Nostalgia Games: Space Rangers
During my childhood and early adolescence, I was very fond of buying gaming magazines. Since the Internet was not very widespread, I received almost all the information from them. But in my city there was no such store where you could come to any day and buy the latest issue of your favorite gaming magazine. My salvation was a merchant who came once a week, on Saturdays, and sold a huge amount of magazines. It was a whole event that I was looking forward to!
Most of all I liked “Igromania” and “LKI”, I very rarely took the “Country of Games”. I still ask my parents not to throw away the collection I have accumulated, I want to leave it as a keepsake, they occupied a painfully large piece of my childhood! They were of particular value when I was deprived of a computer for grades, and all that was left was to “play computer” while reading them! Oh, if you only knew what a disappointment it was, waiting for Saturday to come to the market and see that this merchant did not come … and this sometimes happened.
On one of these Saturdays, I bought the magazine Best Computer Games, which had a great article-guide to the wonderful game “Space Rangers”. I literally read it to the holes, and I didn’t have the game itself. I think you can imagine how much I wanted to buy it! Unfortunately, I no longer remember how soon I received the coveted box, it was unlikely that it was in the next year, but the wait was worth it!
So there was an acquaintance with another great game that does not lose its charm even today.
Who
The developer is the Russian studio Elemental Games. She made her debut with the General strategy, which, despite its simple appearance and lack of graphics, had great depth and sophistication, which made it quite popular. Having gained experience, the founder of the company, Dmitry Gusarov, decided to take on a larger project. Inviting new employees to the team (programmer Alexey Dubovoy and artist Alexander Yazynin are the most famous) and creating their own engine, the studio set about developing a new game that would later make it famous throughout the CIS. That game was Space Rangers. Further, the company is waiting for the division into two (Katauri Interactive and Elemental Games), the release of the second part of the game, as well as the independent add-on Space Rangers 2: Dominators Reloaded. After that, there was an attempt to develop several new projects, including an online game in the Space Rangers universe, which, unfortunately, will never be released. On February 4, 2015, the termination of the company’s activities was announced.
Plot
The plot of the game is basically straightforward. The galaxy was attacked by an unknown life form, which was called the Klisans. The 5 races inhabiting this galaxy called for the help of all free pilots to counter the threat. These pilots were called space rangers. These included ordinary captains with their ship, who were ready to help, as they say, in word and deed. To the logical question “Why are they needed when there are ordinary military men?” there is an equally logical answer – they were independent individuals, not subject to any rules and regulations, so they could act more flexibly and non-standard in different situations. One of these rangers is the player himself. No one can force free pilots to do anything, they themselves choose what to do and whether it is even worth helping in the fight against the invaders. This applies to both the player and the computer-controlled rangers.
Gameplay
What is the game? This is a huge world that lives on its own, without your participation. You are just one of a thousand rangers, so don’t expect any special treatment.
The game world is very dynamic. The galaxy lives its own life, commodity prices change, new technologies appear, rangers die, and others take their place, new space systems are captured by Klisans or vice versa, lost ones are fought off. The game is so perfect in this regard that on easy difficulties, Kleesans can win without you, and on higher ones, vice versa. If the player doesn’t fight them, or doesn’t do it effectively, the Klissans will take over the entire galaxy. In other words, while you are flying and minding your own business, the game can end without your participation, and this may well be both victory and defeat. In addition, with the development of technology, new types of weapons, engines and other equipment will begin to appear in stores.
As I already wrote, you can do whatever you want: trade, fight with other pilots, complete tasks for different governments and races, develop your pilot, smuggle weapons, drugs, jewelry or alcohol. Moreover, for each race, prohibited goods are different and depend on their ideology! The game world is realistic and multi-level. If you sell too many resources to any planet, the prices for those resources will drop, and further transactions will become less and less profitable. We’ll have to look for another market.
Speaking about the trading system, it is necessary to mention that prices depend on many factors: the type of planet and its size, race, political system. Industrial planets need minerals to produce technology, which is cheap here. Agricultural planets are buying up this technique in large quantities in order to develop the food industry. Do not forget about the various events taking place in the galaxy, which can affect the cost of a particular product. For example, during epidemics, prices for medicines rise, and during crop failures, for food.
Computer-controlled rangers are not much different from the player – they also trade, save the galaxy, piracy and just study the systems. There is even some kind of dynamically changing rating of the rangers, which shows all the pilots of the galaxy and their place, received for achievements and merits. If the pilot is killed, he disappears from the table. I will not hide a sin, sometimes I eliminated competitors ahead of me in order to climb higher in this list of the best.
