatalnie nagrane głosy, jakby w jakimś małym pomieszczeniu, to ich nienaturalne brzmienie i tak w sumie wiele nie psuje, bo fabuła ani postacie i tak nie są ciekawe. Ale nie o to w tej grze chodzi.

Strona graficzna:
Naturalna ewolucja względem jedynki, nie ma się czego wstydzić. Niestety nadal wszystkie układy mają pojedyncze gwiazdy.

Rozgrywka:
Nie ma.

Rozgrywki nie ma. Znany ciut dziwny system walki bardzo słabo wyglądający podczas oglądania, ale fajny w praktyce z pierwszej części zniknął. Został nam prze państwa symulator-ek. I tutaj właśnie wracam - studio zrobiło coś, na czym się nie zna. Można sterować myszką, jednak w praktyce działa to okropnie na każdej z opcji. Nasze działo strzela tylko na wprost, statek manewruje z opóźnieniem, a nawet dwoma opóźnieniami bo ma udawać joystick. Schematy poruszania się statku są, bo twórcy rozumieli jak słabo to działa i liczyli że dadzą radę przekonać fanów myszek mnogością pomysłów... Można też sięgnąć po gamepada lub joystick, ale wówczas zabraknie nam przycisków aby móc wykorzystać możliwości gry. Można grać klawiaturą samemu tworząc pełny profil, jednak kursora myszki nie da się wyłączyć przez co podczas specyficznych momentów walki kursor pojawia się gdzieś wyżej/niżej/z boku zakłócając nasz ruch. Mimo to z tej opcji skorzystałem. To wszystko wypada jednak nadal tak źle, że zostaje nieatrakcyjna gra z automatycznym namierzaniem które także może być zakłócane przez kursor myszki.
Misje - o ile w pierwszej części nasza wędrówka faktycznie bywała nudna (zbyt długaśna), tu mamy drugą opcję podróży - czyli pojawienie się na miejscu o ile ktoś tego nie zakłóci. To dobra opcja, choć tułaczka do odległych układów potrafi być nawet równie nużąca co system znany z pierwszej części.
Zbieranie surowców okraszone jest koniecznością celowania w punkt (czasem jeden z paru) na asteroidzie. Niestety czasem szukanie go, nawet w trybie kamery TPP zajmuje dużo czasu. Ale i tak warto, bo jako galaktyczny kopacz najszybciej dorobimy się wymarzonego statku i ulepszeń do niego.
Z misji pobocznych są tu powtarzalne mało różniące się od siebie zwykłe ogłoszenia, gildii najemników i handlowa. Jedna wielka strata czasu, kopalnie asteroid są jedyną sensowną metodą. I tak - też są nudne. Trudność misji skacze razem z naszymi aktywami, co skutkuje tym, że prostych misji w obrębie tego samego układu (typu przekaż towar) po pewnym czasie już nie znajdziemy.
Kolejna sprawa to znaczniki misji, które działają czasem mylnie. Kierując się jedynie nimi można czasem kręcić się w kółko.
Statki nie są lepsze niż jedynce, handel także. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw nie jest niestety niczym jedynka - najlepszym klonem stareńkiej gry Pirates!. Pod względem rozgrywki nie potrafię dać szczerego plusa za cokolwiek tej grze. Choć oceny gry nieco ostudziły mój zapał to jednak faktyczna rozgrywka go już zrujnowała.
Masz ochotę na kosmiczną przygodę? Polecam śmiało część pierwszą, lub Everspace. Ba, nawet Subdivision Infinity DX jest znacznie lepsze, oferując bardzo zbliżoną rozgrywkę.

Ocena: 2/10. Muzyka i grafika to trochę za mało by aplikację można było nazwać grą.

Mixed. It has quite a few flaws. If those flaws weight heavy for you, i dont recommend it.

