This is an okay game, but it feels off. It is functional, but the universe, and indeed the actual systems and environment around the player seem desolate and dead while it quite obviously does not seem that way.

It is a grindy RPG in which the more money one loots or mines gets the player better ships and weapons. It really feels like it was designed as a MMORPG that was forced to be a single player game.

the game is very static and repetitive. you fly a spaceship in a 3rd person perspective through static solar systems and battle pirates and do some missions. key element is to earn money and upgrade your ship (or buy a better one). but this is rather difficult as most higher level items are spread widely in the galaxy and you travel alot to find them at a station. and often you lack money so you cant/shouldnt buy everything you may need somewhen. so upgrading your ship is a bit tedious and annoying.

the missions are very repetitive and dont even make much fun in the first run.

when it comes to battle your tactical possibilities are target modules of enemy ship (engines, weapons), enter the ship with troopers and maneuver around it to face it weapons and shields. the imo best way to earn money is to search for smaller pirate ships shoot it and then send troopers to capture it and then drag it to a station with a tractor beam and sell it there. there is also a very annoying bug involved when you capture a ship other allies continue to fire on it until it gets destroyed. they do not recognize that its yours now so you always only capture ships when you are alone. another bug was that i hang in a station and could neither dock nor fly away. so save often in any case (especially before battle).

the story was not very thrilling until where i played and i did side missions for upgrading my ship most time (to be competitive). so you are free to choose what you do.

you can also mine asteroids but its not worth the time.

so basically gameplay is grinding money for better ships. take a list of modules and ships from the net (and where to find them) so you can at least plan your upgrades a bit ahaed.

with a bit more work, effort and love this game could be good. but in the current state i think its only mean. if you like spaceship simulations you can try a look for this price. but its not must have.

While most games of the space adventure ilk offer the same possibilities, Starpoint Gemini takes things a step further by offering thirty-eight skills and eighteen perks earned through experience (and officers you can hire for additional skills), along with twenty-one special abilities spread across fifty ships. This amount of variety is fantastic, allowing you to forge any path of your liking. Missions are also varied, providing your primary source of income in the game since the trade interface leaves room for improvement. Tactical combat is quite enjoyable: the combination of weapon arcs, shield orientations, maneuvers, and special abilities makes for fun, challenging battles against the adept AI

This is a great game if you love to explore a galaxy with a ship, enter combat, find artifacts, tow ships to sell, mine various ores, even buy and sell items at star bases (although I don't see too much profit in this unless you really know where to buy and sell). Very addictive, one of those "just one more turn" type games where it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you have to work at 6. Low learning curve, and one where you don't have to have extreme reflexes in order to play it. I like the pace of it, relaxing and enjoyable. Only con is the voice acting has quite the accent but don't let that throw you off from buying it.

This game is absolutely terrible in every way. The graphics are at least 10 years old, the sound is awful. Voice acting is poor.

Gameplay is garbage. You play in space...oh but the universe is a 2D world. You control a ship which you view in third person. You turn your ship by clicking on the screen. No WASD, no stick or controller support. You cannot map left and right turns to any keys because there is no option to map left and right turning. You must click on the screen to turn.

Combat is so amazingly boring. Basically, sit still and fire at targets as they zip around in circles in front of you. While waiting for your weapons to recharge, turn your ship so that your strongest shield facing is pointed at the enemy/enemies. Firing arcs are not customizable.

Ship customization is minimal. There is also a problem with weapon slots. Each slot takes a certain class level of weapon (1, 2, 3, etc.). However, often times you cannot place a weapon in corresponding slots! There is no explanation why.

Ship purchases are very annoying because you do not get a preview of the ship (how many weapon slots, what classes are the slots, what are the firing arcs). When you try to buy a ship or a component for your ship, the item will show a "value". This is NOT the cost of the item. You can only find out the cost of the item when you choose to buy it. The cost is always higher than the value. You cannot barter.

I can go on, but in short, there is absolutely nothing this game does right. This game is not like Freelancer at all, it is inferior even to the very poor quality X-universe games. I strongly recommend saving your money.

This was a fantastic, fast-paced game with nice graphics, good music (Though the voice acting was AWFUL and I turned it off after a little while) and great combat. At least until after about 8 hours of play I had a fully fitted out and upgraded Dreadnought and completely ran out of things to do.

