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Sorry to hear this game contains starforce

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 37
Date: August 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I had read great review of this and I purchased it from BestBuy, but I figured I better do a quick search to see what copy protection the game housed. I was very sad to learn that this game contains Starforce, so this means I will be making a trip back to BestBuy to return it. So sad publishers decide to use this copy protection.

mark

Game contains StarForce

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 17
Date: May 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was excited to play this game. I'd read great reviews of it and couldn't wait. I finally got it, installed it and it wouldn't run. After playing around with it and looking online I found that it uses the dreaded Starforce protection software. For those of you who don't know, this is a driver that is installed on your system without your consent that opens security holes and degrades performance of your CD Rom and DVD Rom drives. Don't believe me? Look it up and see.

Do Not Buy!!! Has Starforce, which damaged my DVD drive!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 22
Date: May 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I had purchased a new computer barely 8 months ago. One of the reasons was to play Silent Hunter 3. It is an HP Pavillion a1130n with dual DVD drives. I like to make compilation CDs from my CD collection and had made a couple after I purchased the computer. Everything worked great!

After a couple of months got around to installing and playing Silent Hunter 3, which I love. A few days later, tried installing another game on the regular DVD rom drive with no sucess. I was able to install the game with my writer drive, which took an abnormally long time. At the time I thought it was just the game.

Another week later I was making another compilation CD and it took literally almost 2 hours to burn the CD. Now I was concerned! I went to work to try and find what was wrong. After about a month it became clear that it was Starforce that was the problem. I can't tell you how angry I am!!! I feel like Starforce should pay for new drives for my computer.

Without thinking I purchased Space Rangers 2. Played it one day and liked the game very much. After a couple of days, I routinely check if Starforce was on my computer(having gone through the removal procedure previously with sucess) and low and behold Starforce was back! It is on Space Rangers 2!!!

I have learned my lesson. I no longer purchase a game until I know for sure it does not have Starforce. Not only has Starforce hurt the games that have it but I feel Starforce has hurt the industry as a whole

(edited June 26th 2006)
I have heard that there is or going to be a version that does not have Starforce. If this is true then I would whole-heartedly recommend Space Rangers 2. Please make sure you do not buy the version that has Starforce.

Star Force protected despite Bruce's comment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I purchased the game based on Bruce's assertion that Starforce had been removed. I don't know how he got a copy that didn't include Starforce but the version just delivered by Amazon does include it.

Hopefully Amazon will accept the return.

The more you play, the better it gets

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 85 / 86
Date: April 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

[last updated 11/03/06]: Note that Space Rangers 2 (SR2) is now available without copy protection [...] Instead, they use the same approach that they use for Galactic Civilizations II. I can only hope this means that updates for SR2 will be released.

By conventional wisdom, Space Rangers 2 (SR2) shouldn't be such a great game. After all, it contains a mixture of widely disparate game types:

-- 2-D turn-based space travel, including ship-to-ship combat;
-- 3-D ground-based real-time-strategy (RTS) combat among robots, with the ability to 'step into' one of your robots and control it personally;
-- 2-D 1980s arcade-style (real time) travel and combat set in a stylized "hyperspace" within a black hole;
-- text-based "choose your adventure"-style quests and challenges, some of which are quite tough.

All of this exists in a setting of sixty (60) star systems, with over 250 planets, space stations, and the like. You play a single character, of a given race (five available) and starting profession (also five available)--and you pretty much take it from there. There are another 50 or so non-player rangers zooming around the game universe in their own ships and pursuing their own paths and inclinations, as well as lots of traders, diplomats, pirates--and the dread Dominators.

And you know what? SR2 is a blast. In fact, as noted above, the longer you play, the more fun it gets. Part of that comes from increased personal skill; part comes from your character's development (not to mention your ship's development); and part comes from realizing that you're not in a "railroad game" (to use the term my friend Wayne Holder coined over 20 years ago), but that you really are free to choose any number of paths and find any number of approaches.

You can trade, gather asteroid fragments, explore planets (simple and a bit dull), hunt pirates, be a pirate, fight the robotic Dominators that are seeking to enslave humanity, or even try to get on their good side. You can trick out your ship, upgrade or swap out components, catch diseases, take various stimulants, pay for military campaigns against the Dominators, get loans, or even get a race-change operation (a good move if you've become too unpopular).