Pro: Concept and Setting
Initially its fun to work out how it works, and progress.
it feels good to defeat enemies with newly upgraded guns
Artstyle is exaggerated, but stylish

Con: Balance and non-PC friendly choices (FOV!!!)
-game has a habit of just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you over for no reason (5 swarm missile spamming enemies spawning right behind you. And whenever you are already damaged, the game seems to throw dozends of randomized enemy encounters at you, that you cant escape out of)
-Mission difficult is poorly communicated/ balanced, and like a gamble - you never know if it will be a walk in the park, or if you get recked in seconds - The payout doesnt reflect that. Some missions are not worth it, pay only half or a quarter but are much more difficult or time consuming than others.
-you cant save manually , you only save automatically when landing somewhere
-There are only 6 ships or so
-Ship progress is badly paced - i see no reason to upgrade from starter ship to 2nd tier - they are totally not worth it. Only the top tier ships are worth the upgrade. There is no mid tier.
-FOV feels like 40° or something silly low - and of that limited screen space the cockpit takes 50% - even on fighters (esp. the best fighter has the worst cockpit) You can even see that that cockpit in particular was squished so it fits on the screen with that low FOW.
-Its a game of mini-cutscenes. Fly from one station to another goes like this: Cutscene for lifting off, cutscene for leaving the planet, cutscene for entering autopilot, cutscene for landing approach, cutscene for landing. If your flight got interrupted by some random fart again, its another custcene on top.
-shop menu has no back button (Esc opens system menu instead)

I think this game is great. I haven't played the first Rebel Galaxy so no "crushed expectations" here. This game is directly inspired/modeled after Wing Commander games from the 90's, specifically Privateer (cockpit aesthetic and npc voice-lines when docking pulled directly from it basically) which I played in the day, so that was a + for me. I read all the negative reviews and issues people were having but it was 5$. I read some tutorials/hints on how to play and went from there. Let me address some issues I've been hearing in those negative reviews.
1) Enemy difficulty:
First off, those old WingCommander games were HARD and did not hand hold you, requiring some missions to be attempted several times. You start out in a very modest ship, and some enemies are a 100% no-win situation - but just like those older WC games sometimes you have to run, and avoid certain sectors to escape. And come back with better ship/weaponry another day. The developers have even said, that as you move through the galaxy according to the missions the enemies get harder, so dont jump to the high risk areas too soon. They also said that its not just upgrading, you need skill too! In only my second or third session playing this game those early enemies that smoked me immediately my first time playing, were now easily defeat-able with some careful upgrades and some technique - spamming missiles, dropping ECM than boosting away to avoid their missiles, learning how to get on their 6. which brings us to point 2.
2) Flight mechanics:
I had to fiddle with the control settings and adjusted the DPI on my gaming mouse a bit before I got used to the flight style. Then it became fun. There is also a "center mouse cursor" button that comes in handy when you want to stop turning and snap onto something. This game never claimed to be Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous so people complaining that it is not a complete space sim and can't use there HOTAS setup sound silly, the devs even say its best with a game controller. You can't down-vote game A because it is not game B

3) The developers "abandoned" the game:
Well, the game is a complete product, and works fine imo. That's how game development used to work. Having developers continue to release fixes, content and DLC's for a game over many years is a (relatively) new idea in the last 30 years of gaming, and not every small company can have those expectations put on them. And as an old-school gamer it just sounds entitled to me (this company had a tiny handful of developers).

Juno Markev & Lev Arris walk into a bar ...

I don't review games often, but when I throughly enjoy a game that's getting mixed reviews, I fell an obligation to pay a little extra for my pleasure.

Like many of the gerontological gamers here, I've played every Wing Commander and X-Wing game I could get my hands on, and plunked down thousands to upgrade my system every time a new one came out. I've flown Battlecruisers - some that even worked. Enjoyed both 'Lancers. And more recently, I've dutifully tossed fifty bucks into a black hole like a good Citizen to fly a ship around for 10 minutes and run into a few asteroids. So RGO definitely piqued my interest. However, I waited to post this review until I pumped over 70 hours into RGO, completed the story and side missions, and got all the achievements. Nitpicking aside, the game is really fun - more fun than a barrel of Kilrathi.

