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digitec plays "Rage 2": Switch off your brain, load up and have fun
by Philipp Rüegg
digitec plays "Rebel Galaxy Outlaw"
14.8.2019
Translation: machine translated
Explosive space duels, 90s space sim romance and over 20 hours of rocking soundtrack. Fasten your seatbelts, Simon and I will show you what space is all about. The livestream starts at 1pm.
Hot space duels, 90s space sim romance and over 20 hours of rocking soundtrack. Fasten your seatbelts, Simon and I will show you what space is all about. The livestream starts at 1 pm.
Space sims were booming in the 90s. "Wing Commander", "Freelancer" and "Homeworld" dominated the digital space world. "Rebel Galaxy Outlaw" attempts to reawaken the feeling of these classics.
You play the pilot Juno Markev, who is looking for her husband's murderer and has to deal with all sorts of dodgy fellows. Unfortunately, her own spaceship dies right at the start of the game. She therefore has to make do with a converted rubbish transporter, which makes every space pirate laugh.
Action galore
Unlike in its predecessor "Rebel Galaxy", you no longer command huge cruisers, but fire directly from the Cockpit from full guns. On your adventure, you will travel to numerous star systems. On space stations, you can upgrade your spaceship, accept missions or ask the barman for information in the bar. There are even various mini-games such as billiards, slot machines with "Asteroids" clones, dice games and more.
You can equip your rust bucket with better weapons, shields and all kinds of other accessories such as a tractor projector. It is important to keep an eye on the reactor utilisation. Although energy weapons have a lot of umpf, they overheat faster than projectile weapons. The right balance is crucial.
If you have saved enough credits, you can also buy a new flying machine. There are freighters and fighters. Some have more firepower, others have more space for loot. Although the number of different spaceships is somewhat meagre, the designs are really sleek. Especially if you play in Cockpit view. You can even decorate it with postcards and figurines. But even if, like me, you prefer to play with the outside view, you'll benefit from a fresh interface. On top of that, you can customise the look of your speedsters in a kind of Photoshop Light and even create a 3D print template.
Little variety but still a lot of fun
The missions in "Rebel Galaxy Outlaw" are unfortunately not particularly varied. They mostly consist of flying somewhere and shooting down a few enemies, scanning a black box or collecting some kind of item. Despite this, I haven't grown tired of the game yet, even if the first signs of wear and tear are becoming noticeable. The space battles are really tough. I'm playing on "Normal", which is the easiest difficulty level. Even then, a lot is demanded of you.
It crashes and rumbles at every turn. It takes a little patience at first to familiarise yourself with the controls. I tested mouse and keyboard, joystick and gamepad and ended up sticking with the latter. As the buttons are assigned multiple times, there is a lot to learn. There is no real tutorial. After a short period of familiarisation, however, it's a lot of fun to get a group of cheeky pirates all worked up and blow up their spaceships in spectacular fashion.
But the action is only half the battle. "Rebel Galaxy Outlaw" is a homage to the classics of the genre through and through. When you dock at a space station or a pilot radios you, you receive a wonderfully poorly resolved video message to which you can even reply - for example with your middle finger. The various areas of a space station with their semi-static backgrounds could also be straight out of "Wing Commander" - except that the resolution is no longer VGA. The entire design, from the spaceships to the outer space to the character models, exudes the charm of a pixelated space sim from the 90s. "Rebel Galaxy Outlaw" looks just like the classics looked in our nostalgia-fogged memories. Really cool.
The highlight, however, which always reminds me of cult TV series such as "Firefly" or "Cowboy Bebop", is the soundtrack. 400 songs ranging from the finest trucker rock to blues and electro. "Rebel Galaxy Outlaw" is a real space western.
"Rebel Galaxy Outlaw" was provided to us by Double Damage. The game is available in the Epic Store.
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Philipp Rüegg
Senior Editor
Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.chBeing the game and gadget geek that I am, working at digitec and Galaxus makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop – but it does take its toll on my wallet. I enjoy tinkering with my PC in Tim Taylor fashion and talking about games on my podcast http://www.onemorelevel.ch. To satisfy my need for speed, I get on my full suspension mountain bike and set out to find some nice trails. My thirst for culture is quenched by deep conversations over a couple of cold ones at the mostly frustrating games of FC Winterthur.
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