You're also free to suffer the consequences of what you do, which is why frequent game saves are a good idea. It's easy to die; it's not that hard to wipe yourself out financially; and it's even possible to get most of the known universe upset with you, as I did, inadvertanly in one game (the moral is, be careful when accepting a mission to track down and destroy another ship--some such missions are court-sanctioned, but others are simply political assassinations).

I have mixed feelings about the "choose your path" text adventures. On the one hand, it's a clever way of adding a great deal of varied content without having to come up with user interfaces to encompass situations as varied as being in prison, managing a ski resort, racing ground-based pods, competing in an interstellar (and trans-species) pizza contest, and so on. And you're never compelled to do them (except when you get thrown in prison), so you can avoid them if you wish.

On the other hand, I tend to approach new text adventures with a bit of wariness and weariness. Some can be relatively simple, but some can be quite difficult (though I have managed to eventually complete all the ones that I've actually started). And given how gorgeous the graphics are in the rest of the game, the simple sketches and text-based screens can be a bit of a letdown. On the whole, however, I'll take the content over the presentation, and I think SR2 is stronger for having these adventures in their current format than it would be if it lacked them entirely. Besides: they're a good fallback when you find yourself running low on cash and nobody wants you to carry some important object from one planet to another.

I find it interesting to compare SR2 with Microsoft's Freelancer. I had very high hopes for Freelancer and bought it as soon as it came out. Within a day, I had put it down again, and I haven't played it since. Freelancer had better eye candy and a more 'realistic' approach--but it felt far more like a railroad game than SR2 ever has. It is a classic example of the difference that good game design can make.

And that's what SR2 has plenty of: good game design. Trip Hawkins (formerly of EA and 3DO) famously said that a good game should be "simple, hot and deep." And that describes SR2. In spite of the variety of gaming styles--or, more likely, because of them--SR2 is addictive and fun.

SR2's greatest game design strength is, I think, the natural manner in which you can leverage yourself into having greater power and influence without ever losing the sense of your character being an individual. Natural (instead of arbitrary) tradeoffs keep you in line. You never command fleets; but if your leadership ability is sufficiently high, you can pay 1 to 6 other rangers to work for you for a while. While you can leverage up your ship and its components to take on the Dominators, you can still get killed if you get careless or overconfident--and there are still times you need to run away. Likewise, you may find yourself earning larger and larger sums for completing tasks and quests--but you may also find yourself spendings thousands or tens of thousands of credits in repairs and missile resupply after a single battle with pirates or Dominators.

Along those lines, your insystem-speed (including during regular space combat) is a function of the ship's size (carrying capacity) and the compnents and cargo inside. This means that a big, hulking ship, loaded with lots of weapons and other goodies, may be _more_ vulnerable than a smaller, less-equipped one, since the enemy can 'surround and pound' you. (With a fast enough ship, you can actually outrun missiles and torpedoes.)

Full disclosure: over 20 years ago, the abovementioned Wayne Holder and I designed and developed a real-time graphical space adventure game for the Apple II called "SunDog: Frozen Legacy". Needless to say, it was a constrained and primitive game, since it ran in 64KB of memory and fit (along with the operating system and all game data) on a double-sided floppy disk (280KB total). (Note: that's _kilobytes_, not megabytes or gigabytes.) Our vision was of a much richer and more complex game than we could possibly fit within those constraints.

SR2 encompasses everything that we did, attempted to do, or every wished we could do in SunDog, but with 21st century technology. It is for me such a delight, 22 years after SunDog shipped, to finally get to play the game that I have been carrying in my head for all this time.

==================
PROS (besides those cited above):

-- The game is rock-solid stable. In many, many hours of play, I've had SR2 crash exactly one, and it did so gracefully. This is in stark contrast to many other commercial releases (Civ4, GalCiv2, Battle for Middle Earth II, etc.). In fact, SR2 is very robust when dealing with external interruptions; twice I've had my system drop back into WinXP due to some kind of alert box from another application (unrelated to SR2); each time, the SR2 bar at the bottom of the screen change to read "Click here", and when I did (after handling the alert box), I found myself right back in SR2 where I left off.

-- SR2 does an automatic autosave every time you lift off a planet (overwriting the previous autosave). As noted, you can save your own games as often as you'd like (but: see below under Cons).

-- The user interface is very slick, very attractive, very fast, and works very well. Likewise, the graphics and music make the game very enjoyable.

-- For most actions, SR2 gives you a choice between automated and user-controlled.