This is my one major complaint in an otherwise great game: its very easy to simply run out of things to do. Essentially the meat of the game is trying to outfit your ideal ship, which is extremely fun. The problem is there really isn't anything else to do. Certainly you can explore other sectors and run missions still, but with all the sectors being very similar and the fact that after you have your ship fitted you don't need money for anything other than the occasional repair, even this will only keep you occupied for so long.

A slightly smaller complaint of mine is that small ships are pretty much worthless in larger fights, since speed doesn't really help you avoid getting hit at all, unless you have the turret angles memorized on every enemy ship and can navigate into their dead-zones(don't get ideas; against anything larger than a destroyer this is impossible). And finally, you can only target one enemy at a time, so while your dreadnought may be bristling with guns, you can only use a few of them at a time, which leads to an awkward spinning of your ship to try and use more guns.

I would really love to see a mod or an expansion that allows for you as the player to take over systems and build a fleet. Until then, though, this game is a 4/5.

I have been looking for a game like this for some time, and this game pretty much satisfies the majority of my needs when it comes to this kind of game. The game has an interesting storyline, and I really like the way that it has implemented capital ship combat. I really feel like I'm the captain of a large ship, in charge of the lives of an entire crew and fleet.

I also enjoyed the graphics of the game. Although the game is really more of a 2 1/2D instead of a full 3D game, the graphics instill a feeling of being in deep space. The asteroid fields are dense, and the nebulas are fun to navigate through. Be aware though, that the nebula effects will require that you have a better than average video card. On my old computer, it had issues rendering the scenes and the movement became choppy, but my current computer has no issues at all.

Having said that, I felt that in the beginning of the game, there is a huge learning curve to be surmounted as you struggle to gain your first ship. Essentially, since you start the game with a massively underpowered ship, you are at a huge disadvantage against raiders. This makes the game harder because the raiders in the beginning are able to take down your shields in a single shot. However, your ship is fast, so it is possible to run away from such sticky situations.

Also, the voice acting in this game is abysmal. This is the first game in which I have actually turned off the voice over so that I could instead read all of the dialogue. It was just that bad.

Still, despite these flaws, I really enjoyed the game, and I see myself re-playing it often. I love a good space game, and this one hit all of my sweet spots when it comes to that.

I've played the first part of the campaign and here is my impression of the game so far, be it that i have played many of these games so my review can be a little hard on it;

While the game in general is unique, and some aspects of the game you don't generally see anywhere else, i did lose part of my taste for it. While i like the missions and the quick combat, there are aspects where it can be improved. For instance, while the combat system is quick (i like it) i find the quality is not so good. Targeting ships (manually especially) is a pain in the neck. Shield strength is a little diminished, considering the necessity of them. It is challenging, don't get me wrong.

Next, I found the trading module to be decent. There are a few things a first time player can forget and not see, such as ship slots being limited to higher-level weapons.

Then there is the issues of graphics and bugs. The Nebula's can be extremely consuming, unless you have a very recent video card. There are also visible bugs in the game, one of which can be exploited while the others work against you. Almost annoying considering the several patches over months.

Overall, i give this game a 3.5.

After playing for a few hours, what this game most reminds me of (other than the already mentioned Starfleet Command 3) is the old Strategy First game Star Fury. It plays almost exactly the same. Ships are confined to a 2d plane (no Z axis) and weapons have firing arcs dependent on the ship model. Unlike Star Fury, planets seem to be in the background and are huge and nicely detailed. The nebula backdrops are bright and colorful. Ship models look dated but they are still nice and functional. Most models are very simplistic but I have seen some pretty neat ones flying around. Upgrading your ship to be bigger and better is the meat of the game and there are plenty of quests and looting to be done. I haven't played around with the perk/ability system much but most of them seem pretty useful and similar to ST online abilities.

I started playing with the 1.008 patch and have had no issue with the camera and only one crash (save often anyway). The camera can be zoomed with the mouse wheel and fully rotated on every axis with the middle button depressed. Two things I would like are a camera lock on target option, and to be able to zoom out further. Enemies can quickly be lost in the heat of combat but the game can be paused to give yourself some time to regain orientation.

My biggest complaint is that there are only 5 (five!) quick slots for skills as far as I know. With the sheer number (30 or so?) skills available this is just ridiculous. Yes you can switch them out at any time but who wants to open the skill menu and swap out quick slots in the middle of combat. This is also the ONLY way to use your skills as far as I know.

