GOF is a fun open-world space-combat game with a huge universe and too-often recycled scenarios. Fun and FREE.
Open-World Space-Combat: It's a big galaxy, and there's plenty of enemies that need dispatching
Ship and weapon upgrades keep things moving: earning credits to level up is mostly rewarding
Great Value: it's FREE and as a FREE game is quite robust
Overall aesthetic appeal is strong despite becoming overly recycled
Space-Combat is really fun until you out-level your opponents
Controls are overly sensitive, but adjustable
Too much recycled combat scenarios and backdrops take away from it's long-term appeal
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Call me a sci-fi sucker, but i just love space-galaxy games, especially if they have some semblance of openness. Galaxy on Fire is a great example of such a game. With a major focus on space-combat, upgradable ships, and an entire galaxy to explore, there's enough content here to satisfy for a decent time before it gets boring (which most open games tend to do). Though it could've used more diverse scenarios for sure, given that it's FREE for the time being (with GOF2 out now) there's no reason not to pick it up.
Following the adventures of Keith Maxwell, former Terran pilot and sometime reckloose, you'll engage in multiple space-battles with eye-popping (but often recycled) galactic backdrops, earn credits from all sorts of characters of noble and shady intentions, upgrade your ship with weapons and shields, rinse and repeat. Is it original? No. Is it fun? Yes, at least for a number of hours. It takes quite a while for your upgrades (and skills) to pass the curve where the game isn't challenging and the credits useless, but from start until then, GOF manages to capture your space-faring imagination.
Space-Combat is the key feature here, and there's plenty of it, though it's recycled too heavily. Enemy ships fly by as you try to line up your shots, leaving red arcs of trajectory traces behind them, and while some fights are quick and clean, others are huge dog fights with myriads of small fighters and Capitol ships to boot. Though no fight ever takes very long, there's literally hundreds of scenarios to play through and though all are too often recycled, for the most part they're fun. If you get blown up, you can retry the mission or move on, and as missions get tougher the monetary rewards tend to increase.
Of course, you can fight for the "good guy" Terrans, or betray your race and fight for the Vossk. Or, you can ignore those empires and just fight for money, and even run missions for the Outlaws. Each planet contains multiple missions to choose from, and indicates who's paying your ticket. And of course, each planet or outpost has their own variety of ship upgrades and new ships too. The galactic map does a good job of showing you what percentage of a system you've explored and though flying across the galaxy is expensive for fuel costs, you're never in a position where you're stuck.
On the downside, there's only 3-4 different types of missions, so things do feel repetitive as you progress and get stronger, despite the basic fun of space-combat. The beautiful backdrops in each mission are also overly recycled, which draws away from the awe of playing as you go too. It's certainly understandable to see lots of recycled material in a really gigantic galaxy, but it does to a lot to limit the appeal of play past 10 hours or so. Furthermore, despite your ability to farm your skills out to any bidder, your alignment has little effect other than needing to pay extra taxes when entering antagonistic systems. On top of it all, enemies don't level enough to make combat consistently challenging as you progress. The controls are way too sensitive too, but at least you can adjust this in your options to limit the wild swings through space. These all limit the play past a certain threshold, but don't significantly detract from the fun of GOF for the first 5-10 hours or so.
Galaxy on Fire is a great FREE game that does enough to warrant extended play and open enough to keep you from feeling cramped. It's shelf life is limited due to recycled combat scenarios and aesthetics, but there's plenty here to recommend it to any one who like space-combat, science fiction settings, or FREE games.
7.4/10