The atmosphere is great. They absolutely nailed it, even if they "borrowed" from all over to do so. A little Firefly slide guitar here, some GTA radio there (go Dark Country!), grainy interlaced WC-esque vidscreens in the ships. And who doesn't like to flip off a baddy while you're moving into range? 3-D character models, good voice acting, lots of cutscenes (which I can conveniently bypass when impatient). Bar games that I can actually win without save-scumming ("Greetings, StarVenger" - what a surprise!) A lotta indie love went into this thing.

The gameplay is more fun than its ancient primogenitors. Thank you for autopursuit & inertial dampening! It keeps the action hot & heavy, without all that loop-de-looping over-and-over to bring around the bastids on my butt. Sure this takes the "sim" out of it, but it makes it a heyuluva lot more fun. I didn't come to RGO for a "sci-fi-realistic" spacesim experience - or the fleet battles of its predecessor. I came to pilot my fighter through exciting battles with ships and missiles and lasers & explosions going off all around me while beeps and buzzes and warnings tell me my ship is seconds from breaking apart ... and I'm spilling my drinks & snacks all over my desk while I'm cussing out the bad guys and pounding the crap outta my keyboard and working up a true gamer sweat. This game delivers, and I sure ain't gonna gripe about the Epic Games wait or paying full-indie-pop for this much fun!

There is a learning curve, but that's there with any cockpit game. Short basic tutorial - show me how to keep from flying into asteroids & turn me loose. I enjoy reading the guides and tips online during my lunch hour and learning new tricks that way instead of through in-game mega-sized hand-holding tutorials - the big three: (1) Map the "energy to shields" button real close by; (2) Balanced power drain in weapons beats the BFG's; and (3) Baddies start out flying flat like they are commanded by Khan Noonien Singh.

On the tech side, there has been a pleasing lack of bugs or problems. I play the game on both a 43-inch Predator 4K, and a junk POS work system with 1280x720 integrated graphics. Both work great with no problems. I've never hit a bug on any of the missions - once I learned to scan for stray baddies when mopping up a battle.

Everybody says use a gamepad, and I don't know why. I tried this with a gamepad, hotas, mouse, and for me the mouse absotively posilutely takes the prize. I'm right-handed, but like any serious mouse-key-teerer, I mouse with my left, and gain the use of the entire keyboard with dominant right-hand accuracy ("When Grasshopper can use left hand to snatch mouse from Master Kan's hand, then he become true fragmaster..."). Left mousing works great here because there are keys o' plenty that have to be mashed like a mofo to fly the ship - just have to remap a few of them.

I utilized all three types of piloting tracks: trade early on to learn the ropes, mining when I wanted some quick income, and mercenary for the fun of intense combat. I appreciated that the game let me flit back & forth between ships without losing money (and having a good auto-transfer of my equipment between ships). While the money's the easiest through mining, it's far from a cheat because that gets boring. So I'd only use it for a quick cash infusion on the books for a needed upgrade. By midgame, I was making plenty of money from mercenary work by stacking up all four missions nearby, and tossing in a pirate lord and some bounties to boot.

I don't get the griping about difficulty spikes. There's plenty of options to work around a hard mission, which is sure better than those old WC days where you'd have to do the same mission over-and-over for days, until the Thrustmaster WCS was cracked & scratched from being repeatedly rage-flung across the room. If I'm jumped in that tradeship that looks like the pig from Okja, half the time I can talk my way out of it, or with the afterburner upgrade I can usually scoot out of trouble, or throw the power to my shields for the final showdown with the one I can't shake. If a mercenary mission kicks my butt I either add a wingman, abort with apparently no adverse effects, or mine to get more upgrades & return. Case in point, the first time I started that misison to knock out 6 cops with ECM missiles, I couldn't tag a single one - I got there too early with a lame ship. So I mined & upgraded awhile and returned, but I still could only fry about 3 of them. Then I finished upgrading my base and bought the fighter with four missile racks, put ECMs in all of them, and fried all the cops on my first try. That didn't frustrate me, it challenged me. And now by the end of the game, I can finish any mission out there by the second or third try (with Ruth on my wing).