Sound is decently done. Some of the random robotic station voices are hilarious but the constant "radio chatter" in flight can be annoying after a while. The translation is very well done compared to many other games from this area. Voice acting is definitely sub par but not nearly as bad as many other games (Star Wolves for example made me cringe at times). The accents are thick but easily understandable with mostly correct grammar. The Devs seem to be updating and patching the game regularly which is great and there is english support.

Controls are also easily remapped and I suggest doing this immediately after starting the game in order to make it more enjoyable. Some of the default placements make no sense at all to me but as long as I can change it I don't care.

Overall a pretty fun game so far. I stayed up way too late last night trying to get one more upgrade for my new ship and few games can make me do that anymore. It's worth the $30 imho but if you wait for a special on it you'll be getting your money's worth for sure.

Starpoint Gemini is a ship based tactical role playing game. You play a twenty year dispalced veteran of a the independance war for Gemni. You find out that the sector has splintered in different factions and that a conspiracy lies behind it.

Graphically the games is good. Whilst not the best the graphics they are for the most functional and allow you to easily see what is going on. Effects are good though not stand out and wont strain you graphic card. The only real down side is the view point for your ship is awkard and can reasult in to you hitting something if you are fighting in an asteroid or debries field.

Sound quality is good. The various weapon effects, shield effects, jumping the alets and so on are all good. The music is okay but seems to be repetative with only a few tracks used thoug the game. Even then there are occasions when the music will cute out completly. Voice acting is average tending towards poor. There are only a few voice actors involved.

Gameplay is vaery similar to the StarFleet Command series of games. You control a single ship using the mouse to point to maneuver your ship. You can also turn and change to the speed of the ship using the keyboaard. Most of the game has you running missions for the Gemni league the people you fought for in the original independance war. Most missions will either involve destroying something or transporting something.

Comabat is good, which given that you'll be doing a lot is a good thing. You have a number of maneuvers avalible to you. You earn experience points which allows you to pick which five maneuvers you'll use and to increase their level. Though in practice you'll want to keep the three default ones, power to engines, power to shields and power to weapons, leaving only two maneuver free. The list of maneuvers that you can pick from is good and should allow you to personalize your tactics. The experience also allows you a perk aat every five levels. The perks appear to be passive effects which arent that noticable.

There are multiple different ship types range in class from gunships to dreadnoughts with multiple ships in each class. Each Ship has different stats that can be modifed via different equipment. There are 5 class of equipment and each class will have different makes in that class. The overall effect allows you to very much pick the best equipment to suit you style. Each ship also has a special abiltiy. There general appear to be an extra attack.

Mission design is okay though there a few which have you treking long distances to get there. Unless you've got special equipment this can take awhile even with the fastest ship. There are alos occasions where the number of enemy ships that you face can suddenly bloom unexpectedly due to the enemies use of a maneuver.

Plot wise the game is okay. The ultimate bad guy is easily figured out and the characters are thinly if compentenly drawn. The ending is a bit of a let down but as the developers are thinking of adding extra missions and story lines it makes sence.

Overall the game is enjoyable, especially if you want to have some intersting tactical battles.

Great game. The controls are kind of annoying. You have to use the mouse to turn by clicking and can't use the arrow keys. Some of the default keys to do things just aren't intuitive. Like x and y for doing things with speed. X and y are not close to each other on the keyboard.

It does have a rather hard beginning all the time. When you start out you will get blasted if you get in a fight. It is important to do other missions first. That's normal for do your own thing space games like X3.

Great graphics.

Saving and loading is a pain and doesn't seem to happen in this game. There are options for it but when I want to save it the game blocks me from doing so and when I die there is no option to load a saved game that I did manage to save. I don't usaully last more than 15 minutes so it is easier to start a new game anyway.

Okay, here's my initial impressions:

Starting a new game can be tricky. Most AI vessels can blow away your noob ship so the first small bit of gameplay you'll experience is doing non-combat missions and exploring asteroid fields for derelicts and containers to loot. After buying some new weapons and shields, your journey down pew pew lane begins. And it's quite fun.

The tactical combat is very much like Starfleet Command 3, though it is a bit faster paced. However, you don't have to worry about jockeying power levels between different systems so that makes it more manageable. You begin with a set of five basic abilities that you can use such as Power to Shields, Weapons, and Engines along with a missile/fighter defense mode and a distress call that can bring help from friendly AI ships nearby if you get in a spot. The list of abilities is much larger and you get one point per level to spend on purchasing or upgrading them. I've found that tac combat often involves the need to avoid space terrain as there are many asteroids and fights near bases, too. You can receive some hull damage from colliding with these so maneuvering can be essential. A couple things make it more difficult: the limited camera zoom, which doesn't let you pull back much from your ship, and the target follow camera mode that doesn't keep the up-down Y axis locked. The latter can be occasionally troublesome when your target is close and passing over you, so you can't click to turn facing upward.

