Review 1
Purchased!
A significant step back from the original game.
Three main steps back for me is:
1) The default gun can no longer be rotated. This is a huge con because the
original level designs relied heavily on adapting your ship and gun arrangement.
Now that guns can't be rotated, you basically have to play multiple times to
learn where to target your guns before ever seeing the threat. This changes the
challenge from one of quick-paced adaptation to rote memorization of the
intended solution.
2) The power generators have been split into three different "upgrade" modules.
This feels meanspirited.
3) The game is much, much grindier. Instead of buying a gun once and being able
to place as many of them as the ship allows, you now have to buy each individual
gun (and destructing/losing a gun to damage counts against the total, making
each loss a permanent loss). This further degrades the player's ability to adapt
mid-mission but instead encourages grinding out enough parts and cash to build
up an adequate stock of spare guns.
Review 2
Purchased!
just play the first Space Run. they went WAY too far into the online aspects for
this game. i didnt even know they made a 2nd Space Run so i bought this
immediately thinking it would be more of the same/similar of the first game. i'm
glad it was on a deep sale so i didn't have to pay full price to find out this
version of Space Run just isn't it. having such an emphasis on online
interactions seems very shortsighted for this type of game considering the
obvious issue of dwindling online populations as the game ages.
likes
* others mention the grind, personally i love grindy games and progression
systems. this one checked that box for me very well
* the world/galaxy is expanded much more vs the first game
mixed
* the actual gameplay is similar to the first except you have a limited stock
of how many towers you can build in a run. the stock resets every run so
they're not actually consumed. part of the progression is crafting more
towers so you have larger stocks per mission. a distinct change from the
first game. missions seemed much more challenging with this system
dislikes
* the online aspect. this is my primary dislike of the game because so much of
the game systems seemed to be balanced around utilizing the online aspects.
this very much soured my experience in what should be a single player game.
* you earn random crafting materials by doing missions, but the materials
aren't just a currency like your space credits. they're actual objects that
sit at a planet. this introduces a logistical issue because certain planets
can only craft certain things. in order to move your crafting materials to
the planet where they're needed, you must do a mission to transport them.
this is where the online play comes in. you can post a "contract" for other
players to move your materials for you. so if you stick to just single player
or there is no one online, then now you're no longer doing missions. you're
moving your own materials between planets for 0 reward unless you can also
fit cargo for an actual mission. you are given busy work. this was the moment
i realized i would not enjoy this game.
* ship layouts are somewhat customizable. instead of having a set ship layout
per mission like the first, there are many base designs that you can purchase
and expand to predefined limits by crafting cells. for me, all this did was
trade out the puzzle aspect of a mission for an inferior system.
* online-only achievements. beyond infuriating for this kind of game
* the "waves" in missions seem to be randomized now. i very much prefer
planning and optimizing with the right towers in the right place rather than
just reacting to whats going on and trying to keep up.