One million years in the past, on some African rock, our hominid ancestors gathered round a superbly easy black rectangle, and gazed upon it in awe. Beneath the floor of that unusual artefact, lights and hues moved. The hominids seemed on, laid low with surprise, and witnessed the proper area sim. We may be certain this occurred as a result of, as a species, we appear to have an instinctual concept of the usual to which all area sims ought to be held, with none such game having been launched in dwelling reminiscence. Indeed, there’s maybe no different style of game extra vulnerable to accusations of over-promising and mutterings of disappointment – whether or not they’re justified or not – than this one.
If your game is skilled primarily by a spaceship cockpit, than you’d higher have made a 1:1 scale galaxy teeming with liveable planets, every with environments which are in some way each procedurally generated, and as characterful as Skyrim, Liberty City or Lemoyne. Us gamers will demand a functioning, responsive economic system, and conflicts between galactic-scale factions that may be influenced on a macro-political scale. We will wish to get out of our pilot’s seats and wander round inside our ships. We will need the bogs to flush. We wish to escape into an precise, literal universe, and woe betide any game that merely lets us fly a faux spaceship.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is unassuming sufficient to dodge this outrage. Its universe is barely a single galactic sector, with a modest 40 star programs to peruse. The planets and area stations aren’t totally realised 3D constructs, however abstractions made from onscreen menus, with animated backdrops and touchdown/take-off cutscenes. Even the spaceship cockpits are easy 2D display screen overlays that remind you extra of Star Wars: TIE Fighter than Star Citizen.
However, the explanation Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has refused to increase its attain, is that it already is aware of precisely what it desires to know.
The game’s restricted scope can go away it feeling fairly shallow while you first begin taking part in. The spaceflight handles nicely (offering you comply with the game’s recommendation and use a gamepad), however docking and touchdown occur robotically, by the use of extra cutscenes, as quickly as you get near your vacation spot. Even the center of your journeys may be passed over simply by urgent “autopilot”, and when you can activate the sublight engines as a substitute, the result’s merely {that a} cutscene is changed with streaking stars. What’s extra, your journey is restricted to jaunts between waypoints comparable to stations or planetary bases, with the choice of stopping off midway when you obtain a misery sign. There’s completely none of that sense that you might simply choose a portion of sky and fly off into it to discover.
The missions on supply will probably be acquainted to anybody who’s performed the style earlier than – fetch this bounty, defend this freighter, ship this cargo, etcetera. These are missions I’m utterly tremendous with, as a participant who’ll incessantly flip any game he’s given right into a postal service simulator. But certainly a part of the enjoyable of taking part in area lorry driver is the great large stretch of time concerned in flying from one vacation spot to a different? Maybe that’s one thing different gamers wish to skip over, however… nicely, why else would you tackle package deal supply missions?
I suppose that’s it. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw doesn’t actually need you working supply missions. It desires you to combat stuff. And it will get what it desires.
Now, I’ve to confess I’m the form of smuggler who’ll drop their cargo on the first signal of an imperial cruiser. I’m in area to see cool area sunsets, ship area cargo, and possibly attempt to do that thing from the Voyager opening credits where you skim over a planet’s rings. I usually keep away from getting right into a firefight as a result of A) I’m unhealthy at it, and B) visually, it’s normally fairly boring. Most simulated area fight quantities to “get the distant coloured dot into the middle of the screen”. The distant colored dot could be a fantastically rendered galactic battle sloop the place the artist has modelled every little thing all the way down to the sweat on the alien pilot’s brow, nevertheless it’s normally a great distance away and it’s shifting very quick, so except you’re excellent you’re caught with colored dots in distant circles.
