Galaxy on Fire 2
Review
Into the Void
by William Thompson
reviewed on PC
Piloting the ship
Controlling the spacecraft is quite simple, once you get used to the movement being opposite to a regular flight sim. Moving the mouse left and right does just what you would expect, but moving the mouse up unexpectedly resulted in the nose of the spacecraft moving up too. Maybe, I’m just used to flying a plane where the moving the stick forward makes the plane head towards the Earth. But once you get used to the movement, your spacecraft is simple to pilot. Flying around within the star systems is an enjoyable experience, moving between the space station and your current goal, whether it is pirates, enemy factions or asteroids for mining.
Planets and Stars
Galaxy on Fire 2 has some stunning background visuals. The space galaxies are beautifully designed, with shining stars, beautiful planets and flashes of coloured space dust. Even nicer are the effects when you move around a planet or large asteroid with the local sun appearing, temporarily blinding you with its light. The spacecraft and space stations - both inside and out - are quite detailed too, giving an authentic feel to the surroundings. The floating asteroids look fairly good too, although at times they do look out of place as you ply past. The only real issue I had with the visuals was with the character models. They look almost cartoonish, not fitting in at all with the remainder of the game. And for the limited amount of characters in the game, a little more detail could have been included.
Audio though is quite complete. The background music can be dramatic and at time, haunting, further enhancing the importance of the larger scale battles. You certainly get the feeling that there is something important at stake whenever a battle begins. Once the battle begins the sound effects on show are fairly standard, with the usual weapons firing sound effects and the sound of spacecraft flying past. Although the sound effects are fairly average, the fully voiced dialogue is outstanding. Although the dialogue is written as text on screen, and at times can be quite cheesy it is all superbly voiced, with each character given a different accent.
Fun, but not like Tie Fighter
Overall, Galaxy on Fire 2 does the important thing well, and that is making the space combat enjoyable. Shooting down enemy Void spacecraft or bothersome pirates is a heap of fun. The other mini-games such as clearing debris and mining asteroids are not as exiting but can be rather profitable which can be important when upgrading your ship or improving weapons. The controls are simple, with nearly everything controlled by the mouse. The keyboard controls can also be modified to suit the gamer’s preferences. The only major issue is with the travelling between star systems which, when you need to go from one side of the galaxy to another can be extremely tedious and takes some of the fun away from the game. The visuals are beautiful, the audio more than adequate and whilst the main story flows nicely it didn’t draw me into it like the aforementioned Tie Fighter – though my love of Star Wars may bias me somewhat. But if you’re looking for a simple space fighter game, then you could do worse than Galaxy on Fire 2.
6.1
fun score
Pros
Stunning visuals, full voice acting and enjoyable space combat
Cons
Travelling between star systems is mundane.
