Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Makes up in style what it lacks in depth.
The boundless promise of space exploration is a precarious asteroid field for a developer to navigate. It takes the luxuries of time and funding for galaxies like those of Elite Dangerous or No Man’s Sky to reach their potential. But if you’re an indie developer bereft of those resources, then it’s vital to know your limits – to condense the cosmos into something manageable, lest your game get swallowed up by its seductive vastness.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw knows its limits, restricting its galaxy to 40-odd solar systems named after cities in the US. Its guitar-twanging rock soundtrack and vibrant colours give it the tone of a punky western. It’s thrifty where it needs to be, and does a commendable job of embellishing its relatively rote gameplay loop with presentational swagger.
Driving the game’s spunky spirit is the protagonist Juno, a tough vagabond on the trail of the people who killed her husband and tried to knock her off too. You gain most of your intel by chatting with the patrons of bars dotted around the various space stations of the cosmos.
There’s a pleasing air of shadiness about these haunts as everyone seems to know something for the right price, and there are mini-games such as pool, slots and arcade machines that you can kick back with after an expedition into not-so-deep space. Unfortunately, you don’t get to walk around the bars and stations, instead interacting only through menus and in-game cutscenes. This is an indie game, lest you forget.
Things get tough out there in the coruscating cosmos. It may look like a neon-tinged music video set in the Guardians Of The Galaxy universe, but it can be unforgiving, and I find myself dying often in my ungainly cargo container of a starting ship.
Combat sticks within the norm of dogfighting space sims, with a few well-advised convenience controls and snippets of flair raising it a little bit beyond the mean. You have the usual assortment of blippy lasers and blasty missiles, but one of the better features is auto-follow, activated by holding the left trigger. Not only is this great for orientation, but turn up your thrusters and you can really get up close to enemy ships, chasing them down as you dart between clusters of space debris and freighters.
The structure of missions will also be familiar to those who have played other space sims. You chat to bar patrons or go to mission boards, and take on a variety of reconnaissance, combat, and delivery expeditions.
The main story quest is a slightly more verbose twist on the above, as you get pulled into a plot of corporate greed and underhand dealings, but the writing doesn’t quite invest you in it.
SPACE TRUCKERS
There are hints that you can play Rebel Galaxy Outlaw as a plucky trading vessel, with a dynamic fluctuating market that lets you trade goods, as well as the higher-risk activity of ferrying counterfeit goods to those willing to buy them. But realistically, you’ll spend the bulk of your spacefaring in combat. This can get a little repetitive, but with the carrot of ship upgrades and better weapons dangling over you, it offers enough incentive to keep pushing on.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw lives up to its name among space sims. It’s spirited, good-looking and vibrant, effectively spraying several cans of blue and pink graffiti over the existing space sim template you’re used to.