Last but not least on this topic of difficult missions, a big help to me in finishing a tough misison has been targeting mode. I really don't like to use it because its a total buzzkill and funnus-interruptus to freeze the action, but when there's a tough mission, it really helps me get a feel for what's going on or find the bastid that just knocked out my aft shields while I'm pounding the poopchute outtofa cap ship. So I'm glad its there for when I need it.

One thing on my wishlist would be a money-pit to spend the excess cash on and keep me interested after squeezing out all the mission juice. Following the game's example of borrowing from others, I would suggest "teachers" scattered in the bars where I could spend 100K a pop to "learn" a tiny, less than one percent buff to various game functions, with the bump decreasing in size and increasing in price each time I buy it. Like the crusty pilot who can teach better gun accuracy, a mechanic who can teach how to get a little more speed, a trader who can teach how to make a little more profit from sales, or a miner who can teach how to mine better things from asteroids. You'd really only be getting a buff of a couple percent out of these things after investing millions, but it would still keep the moneymaking interesting. Another obvious place for spending bucks would be to make the painting program into more of a "pimp-my-ride" option somewhere on the map where you pay for the paint or skins (and maybe for a little more more bling than Burt or a bobblehead - I want my fuzzy dice!!!).

I'm sad that the mixed reviews will probably make this be a one-and-done game, because this is the closest thing I've had to a true Privateer chub in twenty years.

I want to love this game so much, but it seems every time I start to have fun, this game sucker punches me.

I loved the original Rebel Galaxy. Loved the arcade ships-of-the-line combat, loved the lite single player space simulation, loved the 'cowboys, but in space' aesthetic. This game does a lot of the same, except trading in capitol ship combat on a 2D plane for flying a one-person freighter/fighter craft in full 3D. Controls are again arcade inspired, so less full 6 axis movement of Descent or Forsaken, and more like Rogue Squadron or Ace Combat. Still has fun aliens, a sim-lite experience that is pretty hands off, and that space cowboy feel.

But every time I get rolling, the game sucker punches me; and I don't know why.

So to save time, you can auto-pilot from place to place. Cool. Happy to see the game doesn't waste your time flying through the massive expanse of space just to get from point A to point B, cause that's where the cool stuff happens. Just point your nose in the direction of your mission waypoint or map marker, hold a button, and off you go. This is safe and time efficient way to get around 95% of the time. But, you can get stopped and ambushed. So far, I've only ever gotten ambushed when I've either tried to escape from a fight going really bad, or from a fight that I've narrowly survived. If I'm at full health and shields with everything in working order, I can fly free with no trouble. If my power reactor is toast and my hull has been breached, and I desperately need to just make it back to a station to get repaired? So far that has resulted in 100% chance of getting intercepted, and placed into a 4 v 1 fight that I lose (cause I quite literally cannot fight back, cause the reactor can't maintain power high enough to fire weapons for more than a fraction of a second). This has happened half a dozen times in less than my first 10 hours with the game. Again, every time I start to get on a roll, the game sucker punches me with absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that makes me want to quit the game in frustration. I don't know if I just have the worst luck, or if the game is programmed to kick you when you're down, but neither are fun.


This is outside the times when a simple bounty mission (and not even a high threat one either) turns into a complete ♥♥♥♥-show cause a random pirate FRIGATE with escorts shows up, and now your already lopsided 3 v 1 fight is 6 v 1 with a freaking frigate. Its a fight you have to run away from, assuming you can manage to put enough distance from you and the horde to jump away.


Or how about auto-piloting to a mission objective, only for it to drop you right smack dab in the middle of a minefield? No option to leave auto-pilot early and maybe NOT get yourself super ♥♥♥♥♥♥. No way to know ahead of time if you'll land in a minefield, since the missions and the areas around them are dynamically generated. I've gone back to redo scout missions after a minefield has destroyed me, only for there to not be a minefield there anymore on the next try. Great and all, but that doesn't erase the frustration of losing time and progress (sometimes a lot of progress if you get screwed at the last jump point in a 7 section scout mission, you done after 2 other bounty missions).


