Rebel Galaxy Outlaw

Yeah I'm not expecting it to be Elite: Dangerous, I'm happy to have a nice little Privateer game on console. Rebel Galaxy was a different game, but I enjoyed it as well. Absolutely loved the atmosphere they created with the soundtrack by Voodoo Johnson Blues Saraceno. Even more amazing was the fact that the developer (Double Damage Games) is largely a two-man team and deserving of your money IMO.

I have probably 1-2 more sessions of my Mad Max replay before I put that back away, so hoping to try it this weekend.

Yeah I'm feeling that as well. My first impressions after about 8 hours.

The good:
- The game is in 3D now. The original had everything on a 2D place and gave the illusion of 3D.
- The focus on smaller ships makes the action feel much faster and arcade-like. There's an auto-heading button that will get you in the vicinity of your target, but there's also an aimpoint it gives you to help lead your target. I had to figure this out the hard way.
- Main story is slightly more developed with cutscenes and voice acting.
- Even more music to choose from. Although I still like the country/blues station.
- Some decent tradeoffs to be made in weapon selection and power management.

The bad:
- Tutorials are kind of garbage and you still have to figure out a few things for yourself.
- Game defaults to 1st person camera and I lost situational awareness so many times before I realized that it's probably intended to be played in 3rd person.
- Balance feels off sometimes. I'll take an average mission and get gang-raped by 7 guys after coming out of auto-pilot. If I shoot for all safer missions, that prolongs the grind.
- It looks like there are only 6 or 7 ships? WTF. The original had like 20 or so.
- The missions are mostly the same as in Rebel Galaxy, and I have a lot of components upgraded but overall it feels like a grind. I'm getting ~5k a mission and my noext upgrade is probably a new ship chassis (at last) for 100k.

I think I'm still pretty early in the game and I can definitely do a little more to "git gud." All that said, I think it's good, but it definitely still feels like an indie game. Thumbs in the middle for me.

Update: thumbs up, once you get into it and under certain conditions.

The game opened up and got a lot more enjoyable, but I think it's from a combination of factors.

- You have to play a certain way. That requires sometimes running or calling an ally (the wingmen are actually pretty capable at diverting fire and the timer is generous). I don't think it's intended for you to solo everything in the game.
- Learning the muscle memory to quickly swap power to shields / engines. I actually have a preferred setting that works pretty well for my build in most situations.
- I didn't realize there's a questline to open your own base (with more ships as well). So that gives you a little more structure in your goals.
- The weapon physics play a part in thing as well. I found out that if you have a big mismatch on weapons / projectile velocities, your aim indicator will be off. I switched to a good complementary weapon combo (Photon + Autocannon) and that made a big difference.
- Turrets made a difference as well. Help you get away with being lazier / less skilled. I have 2 right now but looking forwarding to unlocking a cargo variant with 3.
- Getting your ship kitted out the way you like it. Once you don't have to worry so much about money, you can do more of what you want.
- Finding a play pattern that you like. For me, it turned out to not be strike missions at all, but multi-jump long runs (mostly at less than average risk level). I end up with a few questlines open and take delivery runs along those routes for extra $$$, plus buy anything that's lower than market value and sell it for market price at the next stop. That ended up being the best mix of efficiency / variation for me.

I think the core gameplay and flavor in the game is still great though. And even more amazing that it was 2 guys that did everything. If you can look past some of the rough edges, you might like it, although I will admit it's not for everyone.

I'd say it's 8/10 but can definitely understand someone giving it less.