At the beginning of the game, you choose one of the five races, as well as your “class”. It only affects the conditions in which you start the game. If you want to be a merchant – be, if you want to be a pirate and rob other people’s ships – please, no one drives you into strict limits! Even as a trader, you may occasionally engage in racketeering or participate in major military operations. Starting conditions for different classes and races differ only in the amount of money, ship, cargo on board, equipment and the attitude of other races towards you.
Another interesting opportunity to improve your ship was black holes – anomalies that randomly appear in systems. Having flown into one, you never know in which part of the galaxy you will find yourself at the exit. Especially interesting situations happen after a hard fight inside a black hole. Barely getting out alive, wanting to get to any friendly planet as soon as possible in order to repair and sell everything superfluous, you realize that you are in a system captured by the Klisans! But such a risk is fully justified, since it is in black holes that you can find artifacts – unique devices that very often violate the laws of physics and significantly improve your ship. For example, the Black Goo artifact helps you not to be left without fuel in the tank at the most crucial moment, gradually generating it. Blast Locator dampens the force of a destroyed enemy ship’s explosion, allowing more surviving equipment to be found. In total, you can find 16 different artifacts. Believe me, they are worth hunting for!
If you characterize the game in one sentence, then this is a sandbox game full of RPG elements, turn-based strategy, text quest and arcade. Almost all of it takes place in a turn-based mode, but at certain points (when traveling between galaxies, or when falling into black holes), the game turns into a peppy arcade shooter. I would like to dwell on text quests in more detail …
Text quests
Under certain conditions, you can receive various unusual tasks, after the start of which the game will turn into a very interesting text quest. These missions are very interesting and at times witty, which adds variety to the gameplay quite well. However, there will certainly be those who do not like such a pastime, so I’ll say right away that these tasks are absolutely optional for passing.
Upon receipt of such a quest, the story will develop in printed form. The game will turn into an interactive book. Here you will find descriptions of people or other creatures, places and situations that you find yourself in, and you can also choose options for actions that will move the story forward. These mini-plots will make you smile more than once and bring a lot of pleasure, and the reward for completing them will be both banal money and experience, and not very banal medals and artifacts.
Races
There are five different races in the game with their own history, customs and different attitudes towards each other. All races have unique habits and habits, different technological levels and their own set of prohibited goods. Here is a brief description of one of the races: The Maloki are a rough and militarized race that has a ban on luxury and alcohol, and encourages the arms trade. They do not like frail faeyans and abstruse Gaalians, but on the contrary, they are friends with bearings. At the beginning of the game, the Maloki are the most technologically backward race.
While waiting for the discovery of a new engine, you don’t even have to try to look for it on the Peleng planets, because, most likely, it will be invented by the Faeyans. Or another example: all races do not like pirates, except for those same bearings that are quite normal for such a “profession”, unless of course you touch their fellows. There are relationships between races. All of them relate to each other in different ways, and this is also reflected in the game very clearly. You will often see jokes from one race about another, a condescending attitude, or outright hostility. Playing for a certain “nation”, you yourself will feel it.
Soundtrack
The music is magical and literally mesmerizing without being boring at all. It suits the game in spirit, perfectly fitting into what is happening on the screen. This is one of those cases where every melody is in place, and every sound is in perfect harmony. Before writing the article, I separately listened to all the compositions and made sure that each of them is good. Enjoy them too. =)
Outcome
Many will say that the second part of the Space Rangers is much better than the first, and will add that a remaster was released for the second game in 2013, as well as purely text quests for smartphones. But since it was the first part that left the greatest imprint on my heart, I ventured to write about it. Emotions aside, the game still feels great these days, with depth and soul, so I highly recommend at least giving it a try. And given its small size (about 450 MB) and unhurried gameplay, I think it is perfect for a little relaxation at work. But to play, of course, exclusively during the lunch break, because we will not do this to the detriment of work, will we? 😉
If I was able to awaken nostalgia in you, or the desire for a first acquaintance with such a wonderful game, I posted in the telegram channel archive with the image and the latest patches.
I’ve been playing games for over 25 years and remember them exactly like that: heartfelt and addictive, with fun mechanics and interactivity, no in-game currency and no attempts to be anything but a game. In my Telegram channel you are waiting for not only reviews of games, but also current news, as well as discussions about game development. Subscribe, it will be interesting!