But other than that, the game is at its core, quite fun. The combat is a blast, until it's not (you jump into a mission and have to dogfight in a minefield, or the enemy gets overwhelming backup mid fight, or you get intercepted when you quite literally cannot fight back). The game is entertaining and engaging, until it inevitably makes me want to chuck my controller through my monitor in frustration. I have died from more stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in my first 10 hours of Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, than I ever did with all my time with the original Rebel Galaxy.


So if you enjoyed the original Rebel Galaxy, and you can jive with the different take on combat, you'll every likely enjoy your rime with Outlaw. However just be aware that this game, unlike its predecessor, will go sideways to ♥♥♥♥ you very hard and do so very quickly, quite frequently, and without apology. Be prepared to stop back at a station to auto-save after every mission, if only to prevent redoing batches of missions after one bad turn causes a cascade of failures that kills you.


EDIT: Actually, the one time I did manage to beat the 4 pirate interception squad with a damaged reactor and no power reserves (hooray for missiles that take no power), only to get intercepted a 2nd time right after, preventing me from reaching a station and ultimately killing me. So the game kicked me when I was down, and even as a struggled to get back up, it kicked me again; cause ♥♥♥♥ me, right?

Here's another not-fun no win mission. Get a low-risk station defense where pilots are urgently needed cause the local security forces are 'overwhelmed'. What happens when you fly there? Local security forces are NON EXISTENT, and instead of the usual fun dog-fight free for all of station and pirate forces, you get blasted out of the sky in a 8 v 1 fight and swarms of enemy missiles. Again, a low threat mission, that the game has bugged out or outright lied and put you into a complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scenario that in no way is represented by the mission's text or its reward/payout.

Want even more not-fun ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? Every freakin' time you have a mission that takes you to some seemingly abandoned point in space to check on a transmitter or some other space doohicky, you will be swarm ambushed and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ six ways to Sunday. Every. Single. Time. They force you to slow down and keep proximity with the black box/transmitter/whatever, then half a dozen pirates will drop right on top of you from every direction. Hope you enjoy having 2 dozen missiles coming at you from every angle all at once!

This is a great love letter to Wing Commander Privateer. As space sims go, that means:

1. The game systems are all pretty streamlined and straightforward to grasp. It's more "in space" than "space sim", although to its credit RGO does include some things that Privateer doesn't have.

2. It has an excellent sense of atmosphere and world-building. This world is not the Wing Commander world, and it doesn't have the same sense of bombast, but it's a credible "alter-verse" that captures the basic themes and also brings an over-the-top Old West vibe to the table.

3. The combat is focused on efficient dogfighting against multiple opponents that scale to your level. Systems management and evasion has some importance but ultimately, the most important strategy is to blow them up as fast as you can in a glorious combo of destruction.

For Privateer players, the main thing that is new is some additional in-flight controls and systems. The old strats basically work, you just have to figure out how to express them.

The main downside to this style of gameplay is that you won't get to geek out too much over loadouts, build armadas or similar. It's a "now trade to the next one up" type of deal with a few sidegrades along the way - and the best parts of the game occur in those early stages where you have a scrappy rustbucket and somehow make it work.