-- The ground-based robot RTS battles are quite fun; the ability to take over and directly control one of your units (with a ground-based view) makes them even more so and opens the door to some more intelligent strategies.

-- E-Games/Cinemaware Marquee (the US producer/distributor) provided very useful support when I had a problem with one of the CDs on my original copy (and simply swapped out my copy for a new one). (Thanks, Nicholas!)

CONS (besides those cited above):

-- As noted elsewhere here, SR2 uses the controversial Starforce copy protection system, though I've had indications from the manufacturer that they plan to replace it.

-- SR2 was developed in Russia (and in Russian); some of the text translations are a bit obscure or confusing, though at times that simply adds to the sense of speaking with an alien whose grasp of human languages might be weak. While in prison, I did find one screen of text entirely in untranslated Russian, but it's not a critical screen.

-- The more games you have saved, the longer the save/load game panel takes to come up (though it always has eventually come up). Since I tend to save games often, this can be an annoyance. My solution is simply to delete saved games more often.

-- You can't save games at all while doing one of the ground-based robot RTS battles or during one of your text adventures. However, both of those environments give you the option of restarting should you lose or fail.

-- There are only two graphics resolutions supported in most of the game: 1024x768 and 800x600. (This is probably one of the reasons why the game is so stable.) However, the ground-based robot RTS subgame also supports 1280x1024--and SR2 will automatically switch back and forth between that resolution and whatever your chosen resolution is for the rest of the game. That actually strikes me as a point of possible instability, and so I keep the robots at 1024x768 as well. But I'd like to see the rest of the game suport 1280x1024 as well.

-- Apparently a 1.3 patch exists, with various fixes and enhancements--but it exists only in Russian, and it's unclear if/when it will be availble for the English version.

========================================
A few tips for new players:

-- Save early and often (but delete old saved games on a regular basis).

-- On your internal ship layout display (or on the icon layout of a ship's hull that you're considering buying), there may be a little button (bulge on the icon) on the upper left side, right next to the engine slot. This is an afterburner button; when pressed, it will cause your engine to move your ship at twice its regular (in-system) speed during your next move, at the cost of some accumulated damage to your engine. That button is your friend; get to know it well. If your ship doesn't have one, consider buying a hull that does.

-- When buying ship's components, look carefully at the size. Two components with the same function and quality may have quite different sizes. In one game, I replaced my initial radar and gripper components with other that did the exact same function but occupied 40 units less of space (freeing the space up for trade goods, other components)--all for only 1000 credits.

-- Get to know all the different types of space stations and what you can do at each.

-- In particular, once you have some cash to spare, consider going to a scientific station and having them upgrade selected ship components. Be sure to pay top dollar; if you're going to spend the money, you might as well do it right.

-- Avoid large loans from the business stations; as in real life, if you miss your initial payoff, the interest and penalty mount up very quickly.

-- For the robot RTS game, one poster on an SR2 forum summed it up nicely: advance and hold. Capture one production station at a time, then move up robots to guard it while to attempt to capture the next one. Lure their forces into yours; don't rush out to attack.

-- In the space game, a fast engine, long jump capability, large fuel tank, and strong radar make all the difference.

-- I prefer to fill my weapons bays mostly with missile launchers. This allows me to fire without getting too close to the enemy, and there are few things more satisfying than watching dozens of my missiles hit an enemy ship in quick succession.

-- Save your game and then try something new or different: dive into a black hole, try a quest that you're not sure about, accept charge of an RTS robot battle. In short, experiment and have fun.

If you like addictive "just one more mission" space sims, you've found it here

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: April 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Space Rangers 2 is an RPG, stats and all, that plays out a lot like Sid Meier's Pirates! in a space setting. It borrows elements from old school games in the genre like StarFlight and Star Control and updates the experience with more accessible gameplay, better graphics, and a myriad of new gameplay options.

One of the first things you realize when you first jump into this game is that it creates a dynamic world where hundreds of NPC ships go about their buisness and planets go through cycles of growth, decline and political change. Battles are fought and ships are destroyed even when you aren't in the area of interest, so you get the sense that things are happening in areas far from your own current position. And because the game randomly generates the star map at the start of each game, there is a sense of discovery - and high replay value - in each jump to a new system.

Like Sid Meier's game, Space Rangers 2 offers serves up several different game engine concepts, all of which mesh well together. There is the primary space flight engine, which allows for trade, combat, and exploration on an enormous 2-D map featuring dozens of star systems across numerous sectors. Everything here is turn-based, so you can pause and issue commands whenever you need to. You can also take on wingmen, engage in piracy, escort liners, seek out bounties, or even mine asteroids if you so need to.

