Starpoint Gemini - Now Available
 

Starpoint Gemini has been released on GamersGate (thanks Michi), though I'd suggest holding off for the moment because there appears to be a versioning issue, with players (including myself) reporting crashes and some debug commands are still active. LGM are investigating and we'll let you know any further news.
More information.

Whenever folks do get this, if you could please post whether they implemented an active-pause feature, as one of the devs said they would in his interview with the Watch, I'd appreciate it.

doh, I just downloaded the game without looking here first.

Well, at least I should be able to play the tutorial. ;)

I am interested to hear how this is.
I had fun with Star Wolves 3, Darkstar One and Elite Frontier way back when. I could never get in to the X's though.

For fraks shake !

DRM: SecuROM

Let's hear how it is ;)

From what I've seen, and the little bit that I've played, I think the X series is amazing. The only negative is how huge and time consuming they are. Once you start playing them, you don't have time for much else.

I'm interested in hearing how Starpoint Gemini compares.

I kinda of think of the X series as an atmospheric way of running a business, without actually being able to spend the money on anything fun ;)

Come on dude , you can confiscate sectors , destroy races or cause havoc all over the place with enough destroyers.

The X games would be even better to me if they focused more on exploration, and less on economics.

Is there anything unique to find, though? I mostly played the first one - and some of the third.

To me, it seemed vast and beautiful - but without truly unique content, like strange planets or interesting space stations.

If there's some content worth finding, i'd definitely give it another go.

That's what I mean. There's no real incentive to explore, other than for economic purposes.

Teladi wish you good profit. Economics is the whole point of the X series and I blame the Teladi for that…

From the little I played of Starpoint Gemini (the tutorial), making money will be essential at first, but not for becoming rich. Crew members, ships and ship modules are expensive.

It also play differently then the other space sim, here the ship is the "character", it got abilities, HP, lots of stats actually (but not like Darkstar One). Also, the battles looks closer to what you see in the Star Trek movies…and I hate those energy weapons that kills my shields!!!!!!!!

Thanks azarhal for the update. I was wondering about this game. I already know I hate X, but this one looks interesting.

Is it anything at all like Space Rangers 2?

It's much closer to something like DarkStar One.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wil6WC0ZQC0

Thanks JDR, It looks nice. I did like Darkstar One for a while, but then it just dragged on. Never finished it.

This though looks good. Too bad no TB battles. Was hoping for a Space Rangers like game, but it's bee awhile since I played a good flight sim game. Last one I played I believe was that one with that Bruce Campell in it, Tachyon The Fringe. Rather liked that game and his wit made a lot of boring sequences a lot less boring :)

I never played Space Rangers 2, but the trailer (see JDR13's post) shows what it looks like, but it doesn't express the feeling of the gameplay. Kind of hard to describe, actually. It's not like Darkstar One, there's a lot more strategy involved in SG. The best description would be that you do not control the ship, you give commands to the ship crew.

Right now, with only the tutorial, it feel like playing a TB game, but without turns (or pause, I didn't check to see if they added it). You can't "click, click, click" to attack, weapons have recharge times and you also need to watch the shields. In the tutorial, on normal, one of the "target" you need to take down can drop one of your shield in one hit. Which force you to turn around to have another side facing the "target" or get hull damage (you need to dock at a station to get it repaired).

I do need to play more to have a real opinion, but it does have promising features. What I like so far:
- Stats. Probably too many of them, but I love it.
- Controls. I still need to get used to some of them, but I do like them. They will require practice though. different from what I'm used to play.
- Dice rolls (on weapon damage at least) with critical hits.
- Mining/transport/boarding => Sending your crew to do stuff.

And Tachyon is awesome, I love that game. If you use the "godmode" cheat, Bruce call you on it…lol.

Just to let people know, over at the spacesimcentral, the LGM folks seems to have figured out what happened with the crashes, and it seems to be the DRM. They uploaded their own exe file (one not tampered with by the GG) over there, I downloaded it, and it now works:). GG will fix the problem soon I guess. Seems like a niiice hours are coming my way :)

See the news update for links and details.

It isn't really like DarkStar One, which implies (to me) a full "flying" experience. This is more like Space Rangers with space treated as 2D (despite the 3D graphics). It doesn't have the kooky factor and trades the simple TB combat for realtime but with more options (like targeting specific ship systems).

Haven't played enough because of the issues to comment further.