Some further thoughts after completing the campaign: The story missions drag things out a bit more than necessary to make it a 30+ hour game. Every buddy pilot has their own optional mission set, and I did every one - it spaces out the main plot missions with mandatory downtime and then has the character phone you back, GTA style, so I ended up in a loop of optional-main-optional-main-optional-main because I would get a new entry in one while working on the other. This can probably be cut down if you play more selectively. The writing suffers from a common game writing problem - it's heavily character driven, but the characters are written to constantly propel the player back into the game loop, which leads towards a dry "mystery box" style of story where there are questions and answers, and occasional character moments, but not really thematic or environmental storytelling. Everything happens on a singular timeline, through dialogue spoken in-character to Juno, the characters are always soap operatically trying to steal credit, place blame upon, or take revenge on each other, and the game world is kept at arms' distance from the story beats - progress is nearly always a matter of reaching a destination or winning a set-piece battle; there are no puzzles, and few genuine discoveries after the first hours. There are some neat locations to visit and it does pick up a little towards the end, but it concluded on a "to be continued". Basically, it is the exact style of storytelling Privateer leaned a lot on, but the way it's presented is just a tad less impactful, and its content a bit more everyday hustle and less wistful lark.

Before I begin, lets be perfectly clear on what this game isn't and what this game is.

It is NOT a game of mechanically deep economic trading with billions of star systems. It does NOT have a constantly shifting field of dozens of independently motivated factions. It will NOT require you to wander aimlessly across the stars to grind or farm for hundreds of hours to work your way up to fleet level carriers to execute trade runs with twelve-digit profit margins that only serve to get you to the next ship that will increase your profit margin by one more digit. This is NOT a cutting edge, industry-changing game.

This IS absolutely a fun, nostalgic, story-focused love letter to the likes of Wing Commander: Privateer and Freelancer. Imagine those two games made with today's computing tech and you get an idea of what Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is all about. The visual and game play style lend to this clearly intentional homage. I mean, c'mon! Juno Markev (the main character) even has the exact same jacket as Grayson Burrows (Privateer) and Edison Trent (Freelancer)! If you're not on board with that concept, you might as well move along right now.

The trade system is simple and designed to give you a cinematic if superficial taste of being a smuggler. The space combat is straight forward, action-packed, and (if the assist settings are on) a bit casual. The story line is slightly canned but lovingly executed. The main character is charmingly derivative of the archetypical space rogue. You have more ships and equipment options than were available in Privateer, but it is a bit of a linear progression from bad to good with only one real choice to make along the way (fighter or freighter). You will have fun blasting pirates, following leads, and avoiding the law when your cargo hold is filled with... questionable items.

This game won't blow your mind. But it will give you many hours of fun.

Here are a couple negatives: Flying with the the flight/targeting assist mode can (by some standards) remove a little bit of the white-knuckle piloting of the old-style space sims. You hold the right mouse button down and your ship automatically tracks your targeted opponent while you fire when they're in range. You can choose to not use this feature, but the manual controls can be a bit jumpy. I tried a lot of combinations of the mouse dead-zone and sensitivity, but nothing seems to calm the controls down to a point where it felt smooth. Having said that, I don't really live in a world where having a joystick on my computer desk is realistic anyway. So being able to casually control the ship with the mouse (and not look a scrub in the process) isn't hateful. And the experience isn't robbed by the assist. You still have to be on your toes and avoid enemy fire.

Here are a couple noteworthy positives: The game drips with nostalgia. Not that it wouldn't be good for new players. But if you liked Privateer and don't want to deal with messy control conversions and dated graphics, this is a solid replacement.
The game also features a pretty cool paint customization tool. You can paint the hull of your ship with a sick degree of detail, right down to the logos and scratches. The paint tool even has an option to "print physical copy." Not sure if that works, but its interesting.

A pretty creative addition: The in-game music is a neat mixture that gives setting a wild-west, almost Firefly atmosphere. But, even more interesting is that you can enter a file path with music of your own. So add whatever you like to the music list (and still get the fun commercials on your ship's radio).

In the end, if you're looking for a game that will top Elite: Dangerous with respect to the complicated trade system, number of ship options, and endless, mind-numbing, aimless grinding, this game is probably best skipped. But if you're looking for a casual, action-oriented, story-focused, cinematic, Privateer-like throwback, look no further.

This is a game that punches above its weight for a small outfit. It's an insanely fun space sim, with a great freelancer vibe and interesting characters. The combat mechanics are very different from the original Rebel Galaxy (also worth checking out) and resemble a classic space sim, like a combination between X-wing and Freelancer.

