Over the last weekend, I was taking a break from writing, and I found myself looking for a computer game to play. I was already tired of the current crop of games out there, so I was looking for something new, different, or just not the same old game. So I went onto Steam’s site, looking for a game to download, and that’s when I came across an old gem of a game I played the crap out of in the day. It was a game called Space Rangers 2.
Space Rangers 2 is a weird, quirky game, which is about the best way to describe it. It takes place in the year 3300, or something like that, and the galaxy is pretty much ours to explore. You play a space ranger who has been recruited to the, oh I don’t know, the space rangers? and it is your job to pretty much do whatever it is you want to do, and you get paid to do it. You run around space either doing good, doing evil, doing errands, or just doing stupid things. It’s really your choice. In the end, you fight a race of computers called The Dominators, and as you get more powerful and stronger, you wage better war against them. It’s that sort of game.
The interesting thing about the game, aside from the usual playability, is that it was created by the Russians. So it’s an import, and it’s not the best import ever either, which adds a bit of flavor to the game. There’s some voice acting to it (very little) and it sounds like someone trying to not sound like Arnold Schwarzeneger. The writing is actually pretty good, but the translation is sometimes absurd. There are word text games in the mix, so whenever you end up with one of those, it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not you can complete the mission because sometimes the answers you have to give just don’t make any logical sense. There’s one mathematical puzzle that sounds something like: “Hey, you space ranger guy, you needs to tells me the answer to the question some that I tell you so that kind of you know sound like a fifteen that takes the eighteen for the hopscotch ritual. So which has you? A. 254, B. 738, C. The Continent of Praxmire, D. Yodeling. Answer correctly or we kills you!” You probably get the idea that sometimes “quirky” is a kind word.
But the game is fun. I played it all weekend long until I just exhausted myself and had to go to bed at night. And then I’d start playing it again in the morning.
So, there’s something to be said for some of those old games. I just wish I could find more of them that are just as fun to play as that one has been.