Ship customization will also be quite familiar to those who've played SFC3. There are various primary and secondary weapon slots, shields, various engines, thrusters, power core, and essentials of that nature. There is also four slots for placing extra modules and equipment such as EMP resist, various weapon type assists, and Mining equipment. All slots have a level limit so you're not going to see a Frigate with a Super Mongo Dreadnought Blaster on it, though there is some variance between different classes of the same type/size. Bases have limited, but often changing, equipment for sale and shopping around looking for your ideal setup equipment is it's own goal-oriented gameplay. Officers are similar but can have very nice buff skills so they're also another facet of this.

The storyline campaign can be rather long-winded and seems quickly cooked to me but it's not terribly invasive and does make for some fun furball fights. The missions available at starbases are quick and straightforward, and consist of scanning various items and beaming good 'ole Morse (your away team handyman) over to fix it or prepare to beam something back. There are also the usual hunt & kill missions. In this release version, the missions seem extremely slow to regenerate but I've been told it will be raised in the first update. I've also experienced a nice 'distress call' mission while out looking for space loot in asteroidville and diverted to check it out. I'll hold the spoilers, but there can obviously be a few surprises while you're out salvaging and exploring, though I'd like to see them more frequently. Overall both campaigns somewhat remind me of a Freelancer-type style. There are Gladiator bases in which you can choose different AI ships to take on 1v1 and bet on yourself to make some pew pew cash also. I'd like to see more happening to me, such as the distress message, but I'm still having a good time.

The graphics are okay, nothing amazing. With some anti-aliasing on, it looked noticeably better. I think some modders who enjoy skinning models will have a heyday (and likely modders of all specialties). The special effects are fairly nice and some stand out noticeably well such as when passing through a base's shields when docking. The graphics seemed to use a bit more vid card power than I expected but there is a large amount of asteroids and other objects displayed in each sector. I suspect that also limits the sector size due to the amount of 3d models in one area.

Some parts of the interface are missing obvious features such as a "sell all" button for the trade commodities. So you may be clicking, and in this case click-dragging, more often than you should. Some minor additions are needed, but the omission of them do not make the game unplayable. Just more clicky. ;)

The audio is a mixture. Some have been impressed with the voice acting, but it was at the Indie developer level, as I suspected, so no surprise for me. The weapon sounds, explosions, and general space-y sounds are quite good.

SPG has been described as a diamond in the rough and that's a good summation, I think. In it's current release state, it's very playable and definitely keeps me locked in while looking for that next fight, next container to bust open, or the next item on my outfitting wish list. After the initial problems with SecuRom was figured out and quickly o

Starpoint gemini is freelancer/x3 type of game where you control starship captain in wartorn system with skirmishes happening everywhere, making your fortune either trading, mining, mission running or fighting.

As you progress in the game you gain skillpoints which can be spend on various abilities that improve performance of your ship, such as sharp turns, shield piercing etc.

While you do whatever you want in the game universe at times it offers you storyline missions that advance game story when you meet certain level requirements.

What really sets this game apart from other similar titles is how space combat works. Unlike your usual games of same genre, here even smallest ship you control has small crew, and going up from there, all way to dreadnought. And instead of flying first person, you control your ship by clicking on space where to go, and your ship does it's best to follow your orders.

During combat you go to red alert mode which turns your shields on and arms weapons, which is very much like good old starfleet command series, as your ships have 4 shield arcs, front, rear, left and right, which all can be damaged invidually, and once shields are down you can attack separate ship subsystems, such as particular weapon, shield, engine causing systems failure on enemy ships. While at the same time you have to manouver your ship to avoid enemy from doing same to you.

Ship customization has lots of options too, you can customize pretty much anything from your engines to your weapons, based on ship hull.

There are some few minor annoyances and some bugs in the game, such as starmap getting on the way when docking and some visual glitches when using t-drive, but after they fixed issue of campaign not starting due DRM, i have not crashed once since.

I'd say its good game if you like the genre, or you like starfleet command, it is definitely worth a try.

Couldn't make it past the poorly designed tutorial.

I waited for a prompt of what to do after the 'options' screen was explained, and when none came I started to move around.