The other game modes are quite varied, moreso than can be listed here. There is a land-based RTS-style engine that lets you duke it out with robots. There is an arcade-style shooter mode that you can optionally engage in while in hyperspace. There is the well-realized trading engine, which allows purchase and sale of goods across different planets with their own fluctuating economies. And those of the truly old-school will appreciate the dozen or so text-based missions that can optionally be selected as well - these are Choose Your Own Adventure-style missions that are a lot more fun than I thought they would be.

There is also a sort of strategy element to the overall game - Space Rangers 2 is played out in the context of a larger galactic war where two different groups are vying for control of various star systems, and you can choose to enter that fray, helping to liberate occupied systems. You can also help finance and even operate bases in star systems to bolster their defense.

The great thing about this game, too, is that there are clearly-identifiable goals, even within the non-linear structure. The game has a working plot, which you can advance in whatever way you want. The game also keeps a score of your accomplishments and compares it to other NPCs, which is a useful benchmark for your progress. This progress, though, can be effected in a variety of ways, from physical force to bribery.

Presentation-wise, the game won't win any awards but it is respectable. The game is pretty - the artwork for planets and races are quite nice - but the space travel is rendered in 2-D, so fans of the recent 3-D sims should take note. The music is varied and is ambient without being annoying. There is no voicework and there are some minor textual errors in translation (the game was originally Russian), but in general the localization is pretty good.

One other note: this version of Space Rangers 2 comes with two added bonuses - Space Rangers 1 and a nice-sized poster. The first Space Rangers is a good game in its own right and helps set up the storyline for the second game. Between the two games, and the high replay value of each, this package is highly recommended to anyone who likes RPGs and/or space sims.

haven't had so much fun since Ultima

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 14
Date: September 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Unlike the other games of this gener or any other or of games which have been rehashes of old games but "dumbed down" for retarded people, this is truely a game of old. Though the graphics are sleek and the animation slick and realsitic. Many people knock this for being "boring" so why aren't they out with thier jet-set freinds instead of holing up playing nerdy games? Although the box tells of "what's new" being a better score of muzak and graphics what really stands out is that the learning curve to play it has been narrowed, yet you still have to learn. The planet exploratin is not much but what there is is fun and entertaining. The Text-based adventures on the planets are only appriciated by those who played text games in school growning up so don't even bother if you hate them. Some planetside missoins are only probing a planet for resorces and can be rewarding as well as nice to land on. The howling wind and pretty backdrops are a nice touch in a pinch some even have a special muzak theme. Then back to battle. Dispite the cheezy title "Space Rangers and the Dominators" indeed , thae game is anything but, and reminds us not to judge a game by the box(open or closed). The "Battles" are not in a pilot seat, thouhg I would have preferred that option, they are in third person but still fun if you like the Orcish stradegy games or "Orion". The most interesting part, like most people on here say, is the robots and planet reasorce gatheringa. I heard of it before purchaseing and thought "oh another "total anhilation clone" but it is less and more. The robot battles are entertaining and you can create different parts and configs as well as programs. You are only limited to "Conquere" Attack" And "defense" and I would have liked a custom script but you can later configure more body parts for this. The reasorces are not just for the planet you battle for but your own reserve for future endevors both in space and on planets. This is why it is so much more than just a strategy game like "warcarft" but less in simplicity but you have everything and just the right amount of "every" thinmg. Money is not the only requirement for ship opperations eiether, you can exploit uninhabbited worlds but you don't just go down to a planet to put your robots to work, you havev to contract with the governments for a job then and only then can you refine more than just the "trash" from wreckted space ships. Astaroids are the way to get quick minerals but no mining option, you just blow it up and dig your "hand" icon to your ship. But it's a hybrid game and only experimental and a good job for the first one, at that.
The races again, Unlike most retarded programmers choices, are all good and bad choices no race is "better" and all are diverse in the way they do thinngs, but none of the "you could do it just as easily with gold and a human" attitude as in Baldur's friggen Gate or something. Some planets are not suitable for certain races to even land on. If you have hostile retlations you can be tried and go to prison and even it is interesting becasue, agian a text adventure on planetside. A human may survive any conflict, though not too well, while other races will have an easiter or harder time in certain key quests. In pirson you have to be tough and cleaver the best race is the Malog for shere brutalaty and respect to quickly revolt but you won't do much once you do escape becasue thees creatures are inferior in space travel but thier are key abilities only avilible to them. the Pelendgs are anphibius and can breathe air, water, and even poison and any planet is suitible for exploration by these beiings they are reasorce scavengers. Feayens are feeble even by human standards(much like Ylla and Mr. Kie of the Martian chronicles I assume) they are totally out of element on a planetside mission but exceptionally well suited for space travel and dipolmacy as well as science and tech dev. They also have mental powers. Gaalins are another resource hog race and very diplomatic and relatable to every government. They make excellent leaders. I will not go into the "Domintaors" other than they are "better" than ANY other and you cannot be them. I chose a "custom" difficultiy but only make THEM the hard setting and every one else "normal." This is also a good choice making element. The game is all about choice and choice developement so get it now!