Rebel Galaxy has two fixes for this that instantly remodel area dogfights into one thing you would possibly truly do for enjoyable. The first is “targeting mode”, a easy isometric map you possibly can entry out of your pause display screen that exhibits the place you and all the opposite combatants are at that second. It permits for spatial consciousness in a method that the dashboard radar screens of most area games merely don’t. But the true stroke of genius is “autopursuit”. Autopursuit is a button you press (the set off in your gamepad, you probably have one) that can simulate tethering your ship behind your goal. Your goal can twist and switch and double again on you, it could dodge your lasers and missiles, however you’ll now not have the frustration of frantically spinning your ship round all six levels of motion in search of that one misplaced dot. Visually, it means you may get proper up shut along with your enemy, making the dogfight really feel way more just like the battle of wits in your creativeness. Of course, autopursuit is fully optionally available when you favor your dogfights old-fashioned model, nevertheless it doesn’t neuter the problem by any means (which is a pleasant method of claiming I nonetheless died loads).
The upshot of all this was that the freighters of Rebel Galaxy Outlaw had their misery alerts answered rather more usually than these of pirate-stricken spacers in different digital galaxies I’ve visited.
Beside fight, the opposite area of interest Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has carved out from the remainder of the giant-space-sim style is story. In Elite Dangerous, there are ongoing narratives of invasions and political intrigue, however as a participant, you’re about as capable of have an effect on them as you’re the ones taking place in the true world. On the opposite aspect of issues, No Man’s Sky’s narrative looks like correct old school sense-of-wonder scifi, however is extra like a sequence of prose poems than a narrative.
Yet with no irritating multiplayer nonsense to get in the best way, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is free to present you an precise character with wants and targets, and a spot on the earth.
That world is a well-recognized one. We have a community of soar gates that enable faster-than-light interstellar journey, however the laptop displays all have the decision of a Nokia 3310 and massive clunky 80s keyboards. The star programs are all named after locations within the American south, there’s usually twangy acoustic cowboy music, and it’s fully attainable the builders are followers of a cancelled TV present that rhymes with SpireSpy.
It’s all acquainted furnishings, nevertheless it’s crafted lovingly – the area stations every have their very own really feel, from asteroid bases to buying and selling posts, to casinos with habitation rings formed like big roulette wheels (the builders additionally like Cowboy Bebop). One factor I’ve felt disadvantaged of in different area sims is the power to go to the pub, and Rebel Galaxy Outlaw meets that want, with a big selection of dives the place you possibly can go to get gossip, phrase on bounties, or probably tips about heist-able freighters. There are slot machines and Asteroids arcade games, and a surprisingly addictive simulation of pool. In reality, I’m genuinely contemplating beginning a brand new game simply so I can see how far I can get as an interstellar pool hustler.
That mentioned, the familiarity of the universe nonetheless leaves it feeling somewhat skinny. Juno, your hard-bitten, tough-as-nails gender-flipped Han Solo/Mal Reynolds is a good idea, and the straight-out-of-John-Wick “back in the game to avenge your dead husband” angle feels contemporary, however most of her dialogue boils all the way down to… nicely, complaining. Yes, it’s a personality archetype that’s usually on the grouchy aspect, however you should offset that with a little bit of levity. Even darkish, broody Mal couldn’t cover the very fact Nathan Fillion was having the time of his life with the function. The aliens of Rebel Galaxy Outlaw are a little bit of a let-down, too. They aren’t given a lot substance, and when they’re, it could veer somewhat in direction of the dodgy outdated trope of “non-humans as stand-ins for ethnic minorities” (that is considerably self-aware, with strains comparable to “I understand we all look alike to you”, however I’m unsure that makes it significantly better).
These are comparatively minor blemishes. Still, with a bit extra depth to the worldbuilding, and a bit extra time spent on the dialogue and storyline, this game may have been an absolute gem on the narrative aspect.
It’s actually very fairly, although. Which is to say, the spaceships are all as ugly as sin. Because that’s how I like my spaceships – large, often-asymmetrical hulks which have been banged collectively with no second’s thought for aerodynamics. On prime of that there’s a ship-painting software that’s much less a “tool” than a whole piece of design software program hidden contained in the game, and which is admittedly daunting to make use of.
Its entry into the cockpit-based, open-world, space-trucking style places this game in an enviornment with some heavy hitters, ambition-wise. Nevertheless, with a improvement staff of 5 individuals and a price ticket of solely £24, it appears truthful that it’s much less of a world to stay in, and extra one to go to for some time. And I’ll actually be coming again right here – subsequent time I wish to choose a combat.