Rather than prompt me what to do, the programmers just punish you by saying "You moved, you've been discharged from space' and end the game.

Can you imagine what poorly designed quests they must have in the game then?

yikes. garbage.

Interesting game.

What i really like about this game is the ability to

target and destroy key targets on other enemy ships making it interesting to see if you can destroye their shield generator and gain an advantage.

Also maybe the best thing about the game is the free open world where you can do what you want, and anything you do will affect you in one way or the other.

The tutorial mission is rather boring but once you get past it the game start and it become interesting.

There are tons of different missions and "fractions" you can work for.. and alot of new ships you can buy and its not just small ships.

Every ship can be fitted with tons of weapons or modules. Mining is a little dull, you simply scan an astoride and teleport it aboard, the same is the case with goods you find in destroyed ships you find floading arround the universe..

The controls are okay you turn the ship with left mouse and target with right mouse and then you fire with space. You have the ability to divert more energy to different places of the ship, and to repair it.

This is a huge game with alot of possibilities and its really up to you to deside what you want to do.

If you're a fan of Freelancer or any other Space-based game, you'll enjoy this. The developer team has been very involved with the players in fixing the errors of the first 2 days of release, which is now fixed. All-in-all, is it a sweet drop of honey is the salty-sea of games.

This is a fantastic game with an outstanding development team, Little Green Men.

The initial day-one release of the game was broken due to circumstances beyond the control of the dev team, but having now seen the game fully armed and operational I can safely say that it's a must-buy for any armchair space captains.

The combat is great. It really is tactical, allowing you to direct repair teams, focus your weapons on specific subsystems, and position your ship to give your weapon arcs an optimal shot (or present your strongest shield to the enemy). The variety of weapons, defenses, and other modules give you a huge range of options. Your captain can use tactics or special ship abilities to turn the tide.

You can choose to start an open, free-roam style game or follow the storyline in the campaign. Either way you'll be starting with a small, weak ship, and clawing your way over piles of badguys to massive battleships equipped with terrifying power.

This is not a super-easy game. On the normal difficulty level you'll want to avoid fighting with every hostile target you see, at least at first, or you'll find yourself outmatched. At the same time, it's a very rogue-like experience: you may undock from a station to find a huge battle has taken place (or is still in progress) and nab some great loot. The universe feels more alive than I had hoped, and the different factions interact / kill each other as you go about your business.

You can hire and fire a wide range of officers to create a dream-team of a bridge crew, a nice feature for any space RPG fans. They aren't just decorations, though, as each brings useful active or passive abilities to your ship.

Leveling up gives you the chance to really customize what kind of character your captain is. You can focus on specific weapons, or different tactics, or blend them all with non-combat skills to have a well-rounded avatar.

The graphics are actually very good for an independent developer, complete with great special effects and gorgeous backgrounds. The ship designs are varied and interesting.

The developers have shown off some videos and images of the mod tools they will soon be releasing: and they are impressive. Creating custom weapons and weapon effects is simple. Adding cinematic cut-scenes and scripted missions, also very quick and easy to do.

This is a real gem of a game, and it's only going to get better with time. Minor interface irritations pale in contrast with the fantastic tactical gameplay, and the developers are extremely responsive and dedicated to problems that have cropped up in the early days of release.

Bought this the day it came out and have been playing it for around six hours now, my current impression is not very good.

The game is riddled with bugs, it has very simplistic gameplay, a poor manual, it's also missing some extremely basic features.

For example, I did not seem to be able to freely move the camera around my ship to easier orient myself.

Overall, I'd give this game 3/5 stars had it cost 10 euros but when I compare it to other titles that cost around 30 euros, I have to give it a 2/5 rating.

So my advise to prospective buyers: Stay away from the product until it has dropped in price and received a lot of patches.

Warning!! So far from my experience:

Terrible Game!

I buy most any ''space-ship related games'' here from Gamersgate, BUT this game really is rather crappy.

I wil start with the BAD points, than ill move on to the few good points that I can find with it,.

THE BAD:

1-The tutorial is bugged and you might get stuck in there,

- SInce you can not access the main game before finishing the tutorial completly.

-It might sound like a good thing, BUT the tutorial itself is very lenghty, and failing it -BECAUSE OF A BUG- means doing it all together again from the beginning, ugh:(

2-Graphical bugs / clipping issues

I have currently about 65 games installed on my computer,

out of all those 65 games, only 2 games cause any graphical problems to me, and one of em is Starpoint Gemini now. BUT ATLEAST the graphical bug is not serious and does not itself hinder you from playing the game.