Oh the #2 uses "Starforce" so be wary. In theory they fixed a few things but I doubt much as they are very "evil galactic empirish" and it is only a "theory" and confirmed by no one as of yet. The four star over all is ONLY because of this. My PC runs well but yours may not.

Massive Game World

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: June 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is unbelievably huge. The only problem is what do you do when you are dropped in the middle of a massive world like this without any specific plan? Makes it tough. Yes, there are thousands of missions. There is lots to do, it just picking what you should do. It's almost too much. But I love it regardless.

a surprisingly deep and engrossing space-oriented action/strategy game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: June 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While it takes a little while to understand all the ins and outs of gameplay, the basic gist is that you're a Space Ranger, and your ultimate goal is to rid the galaxy of a race of invading cyborgs. Along the way, you might get caught up in a ground-based robotic assault mission, with first person shooter aspects, or an old timey text adventure, complete with logic puzzles, or even arcade style shoot-em-up action inside the depths of a black hole.

You choose your race (which will affect how other races treat you) and your occupation -- from mercenary to merchant to pirate. There are hundreds of other computer-controlled ships in the galaxy, all with their own agenda, who you can either compete for space debris, enlist as your underlings, or extort or kill. It's almost like a MMO without the obnoxious 12 year olds or monthly fees.

It's in the vein of Civilization, Warcraft, or Alpha Centauri, but I'm thinking that the variations and personality it has makes it better than those three. And at a bargain price of less than $30 (with the bonus of the first Space Rangers game included ... which I haven't even booted), you really can't go wrong.

(One downside -- the game is protected with the controversial Star Force copy protection program. I haven't noticed any of the negatives I've heard about this program, but it bears acknowledging before you try and buy it.)

Best game since Fallout 2!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 23
Date: June 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Rarely do I give 5 stars in both categories!!! In fact, I've critiqued so many PC games negatively on Amazon, that I felt obligated to give credit where it's due.

I've been a gamer since the C-64 days and I have a PC game collection that dates back to the late 80's. Since I've played dozens of RPG/Stragegy games I'm qualified to say that this is one of the best PC games of all time. Probably the best since Fallout 2. I've heard comparisons between Star Control 2 and this game before I bought it, however I wouldn't have ever believed that these comparisons could be accurate. I was completely stunned! The game is highly engaging, addictive and you shouldn't play it at night unless you want to be up until 5 AM!

While this is less of a RPG than Star Control 2, it does have the same "feel" to it in both the interface and plot. You can control the building and movement of your ship as you could in SC2. You can trade, take on quests (in TEXT format, but crafted so well you won't care), and fight on the ground (Mech Commander style) or in space. It seems that the designers of this game have taken the best elements from almost every significant PC game since Zork.

However, the thing that makes this game unique from SC 2 is its very open-ended structure and the fact that there's a variety of different ways to enjoy it. The game can go on for several weeks before you defeat the final opponents and, if you're a hard-core gamer, you probably wont want to end anyway until you've explored every last nook and cranny of the huge (HUGE Gigantic Tremendous)galaxy that these game designers have invented.

Anyway, this game is truly a work of art. The text quests are truly impresive I also haved to warn people that I think it's of Russian (or Balkan) design. Sometimes the translation of the text quests is sloppy, but never sloppy enough to affect the completion of the quests. I suppose that the lame movie at the beginning will also fluster some potential players. My advice is to skip the opening movie and go straight for the game. Make sure to have plenty late-night snacks.

I want Star Rangers 3 now badly, however, I wonder if the world has a high enough IQ for a game like that?

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