A scattershot approach to game design resulting in an eccentric, unpredictable, and extremely entertaining experience.
Boiling away all of the optional elements reveals that at its core, Space Rangers 2 is about earning yourself money in a large randomly-generated universe embroiled in a dynamic war against an aggressive race called the Dominators. These mechanical tyrants have already overthrown several star systems by the start of the game and will dynamically attempt to take many more over the course of your career as a space ranger. In order to try and shore up their dwindling numbers, the interstellar corps of space rangers has recently lowered its recruitment criteria to the point where virtually anyone can show up to be commissioned. Such lax standards mean that there’s effectively no ethical code for a space ranger to live by; the only unifying creed among you and your colleagues is that you’re all ostensibly out to save the galaxy from the Dominator threat, even if you occasionally want to kill each other to do it.
Your destiny is yours to create, but the choices you make while starting a new game will have a significant impact on how others will initially react to you. Beginning as a human merchant gives you a reasonably spacious hull capacity, good relations with all of the other races, and a cargo of initial goods to trade, but weak defenses and no offensive capability. Creating yourself as a Maloq mercenary, on the other hand, starts you off with a slow, but powerful ship, poor relations with the Faeyan race, and a reputation that gets you offered lots of missions as a hired gun. Some of these starting conditions seem much more difficult than others. For example, being an interstellar pirate may sound like fun until you realize that virtually none of the colonies will offer you any of their missions unless you pay out a hefty bribe for them to overlook your past indiscretions. None of them are impossible, though, and your relationships with the different factions in the game and your classification as a merchant or fighter or brigand will change in accord with your behavior.
The majority of the game plays out on the colorful galaxy map where you’ll earn your living through interstellar trade, completing missions for local governments, extorting the weak or poorly defended, scavenging Dominator parts for sale and research, releasing survey probes to search for valuables on an uninhabited planet, or any combination thereof. This money can be used for a variety of different things, but the most immediate concern for any character class will be upgrading your ship with superior components to enhance its performance and allow you to take on harder and more lucrative challenges. Hulls, weapons, deflector shields, sensor arrays, engines: every component on your ship plays some role in determining how fast you can travel, how much damage you can inflict per turn, and how far you can jump through hyperspace to reach different star systems. Enhanced performance, however, often comes at the cost of steep maintenance fees and cargo space which could otherwise be used for carrying valuable goods, so there’s a lot of strategy in deciding whether a potential upgrade is worth the expense and hull capacity. Action in the main galaxy plays itself out in a continuous turn-based style similar to games like Baldur’s Gate, and as the days tick by new and improved ship components will steadily arrive on the market to offer enticing new upgrades throughout your career.
The diversity of game play found in Space Rangers 2 comes from the incredible number of ways there are to earn money in the game. Trade goods at each of the hundreds of planets and space stations in the game are governed by an economy which dynamically changes based on simple supply and demand, local Dominator attacks, and random events like famine or plagues announced over the Interstellar News Network. Of course, goods can always be sold for a profit if they’re acquired for free, and heavily armed players can often coax a poorly defended transport to drop its cargo or pay a “protection fee” in cold, hard cash to buy itself respite from an attack. Dominator parts are especially lucrative when sold to the eager personnel at one of the scientific bases found throughout the galaxy, so even combat-minded gamers interested in fighting the good fight will find liberating star systems from their invaders a rewarding pastime in more ways than one.
Most planetary governments also have missions to offer interested parties, and this is where some of the most inventive and unexpected elements of Space Rangers 2 starts to come to light. Old stand-bys like the delivery mission or the escort mission are present, but many, many more will have you landing on a planet to manage a failing ski resort, coach an athletic team to win an Olympic-style series of competitions, pass a bizarre alien test of logical deduction, and even be transformed into a mole-like herbivore to demonstrate your skills at burrowing and grazing. Kooky, off-beat, and occasionally confusing due to the game’s somewhat uneven English translation, these text-based adventures reward a combination of strategic time-management and critical thinking while pushing the boundaries of game play out into areas you’ll never see coming. Even veteran players will be kept on their toes thanks to the inclusion of several randomized elements that can ensure there’s never any rote path to victory. Fortunately, while these missions are also very easy to fail, the developers wisely chose to allow them to be retried without penalty as many times as you like.
