Rebel Galaxy

This game was an instant favorite for me.  I had been playing Eve Online before playing this.  For anyone that has played Eve Online, you know that the flight and combat controls are pretty difficult.  Even after the weeks of gameplay the controls were still difficult.  Transitioning to Rebel Galaxy was extremely pleasant.  The controls are simple, the weapons are automatic, and the customization is fun.

When Rebel Galaxy starts you are given a ship by your Aunt Juno.  You go to find her to figure out why and find that she has been missing for a while.  After a couple of training missions that show you how to use the controls the rest of the game progression is up to you.  The ship does come with a system called the spectre.  The spectre is a sentient AI by the name of Trell.  She has been broken into different pieces so she can't remember who she is or where she comes from.  Part of the plot is finding her missing pieces while looking for your missing aunt.  As she becomes more complete she allows you to upgrade different aspects of your ship.  But be careful, as you can't make any changes once you choose the upgrade.

The main goal of the game is to upgrade your ship so that you can do harder missions.  Missions are one of the ways to make money.  The more difficult the mission, the more money it will earn you.  As you upgrade your ship the missions will get easier.  The ship that you start out with is the weakest of all those that are available.  As you do missions you will earn the needed money to upgrade to stronger ships, more deadly weapons, and more protective defenses.  There is no right way to customize your ship and this game allows you to choose whichever game style you prefer.  The game even has an option to mine for resources in case you want to do a more peaceful route.  Mining lasers are useful for mining asteroid fields that are extremely common in each system, as well as deadly weapons that can tear through the hulls of enemy ships.

One interesting game mechanic is that when you die you load at the most recent save point.  When playing save often.  If you're going to do a big mission try to save at a station close to the mission location.  I found that it was quite frustrating to have an hour worth of work deleted because I died before I could reach a save spot.  This mechanic can be used to your benefit, though.  If you die during a mission you can easily know what will happen, so you know how to equip your ship to be more effective.  Or, if you choose, you can do easier missions to get more powerful weapons or gear before returning to the difficult mission.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that missions that had killed me multiple times were easy to beat once I had done a couple of other missions and upgraded my ship.  The nice thing is that each mission is shown clearly on your map, so it's easy to find the exact location for any station or mission you're looking for.

The story in the game is a little shallow.  You receive a ship from your aunt, who is missing when you go to look for her.  If you're not wanting spoilers, I suggest you move on to the next section (below the next image).

When you get to the space station you can go to the bar.  The bar is a good hub of information and events that are plot related.  From the bar you can talk to the bartender, who can give you information regarding the surrounding area.  For a little money he can give you information regarding bounties or other valuable topics.  You can also hire a mercenary from the bar, and they will follow you around and help during combat.  They're useless outside of combat, though.  They can become a little bit of a nuisance when flying around as they can get in the way of your ship from time to time.  The bar is also where most of the plot related information is conveyed and meetings take place. 

In the first area you do a favor for someone you meet there and they give you more information as to where your aunt is.  Finish the mission and they give you the coordinates of where you go to progress the story.  At one point as you are about to leave one of the first couple of systems the person that you were working with betrays you, coming to kill you and steal the Spectre from you.  Once you beat him and do enough damage to his ship he asks you to leave him in peace.  You can choose to spare him or kill him.  I tend to not have mercy on those that betray me, so he didn't survive the encounter.

Eventually you meet up with a military officer that had done work with your aunt.  The officer tells you that your aunt may be in trouble and can help you, in return for doing some work for the military.  Finish a couple of missions for the military and they help you break your aunt out of a pirate prison station.  As you and the military are cleaning up the pirates your aunt commandeers a pirate ship and runs, getting away before the military can catch her.  She eventually contacts you to give you a place where you two can meet up later.  Your aunt gives you additional information to help you find the missing pieces of Trell.  Eventually she takes you from system to system in a hunt for more pieces.  I wont say more, as I don't want to ruin the end of the game.  All I'll say is that it left me proud and sad at the same time.

This game has a wide array of upgrades to choose from.  Each ship has a different number of slots for turrets that can be installed.  The more options the slower the ship tends to be.  With other games I have seen that you have to have a specific ship level to use certain levels of weapons, but this game allows you to use any weapon on any ship.  If I wanted I could trade my end game ship in for the beginning ship and install end game weapons, defenses, and components.  Earning enough money to upgrade your ship and weaponry is slow at first, but as you get stronger weapons and better ships it becomes a lot easier and faster to upgrade everything.

As you kill enemy ships there is a chance to drop items.  Later, as you get different components, you can get one that allows you to see if any ship has cargo.  You can see what cargo they would drop if/when you kill them.  Sometimes the drops are items that you can sell on the markets.  Some items are contraband (illegal) and can get you in trouble if the militia decides to scan your ship.  I took the legal route, so I rarely took and / or kept the illegal items in my cargo bay.  If you go the pirate route there are options to purchase smuggler's cargo units that allow you to transport illegal items without getting in trouble.

As enemy ships drop items sometimes they can drop ship parts, like weapons, engines, or shields.  I found very expensive and powerful weapons that way, some of which were parts I couldn't find in any shop in the game.  It can be profitable to sail around and kill any hostile ships you come across, as you could find some pretty amazing upgrade parts for your ship.

As I was about to start the final plot related mission in the game I found that I was seriously underpowered. There was a Super-Dreadnaught class ship that could destroy me in a matter of moments, as well as a fleet of fighters, cruisers, and regular Dreadnaught ships.  I survived for a little, but I couldn't come close to beating the mission.  As missions tend to not be time sensitive (you can put them off as much or as little as you want), you can take time to do other missions and upgrade your ship.  One of the loading screen tips actually tells you that if you can't beat a plot related mission to put it off, do other easier missions, upgrade your ship, and try again later.  The game is extremely forgiving in that manner.  After spending a few hours doing menial but lucrative missions, I was able to upgrade from a mid tier ship to the ultimate ship.  I then spent time getting enough money to upgrade all my turrets, shields, and other parts to the top tier items.  Most of what I purchased were items that didn't require inventory, as some missile turrets require that you purchase more missiles when you run out.  After upgrading my weapons, I retried the mission that had given me so much trouble.  The funny thing was that after upgrading to the highest tier of everything the mission was almost trivial.  It made the most difficult of missions and combat sequences almost too easy, as nothing came close to breaking through my armor and shields, even the Super-Dreadnaught.  Upgrading to the highest tier can make even the most stressful of battles as leisurely as a nice Sunday drive.  Getting there was difficult, but being there is worth it.

Overall I would say that this is a game that you should definitely consider buying.  This was a little out of my norm as far as game genres, but it was a game I'm glad that I played.  It is definitely worth the cost of the game, whether on sale or not.  It was an instant favorite I won't soon forget.