Potentially great, but ultimately a letdown. If the game had been finished, it would be an instant classic.
Unfortunately, this is where Flatspace 2 falls. A solid attempt at a top down action game with some rpg elements, and an interesting if bizarre and unbelievable premise.
In Flatspace 2 your dropped into a far future world were supposedly the universe has expanded to the point that planets and stars can no longer maintain themselves. Points to the creator for coming up with an interesting setting, but as you play the game you start to realize that the setting was made as such to avoid the inconvenience of having planets and suns to deal with.
Gameplay:
When you start the game your presented with the classic roguelike option, permadeath or the ability to reload your game when your space faring persona meets their maker. Pick the former and when they are floating in the void your score will be added to a highscore list, choose the latter and you will be able to continue the game when you inevitably die, but your score will not be listed.
Your second choice is starting profession, merchant to bounty hunter, assassin, or join the police force, along with a few other options, but this has little solid effect on your game, as you can play however you want. But trying to hunt down a bounty in a slow weaponless cargo carrier is not easy, but eventually you can buy another ship and outfit it as you like.
This is where things start to break down. Regardless of how your fortunes fare, it is a very long grind to get enough money to work your way to larger ships. Probably the largest infusion of money you can hope for is pulling in people off the most wanted list, with a ship equipped to capture people you have to hope you can find them. As each sector is quite large, even the best radar can only cover a relatively small area of one, and since there is a bug that doesn't allow you to switch through targets, even if you have your target somewhere within dozens of ships, your chances of finding them are low.
At this point, lets assume you can actually get a few of these big paydays, if you catch maybe 20 of the largest of the large baddies and bring them all in alive, you can start thinking about buying one of the larger ships in the game.
There is a novel feature in the radio system, you can open a communications system with the push of a button and do anything from send demands to targeted ships, to call for aid from the police.
Graphics:
The game is all rendered quite nicely in 3D all viewed from a top down perspective. Asteroids look nice, explosions and engine effects produce good looking glow effects, and ships look acceptable especially with the pulled back view. Nebula look suitably hazy and difficult to pierce, and weapons, while looking a little arcade like, do their job well and allow you to tell what is being shot at you quite well. But then there are glaring omissions, like how when a ship is destroyed you just see a flash of flame and usually nothing else, maybe some generic looking triangles that represent cargo or an escape pod get left behind.
Sound:
Gets the job done, a decent soundtrack, very little to say in this area.
Overall:
A nice attempt but feels incomplete at every angle. A little more work on the GUI, a little more balancing, and this game could be a breakout indy hit. But as it is, and I hate saying this about a small indy company, but it just isn't worth the $20 cost.