Government missions can also ask you to engage Dominator forces on the surface of the planet, pitting you against up to three opponents in a real-time strategic battle for control over a map sprinkled with resource-generating mines and robotic factories. Each faction starts off with a stockpile of resources and single factory where they can customize their mech-like army of giant robots by piecing designs from a selection of different weapons, chassis, and movement components. These parts each have different costs associated with them, encouraging players to mix-and-match designs based on which of the game’s five resources they might have a surplus of. At least that’s the idea. In reality, the artificial intelligence on all sides is so non-existent that you’ll quickly discover the most effective way to win is to take manual control of a robot with as many long range rockets as it can carry and simply bombard enemy emplacements from just outside their firing range. This simple method can be used to annihilate legions of enemy units with minimal losses, and while you’ll need to patiently wear down your opponents’ resources by seizing control of every mine on the map, this siege mentality will guarantee victory every single time. After playing through a handful of these protracted battles of attrition, many gamers will elect to use the game’s built-in option to disable these types of missions entirely.
Yet another type of game play found in Space Rangers 2 is triggered when you direct your ship to enter a black hole. Rather than instant crushing death, black holes turn out to be hyperspace conduits where you must battle your way out of a bizarre spherical arena against a random assortment of Dominator ships. These battles are significantly different from normal space battles in that they play out entirely in real-time and allow you to take direct keyboard control of your ship as you grab power-ups, shoot down barriers that obstruct your path, and try to destroy the enemies hunting you down. The only way out is to be the last surviving ship, but success rewards you with a valuable new artifact or micromodule you can use to customize your ship even further. In an interesting twist, you don’t even have to take control of your ship: leaving the keyboard untouched for a few moments will cause a surprisingly adept AI to take control, fighting your enemies and fleeing to seek out a health pack or temporary weapon upgrade when one is available. Your vessel’s regular weapons play a huge role in this action arena, and unlike the aforementioned real-time strategy component of this game, the fighting is swift and the unique loot gained makes this an attractive activity in the game.
The graphics in Space Rangers 2 are simple but attractive, using a technique reminiscent of the way Donkey Kong Country translated pre-rendered 3D models into a series of articulate 2D animations. Ships on the top-down galaxy map rock gently back and forth as they cruise across a sector of space, randomly venting exhaust out into the vacuum or folding their wings back for a few moments as they travel across a flat map using distant layers of parallax scrolling to create a basic illusion of depth. The galaxy a very busy place, including hundreds of individual traders, fighters, pirates, and space rangers milling from system to system on their own business, mineral-rich asteroids which come hurtling through space for a quick slingshot around the local sun, and a number of different rotating space stations and orbiting planets to visit. Much of the planetary static artwork consists of hand-drawn stills, particularly during the text adventures where an eye-catching portrait or scene helps to illustrate your current activity. The sole exceptions to this 2D presentation are during the black hole action sequences which place 2D ships and weapon effects around a fully three-dimensional sphere populated with other 3D objects, and the real-time strategy portions which take place in full 3D. Any computer capable of running Windows XP should have little trouble handling the simplistic geometry, textures, and explosion effects found in these environments. All in all, Space Rangers 2 successfully creates a consistently appealing aesthetic which shows that cutting edge DirectX 9 shading techniques aren’t the only way to make a good looking game.
Space Rangers 2’s musical score consists of a few simple synthesized tunes which, despite the frequency with which they’re repeated, never seem to become tiresome or grating to the nerves. Perhaps it’s because the tracks change as frequently as your activity, you’re never listening to the same tune for more than minute or two at a stretch. Sound effects are equally unsophisticated and involve little more than differently pitched laser, engine, or explosion sounds to offer some slight variation between different weapons. There is no voice work in the game itself, and given the quality of the acting found in the game’s tongue-in-cheek intro movie, that’s probably for the best.
Space Rangers 2 is a striking example of a game that excels at nothing, but is good enough at so many different things that it’s an addictive and thoroughly enjoyable game nonetheless. It’s eccentric and unpredictable, combining game play styles from disparate genres with a straightforward interface and long-term goals to produce a surprisingly deep experience. The fact that you can independently adjust the difficulty levels of many different elements of the game allows you to tailor each experience to your own personal tastes, while the randomly generated galaxies grant this title a tremendous level of replayability. Though some gamers may be turned off by its lack of focus, the large majority will discover a fun and innovative title that is well worth the price of admission.