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Iceberg Interactive is increasingly following the path already taken by Paradox, specializing in niche titles with their share of the market that is not very large, but still attractive, especially when it is possible to contain production costs.

Last week we told you about the excellent Endless Legend, a big surprise, qualitatively speaking, for the world of Civilization-style turn-based strategy. This week it is the turn of Starpoint Gemini 2, another title from which we did not expect much, but which in the end managed to involve us. Having to describe it briefly, we can define it as a space simulator with different role-playing aspects, in which you can take part in a campaign with missions to be faced in sequence, or run free in deep space in search of objectives and secondary missions in full. autonomy. The goal is the classic one of the genre: to become richer and richer to buy ever larger spaceships and, perhaps, to have a real fleet with which to dominate. In reality, the beginning is not the most exciting. The tutorial is quite useless to understand all the game mechanics as well the introductory part makes requests expecting that the player already knows how to move and what to do, or that you go and read pages of dialogues to find the information you need. Unfortunately, this lack of clarity is felt until you have become familiar with the controls and have perfectly understood the different aspects of the game. Let's say it takes about two hours to effectively get into action, but it's two hours well spent. Fortunately, Starpoint Gemini 2 has a lot to offer in terms of content and once entangled in its coils, you completely forget about the initial difficulties, free as you are to wander through deep space.

We tried Starpoint Gemini 2 for at least five thousand light years and it didn't look bad at all

Space, last frontier

Another unconvincing aspect of Starpoint Gemini 2 is the single player campaign, consisting of a long sequence of missions that tell a story of revenge on a space scale that is not very exciting. Sure, the first few missions are useful for learning the basics of the game, but for the rest we are not dealing with a very rich title, narratively speaking.

Unfortunately, a lot of information known only if you have played the first chapter of the series is taken for granted, especially that concerning the background of the warring factions. Trust me: abandon the campaign as soon as possible, perhaps even completing it, why not, and select the freeroam mode, because this is where Starpoint Gemini 2 blossoms and reveals all its potential.
Faced with infinite space, man feels less than a microbe. It's kind of the same feeling you get when looking at the Little Green Men Games title map, where thousands of space stations revolve around countless planets placed at sidereal distances from each other. In the beginning, you don't have access to the whole map, meaning you can't easily go where you want. To travel in hyperspace you have to use the T-Gates, too bad they cost an eye! Before leaving for a long journey, it is therefore necessary to accumulate enough resources and, perhaps, get a better ship than the initial one, possibly equipped with a T-Drive to speed up travel. Fortunately, the enlargement of the range of action is never perceived as forced. Indeed, it is managed in a natural and satisfying way, with the player always motivated to explore new areas in search of enemies, especially pirates, and resources to sell in the stations.

Progression

The progression of Starpoint Gemini 2 is typical of space simulators: it starts with a very small ship with limited firepower to get to have large transport ships or real war cruisers. Meanwhile there is the whole game, namely thego around hunting for missions and trade deals.

From this point of view the possibilities are immense: do you like action? Then you will always find a bounty to hunt, or a target to take down. Do you want to live on trade? Then you just have to study the most convenient routes and bring the goods from one part of the galaxy to another. Do you like the idea of living illegally? Turn to smuggling or space piracy. The only flaw of the system is a certain basic repetition of the missions, which after a few hours begin to look alike. It should also be said that the genre does not allow too many fancy flights and that in the long run what matters is the exploration and the ability to plan one's moves, not so much the individual missions. Moreover, there is a large margin of autonomy in the things to do and you can easily progress without worrying too much about filling up with homework. What matters is the money, which is then obtained with honest trade or with brutal acts of piracy is up to you to choose.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

The editorial team uses the ASUS CG8250 Personal Computer
Intel Core i7 2600 processor
8 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti video card
Windows 7 operating system

Minimum requirements

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7, 8
Processor: 2.2 GHz Dual core or equivalent
RAM: 2 GB
Video card: with 512 MB compatible with DirectX 10
Disk space: 8 GB
DirectX: 10

Recommended Requirements

Sistema operativo: Windows 7 64-bit SP1
Processor: 3 GHz Dual core or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB
Video card: with 1GB compatible with DirectX 11
DirectX: 11

Fight

The combat system also allows a good level of customization. At the beginning of the game you have to choose a class between three (Commander, Gunner and Engineer), giving priority more to direct action or team play, so you have to move avoiding attacking too powerful enemies with a small poorly equipped ship and planning ambushes and direct assaults.

During the fights, Starpoint Gemini 2 allows both to have the player manage every aspect, and to leave the task of shooting the crew. Each class has its own talents, but none are decisive. Let's say that the gameplay from this point of view is well balanced and, even if it is not possible for us to show you all the feasible choices, we hope that you have understood that the level of customization is very wide, with a myriad of weapons, armor and various gadgets among the which ones to choose, even by raiding them from enemy spaceships, and with a number of tactics that can be used to achieve their objectives hardly counted elsewhere. Just to give a couple of examples, you can face an enemy ship by transforming it into a space carcass, or you can manage to board it by killing its crew and reselling the vehicle to make more money, perhaps keeping something useful for you. So much variety and freedom is reflected in a longevity that reaches hundreds of hours, with the player becoming increasingly aware of the implications of his choices. Not bad, apart from a few jolts.

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam, Official Site Price 31,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.0

Readers (1)

8.0

Your vote

If you are looking for a quality space simulator, Starpoint Gemini 2 is for you. Too bad for some flaws that prevent us from giving it a higher rating, such as the really subdued single player campaign, which can be avoided without too many remorse, and some secondary missions a bit repetitive (even if it was inevitable that they were). For the rest, the title of Little Green Men Games offers a truly colossal space map to be explored, a myriad of things to do and some refined mechanics, with space combat playable on different levels that alone deserve the purchase.