Flatspace 2 review

Flatspace 2

So, where to begin? I suppose a good place to start would be the story, and to be frank, there isn't much of it, it basically starts off by saying.. OH NOEZ NOW THERE ARE ALIENZ.(okay its more suspenseful than that, but mehr)
You have a selection of classes, ranging from trader to assassin, and these influence your starting ship and equipments(for instance bounty hunters start off with a predator scanner which lets them view peoples bounties upon scanning, traders start off with something that lets them see what export and import types a base has)
But in part, that is the beauty of this game, the story is what you make it, you can do whatever the hell you want, there is no real constraints, you can be a bountyhunter who makes a side earner by carrying people from place to place, or a policeman who trades, the possibilities are as varied as your imagination.
There is also a guild feature where you get points in a guild for doing that thing, so for instance the couriers guild, you get points in it for transporting people around. You get rewards leik better ships and weapons for getting certain levels I am reliably told, though I have never actually got anything so far :'(
There is no restriction on the guilds, so you can level them all up at the same time, but I think only the dominant one gives you bonuses and stuff
The gameplay is quite simple, once you get the hang of it, using the mouse to steer, fire and control the thrust( I say control, really, its either on or off, though you can double click to lock, which is handy)
The way you interact with NPC's while in space is interesting, for instance to dock with a space stations you have to select the station (B), use the radio(R), transmit to the station(2) and then apply for docking permission (1) while containing an amount of realism, this is really awkward to do when running for your life from bandits, at least the first couple of times you do it :/

The combat is pretty samey, the best way I have found to win is to fly around in tight circles while the enemy ship fires and misses at you(they don't have the ability to lead targets XD), wait until they have run out of ammunition and just sit and shoot the hell outta them, this changes when you are fighting multiple enemies though, where you have to stay continually on the move, though if you play it right you can get at least half of them dead by crossfire, though you don't get any money for doing this :/

Flatspace 2 has two character types, Normal and Undead, when you die in Normal thats it. You are dead. Game over(which is quite cool, but really annoying when you were getting really attatched to someone :'( ). Undead basically means when you die you can reload any of the save games and continue from there, which is what I most commonly use, because I suck :P

Another important element in a game is the music, it helps involve the player in the game and the music for Flatspace 2 certainly fits the bill, mixing wonderously beautiful songs with fast paced adrenaline pumping ones.

So anyway, I've probably rambled on for far too long, the tl;dr of this review is
Is it worth buying?
YES! If you are looking for a simple but fun game to waste away the hours this game is well worth the price (£14/$24)

Flatspace is an indie developed game released late 2005 and can be obtained from here
http://www.lostinflatspace.com/ or from the devs main website http://www.cornutopia.co.uk