It has one serious flaw, however. There's no level progression through the story. The best ships, weapons and gear are unlocked from the start and beyond a small cost difference, nothing prevents you from skipping all the intermediates and going for the best. In fact, one of the early main missions is so difficult, you need to max out your ship to complete it. This means that around 20% into the game story, you are maxed out, most combats are repetitive and completing missions to gain more money is meaningless. If better ships and equipment were unlocked with main story missions, you could explore more of what the game has to offer. For this reason, I could not bring myself to complete the story.

Would give an average rating if possible. Not a bad game, but the original Rebel Galaxy was much better. Combat is ridiculous sometimes. A big battle, several ships on both sides and all enemies concentrate their fire on me, ignoring all other friendly ships. So I can just flee with afterburner, kill some enemies, flee again, kill some enemies and so on, sometimes it's just pointless and boring. The story is even more negligible then in the original game, totally uninteresting. Really disappointing is the small number of available ships, again much inferior compared to the original Rebel Galaxy. I just expected... more. More than this game has to offer.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a single-player, space sandbox game developed by Double Damage Games. It was initially an Epic Store exclusive in 2019 and released on Steam and other platforms a year later.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is infamous for being the first Epic store exclusive. This decision led to review-bombing and bad press. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is also not the best space sandbox game available. Elite Dangerous and its peers do just about every game loop better. 

However, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw packs a lot into a small package. The poor early reviews had little to do with the game itself. Double Damage Games is a small indie studio and lacks the resources of a AAA behemoth.

You play as Juno Markev, an out-of-luck ex-space pirate. The opening cell-shaded cinematic shows her crashing on a planet after unsuccessfully confronting her husband's killer. Juno calls in a favour to get a modest replacement. She then must juggle repaying her debts, upgrading her ship and unravelling her past.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw's gameplay consists mainly of combat with some trading, piracy and asteroid mining. These earn credits to afford better ships and equipment. Experimenting and exploring are helpful but optional. They can reveal poorly explained mechanics, side quests, rare weapons, lucrative mining spots or beautiful nebulae. 

Unlike Elite Dangerous and similar games, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has a light, grungy, blue collar, "space trucker" style. The default radio station plays heartland rock and advertises discount ammunition and cheap beer. All technology looks retro-futuristic, old and second-hand. Many star systems are named after working-class southern or central US states. The region of space is called Dodge, like the famous lawless US frontier town. You can play eight-ball pool or dice poker to unwind, the genre equivalent of fishing. 

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is the prequel to Rebel Galaxy, Double Damage Game's previous game. They share the setting and style. However, the games are different. Rebel Galaxy is about flying capital ships on a 2D plane fighting with broadside cannons. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is about 3D fighter combat.

Instead, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a homage to Wing Commander: Privateer and Freelancer. While there is a central campaign and side missions, you can ignore them to explore, fight or trade as you see fit. You can unlock buddies to fight with you temporarily. You can side with the law, against it or both. 

Even the graphics look like upscaled MCGA, used in Wing Commander: Privateer. The cockpit and HUDs are blocky and favour the old EGA colours. The stars are square. The game renders debris as sprites. Ships have distinct silhouettes and blocks of bright colours. 

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw plays best on a controller. While not as precise as a keyboard and mouse, the vibration makes you feel every shudder of acceleration and weapon recoil. The game's aim-assist helps, too.

To be fair, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is not flawless. Encounter difficulty can vary considerably. Auto-saves are regular and reloads quick, but unexpected deaths can still be frustrating. One mission requires non-lethal takedown of enemies, but you must manually remove any turrets beforehand. It is easy to miss some side missions, like those in Eureka.

However, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw surprised me. I had a fun 40 hours or so. You can complete the campaign faster if you do the minimum. However, getting distracted and blazing your own trail is part of the point. Fans of space sandboxes, Wing Commander: Privateer or something light and stylized will enjoy themselves. Do not let the poor early reviews fool you.