Space Run Galaxy

Legendary.

Even though it's repetitive and occasionally frustrating, Space Run Galaxy is a great way to, as Deep Purple puts it, “go space truckin’ round the stars.” Tactical depth, a wide range of choices when it comes to customizing your ships, and a liberal dose of frantic action during cargo runs--not to mention a good sense of humor and attractively cartoony visuals--combines to deliver an experience that isn't easy to master, but one that's worth the extra effort.

The open-world mission system, the way you can buy ship schematics to try and change up your layouts and tactics, the way it lets you determine whether or not you want to split up mission-critical cargo into more manageable (and defensible) chunks, the seamless inclusion of multiplayer contracts and trading and the fact that it feels quite unlike anything else out there really pushes it into a whole other dimension. One with space pirates and awesome guns.

Though not significantly difficult from its predecessor and prone to bouts of repetition, Space Run Galaxy remains a wholly refreshing take on the tower defence genre. Indeed, the focus that Space Run Galaxy places on speed and immediacy makes for a furious effort that is as challenging as it is rewarding.

Quotation forthcoming.

Space Run Galaxy is a refreshing take on the Tower Defense type with a little splash of Asteroids inspiration thrown in. With limited controls but plenty to manage, the only downside is the cringe-worthy dialogue as stereotypical characters banter.

Every time I gave Space Run Galaxy a chance, I got tired of it after a couple dozen minutes. [09/2016, p.65]

Space Run Galaxy can best be described as a tower-defence game on a conveyor belt. Improvements on the original Space Run include new weapons and modules, but the main difference is the opening up of trading networks. The strategy part of the game is played on a galactic map with specific routes between planets. You get to choose contracts from corporations and shady groups, and you can now also accept contracts from other players or make them yourself. Unlike the first game, you get resources as well as credits as rewards for doing missions. Resources can be traded or used for crafting upgrade modules. You have to transport resources to locations where they can be used, or create a contract for another player to do it for you. You play as an unnamed 'spacerunner' with a female android called Evve-36 as your assistant. Buck Mann is now just your employer. All the original characters from the first game are back, including the pirate captains. You can now buy ships with different floorplans and expand the floorplans with extra hexes. Choosing which ship to use adds an extra level of strategy, as does the fact that waves of enemies and asteroids are no longer as predictable as they were before. Now they come at you from different sides in reaction to how you deploy your weapons and there is an element of randomness to it. All in all, an excellent and quite unique game, highly recommended, especially if you enjoy tower-defence type games. It has good voice acting, nice graphics, well-balanced gameplay, and is deeper than other games of its type. One thing to note is that it requires a persistent internet connection to play. If you lose connection, the game crashes.

Not outstanding - but slightly above average. Space Run Galaxy offers Space Run with "more" of what Space Run offered. - But nothing really different. Although - to be fair - it offers a sort of endless roaming mode instead of the strict and linear campaign of part one. I would have wished for turret AI (like attack strongest/weakest/most health/least health etc.) because most of the frustration i had with the game came from the fact that my turrets seem to actively work against me - instead of my setup being too bad. Other than that - if you liked Space Run - you will also like Space Run Galaxy. If not - well... then you will most likely not like Galaxy - as easy as that.

The game is not hard as others have suggested, but you need to buy only what you need, otherwise you need to replay routes to earn more. It's all about utilizing upgrade modules, engines, and modules' ability. But it does get repetitive fast. The ability could use some smart cast system (as in just mouse over and hit keyboard shortcut) especially in later game when enemies come from all directions.

Usually for a game like this, you'd hear "If you like Space Run, you'll like this one." But it's not that easy... Of course they have made improvements like: - No longer the ship you'll use is fixed. Now you can buy new ship templates, add hexes (limited amount for each ship though, but get 2 new hexes and you can put them in every ships you own) and use any ship you want for a run. - You can put color on each hexes of your ship. So you can visually remember the spots you're planning to reserve for the thrusters, the weapons, etc. - You can play the same run multiple times. And if there's a contract on that run, you'll get payed each time you're successfully do it. A good way to get the few thousand credits you lack to progress, for example... But they also made some debatable decisions: - If you were hoping for a choice of difficulty (easy, medium, hard for example) this time, forget about it, especially now with multiplayer. Like Space Run, there are one difficulty and you have to live with it. - You have a limited pool of each modules you can put on your ship. You put a laser and en route it is destroyed and you don't have anymore in reserve, too bad no more laser to defend you for the rest of the run. - You can craft new modules (or more of the old ones) with the material you are given as a reward for a successful run, but the material is stuck on the planet you finished the run. If the Mechanic on that planet is too low level, or don't work on module of the color you've got then you can't do anything with the material. - And here comes the third problem. What can you do with unused material? Well, you can sell them to the merchant for credit or you have to make a run for yourself to a planet that can craft said material (1 material = 1 hex taken on your ship). And if what you want crafted is 3 planets away, you have to make 3 runs to carry your material to the destination, assuming you can put everything in your ship or else it's 6 run that is needed. Or 9, or 12. If you play Offline you must do it yourself, if you play Online you can gives a contract to another player to carry your material for you. They create this mess to include a multiplayer part to the game, but this mechanic is clunky at best. -The first Space Run was scripted, so you know what ship you had and where and when the enemies would come. Not anymore. Bits of randomness in each run gives more longevity to the game but also make it more difficult. - And now the Elephant in the Room: Of course, you still need to manually collect nuts and turning turrets making the game artificially more difficult than it should be without any satisfying reasons to do it. And with the developper unexplainable insistance to not add a slomo or a pause that lets you makes change then unpause, the game is not only more difficult, but more hectic as you progress through the game. In the end, more so than the first one, this game is too difficult to please everyone.

This game is currently at 2.5 and that's a bit too high. While the developer "fixed" the network issues, users have a ton of issues with constant crashing. If you liked Space Run the Original, which I did, you're still probably not going to like this game. The tutorial is sketchy, the menu system is inefficient. So many clicks of the mouse to do basic things. After a mission, you might get four or five rewards which you need to click on each one to clear as well as all the other clicks you need that feel like they're for no reason. It feels like a game made by a developer that is so proud of itself, it forces you to pat them on the back every two seconds. The game play is lackluster. Lots of grinding and artificial difficulty for what feels like absolutely no reason. The game is just not enjoyable.