3-VOICE ACTING, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE VOICE ACTING!! Its a good thing that the crew and stuff are voiced, but god!! Could they not AT LEAST hire ONE english speaking actor to do the voice acting??

4-CAMERA PROBLEMS!! I looked through the entire command keys page again and again, but cant find the ''camera settings'' keys for the life of me.

No matter what happens, UNLESS you arent locked on a target, you cant rotate the camera around your ship one bit, AND EVEN WHEN YOU CAN (after locking on), you are ACTUALLY rotating your ships course, and NOT the camera itself

-ZOOM! The zooming function (middle mouse button) is very, very limited in this game.

5-Uninspired graphics and special effects, BUT at least they get the job done, so its not sooo bad.

THE GOOD:

1-CAPITAL ship combat, most games dont let you use actual capital ships, BUT Gemini does! And the best part is, the game has strategic combat, BUT you do not have to command a fleet of ships, WHICH IS AWESOME,as it gives you the ''spaceship captain'' feeling instead of the regular ''supreme commander'' feeling in space.

2-CREW!! Uber Cool!! You can hire officers, train in skills to increase your boarding party/security officers effectiveness, you can have your crew board derilicts, or enemy ships etc etc. COOL!

3-Decent in game music! I kinda like it. Its atleast fitting of the game.

As you can see, the game does indeed have a few good points that are unique and special to it, but mostly it has been very disappointing:(

And i have been anticipating the release of this game for days now.

PS!!

IMPORTANT!! I DO KNOW that this game is made from eastern europe by a very small (15 people) development company, AND the game, instead of costing me regular 400-450sek:- for a new game, ONLY costs about 275sek.

ALAS, i would have much rather payed full price for a DECENT GAME, than paying slightly lower price for a game of starpoint gemini's calibre.

Final word: I hope they patch the game soon.

Cheers

I've played a little while and here are my thoughts...

This game allows you to play the role of a starship captain. There is a story mode, and a free roam mode as well, so you can choose to follow a story if interested.

First, you must create your captain, or use the default captain provided. You can alter his appearance, but there doesn't seem to be a great deal of diversity. Still, you can play around and customize with what's available. You also get to choose a perk which will give you a bonus to a certain area, such as weapon recharge or trading. This gives you a little more customization flavor, and there is a good amount of perks to choose from. I've noticed that I can change the perk, but it won't take effect when I apply it. This is probably a bug that will be fixed in a patch.

After that, you can choose tutorial, story mode or a free roam mode. Tutorial is your best bet for beginners, and is a great way to get some hands on learning about every aspect of the game. The tutorial is well done, although long, which is understandable as this is a big game!

You'll notice the graphics right away. The scenery is well done, and the ships look good as well. The music is pretty good also.

Once you're through the tutorial you can chose the story mode, or free roam mode. Both are excellent choices and again really depend on personal preference.

There's no shortage of things to do in the game. You can upgrade your ship sytems and even your ship with enough credits. There are a good variety of items to upgrade to, and a nice selection of different ships. You gain credits by accepting missions and completing them. You can also skip the missions for money and just mine asteroids, scan anomalies, trade items (illegal or otherwise) or even salvage items from floating wrecks. There's no shortage of things to do as a captain!

You also gain levels, and every 5 levels up to level 30 you gain a rank which allows you to upgrade your perks, which are different abilities that apply to your ship or other non combat areas such as trade. After that you just level up, to a max of level 70. In addition, you can hire crew members which will offer different abilities and perks of their own as long as they remain part of your crew. You can have 4 different crew members.

The controls are well done, if somewhat counter intuitive, such as having the different speed settings set up as default x, c, and y keys, which are spaced far apart. This can be fixed by setting up custom key configurations though, so it's not a big problem.

Combat is fun, and consists of keeping your shields up while trying to fire on enemies down shield areas. Damage can be specified to sub systems, such as engines or shield arrays which can help against the right target. You can also score critical hits and have them scored against you. Alot of different perks apply to combat, such as "Power to Shields" or "Evasive Maneuvers". A "free look" mode would be nice, but I haven't found it, and it seems you can only look forward, which I can see will cause some problems during combat.

All in all, Starpoint Gemini is a good game if you like the idea of commanding your own starship and exploring space while trying to earn some credits. I definitely recommend this game!