Well developed story, well designed space atmosphere and well thought out battle system make this game a must play!
This game may be going on 4 years old, but the graphics are still something to marvel at. The atmosphere and design of space, ships, weapons and the cut scenes are well done.
The space battles range from beginner (very easy) to down right hard-core (very hard). You get the ability to make money during side missions and even during main missions; which you can use to purchase new weapons (laser based guns, missles, torpedos, mines, cruise disruptors and even counter-manuver flares) and new ships to fit your needs. You can fit your ships with upgraded weapons, thrusters and shields to help you combat your enemies.
You don't have to strictly be a warship pilot, you can purchase cargo ships and you can handle freight (there are very many different items you can freight) from one solar system to another. Be sure to land on every planet and base that you can, because many different places give out different prices on products. This way you can find the places that sell things for the least and places that buy them for the most.
My only downfall on this game is the fact that it keeps freezing up on me during mission 7 of the main story and I have yet to find a way around this problem. Sad to say, I have not beaten this game, but I believe I have come as close as I can. Perhaps I have a corrupted file in my saved games or just a corrupted file in the game itself....I've tried an uninstall and re-install, but that didn't help and I'm too far into the game to want to delete all my saved games and start over. So I leave it as it is, and I consider the game beat in my opinion.
There are a few bugs that I have run across, even though I have installed the official patch 1.1 and then I went and installed the unoffical patch 1.4 (which includes all offical patchs that were released, plus extra bugs squashed by modders).
The unability of me to be able to finish this game is what causes me to score this at an 8.5. Otherwise I would have given it a nine.