Recently got wind of a space sim game, Space Rangers 2 (for the PC), and decided to try it:

http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000440064479/

Made by some Russian guys, and although some people say the translation isn't great, it's nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be - most Japanese RPGs have dialogue that's FAR worse. Checked out some stuff on the internet, and people were saying all sorts of crazy things about the game - how complete it was, how deep, etc., etc.

So I got it and tried it out just to see what people were raving about.

Most of it plays out like a turn-based strategy game a la Master of Orion - top-down view of space in a solar system, with a large map that shows the whole galaxy. You have turns and whatnot, each one lasting a day, and so many days to complete this or that mission, and you can set orders to travel to one place and not have to keep hitting any "end turn" buttons.

But then you have these planetary battles that are RTS with robots - the RTS parts are very basic, but they're passable. I've yet to see it, but there are apparently some arcade-style segments of "hyperspace." There are also text adventure segments (if you get thrown into prison). On this one message board they were talking about how you can train roaches to race in prison, join sides either with the guards or other prisoners and form alliances, and the whole nine yards.

You can trade various goods ("dope wars" style) with different planets / stations (always checking the current prices with the info station), you can outfit your ship with a whole mess of things, you can buy other ships, you can get alien technology in a battle and sell it to science stations (and eventually use it to upgrade your own ship), you can join large space assaults on enemy systems, you can improve your standings with other races, you can take missions from governments for money and experience (and some of them are funny - like the one about a computer virus from ancient Earth called "Windows" that was so powerful that the antivirus Linux almost couldn't cure it - that needs to be delivered somewhere). There are diseases, and various stimulants that you can apparently get addicted to, a simple skill set for increasing your attack / defense / trading / equipment repair powers, and all sorts of other stuff.

Some ships will attack you, others will talk to you. They'll ask you to trade, they'll ask to join you as a partner, they'll ask for help defending themselves against another ship, and you can ask them for help, too.

There's a fair amount of text in the game anyways at certain points describing what's going on in the galaxy. Continuous news ticker telling about what's going on in this place or that place - where the best deals are, where the Dominators (evil antagonist race - think the Antarens from MOO2) are attacking / own that particular star system, etc.

Right now I'm stuck in the Earth / Mars area - there's a pirate that I can't kill who keeps attacking me. Maybe I can slip out of the system while he's otherwise occupied with another ship.*

I've only played for 5+ hours so far, and it's pretty engrossing. Expect an open-ended mission structure similar to what you might find in Morrowind - nobody tells you where to go and what to do all the time, and you can pretty much do whatever you want. I can see where gamers who want a lot more visceral action would get bored with it, though - it's not a twitch game, and the majority plays out like a turn-based strategy game, which isn't everyone's cup o' tea I'm sure.

Just thought I'd give a little bit of info on it - Gamespy, IGN, and all those other places don't even mention anything apart from the game's existence. I think you can get the game at Gogamer.com - I got it there for $30. Runs beautifully on my Athlon 1600+ GeForce 3 Ti200 756 Mb RAM computer. For people looking for a deep, fun, and engrossing space sim, this game is very cool IMO.

*Note - it is very difficult (and just about impossible as a n00b) to outrun other ships...and I don't recommend it. Take the long way around.

EDIT: Links to some reviews, threads re: the game, and whatnot that probably do it all a lot more justice than I have:

http://www.jolt.co.uk/index.php?articleid=4368
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2...rangers-2.html
http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2...b5f8c193d97635
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/phpB...ic.php?t=14837

And trailer for the game is here:
http://www.excalibur-publishing.com/spacetr.htm