fullforce just changes a plist setting, it's the same with angry birds. memory is the same with the iphone 3gs. i only had the game crash when i've been playing for like long stretches i.e. 4 hours or so. controls seem fine to me but could be slightly more precise, but i'll test it out on my iphone to see if there's a difference.
I now have around 15 hours of play time on the game so here are my initial thoughts about it. Is it good? No, not really. It is highly frustrating as it could clearly be an amazing game with instant cult status but due to quite a few missed details and opportunities it feels rather lacking and becomes a grind. I know I'm in the minority here but hear me out before judging me too harshly. Combat is bad. Period. The developers should have studied how space combat games are done and what makes the good ones good. Game classics like Xwing, Tie Fighter, Freespace 2, Decent II/III, Wing Commander Prophecy etc. I agree that a hand held game, especially on an iDevice which only has the touch screen, should be simple but this doesn't mean the "physics" of how the ship handles should be simple as well. Unfortunately that's exactly what it is. None of the ships have any kind of inertia or sideways movement and feel like driving on rails. The speeds at which ships travel is way too slow making each fight tedious and repetitive. Most battles are won or lost going head on against the enemy or waiting for the AI to turn and then blasting them from behind. Even with the boosters the pure "feeling" and more importantly, the dynamics of the fights are boring. There's never any sideways action or dogfighting going on. Incredibly frustrating and a total immersion killer. Heck, even age old Wing Commander series got it right. The lack of a speed control is incredibly stupid and something I can not understand at all why it was omitted. This is one of the most serious issues of this game. It's a total immersion killer. Am I supposed to believe that in the year 3700 something we can not control the speed of our space craft? Come on now.. . Mining asteroids would be much more convenient with a speed control for proper approach before the "mini game" starts. Speaking of asteroids.. why the hell are there asteroids everywhere?? This is another complete immersion killer. I'd much rather see asteroids only in some remote areas. Mining colonies, prison stations etc. Nobody would build a huge business center/tourist like space station right next to an asteroid field. It also makes no sense having an asteroid field right next to all major planets! Why couldn't the developers study how stuff works in space and incorporate at least just a tiny bit of "realism" into the game? This leads me to the main problem of the game and the most important ingredient of Elite type games (which this is trying to be.. NOT a space shooter).. Especially if you can't get combat right (Elite series had horrible combat as well). It's all about Immersion. Immersion. IMMERSION!!! I want to feel, dream and imagine that I'm a space rogue and free to do whatever I want, in a believable universe but due to the dumbing down of the flight models (or lack of coding/design skills?) and overall dumbing down of the experience (asteroids every where.. get rich quick.. stupid space combat..) totally kills the immersion and thus the whole experience. Is it worth the current 5,49 euros? Maybe.. barely. Will it be worth the upcoming 7 euros price tag? No. Not in my opinion, unless you have some kind of obsessive behaviour and like collecting things. It's a nice game for collecting things but that's pretty much it really. There IS a lot of content and the game is very well presented. Good music, fairly decent voice acting, good graphics.. all the basic fluff is there but there's no heart. There was so much potential in this title. Reading all the praise here makes me realise that there must be a whole generation of people who have never experienced the great space combat games of old times. This is not surprising at all as the golden day of space combat died with Freespace 2 and that was more than 10 years ago. It's truly strange that nobody has tried to revive a genre that was highly successful in the 90's. The main selling point of a space shooter is the combat and in a space trader the immersion and role playing experience. Both parts are severely lacking in GOF 2. I'm really sorry my review is this negative as I know the developers have poured a lot of time and energy on the title. I acknowledge it is a high quality A+ title and very well made and polished but it just doesn't deliver, in my opinion. I give it a 2 out of 5 stars. Cheers! bManic
Would you rather he judged the game after 15 minutes, like some reviewers do? I appreciate his honest and informed opinion.
Your right , im glad he didnt judge it after 15 minutes , and i have nothing against his post. as you said it was an honest and informed opinion. its just , usually if i play for 15+ hours , its because i enjoy it.
It was fun while it lasted but after you finish the story mode and all, it kinda gets boring imo. I played for 15+ hours too but now I don't anymore because I just can't be bothered to get all the medals or search for a blueprint. =/
If nothing else i feel that Fishlabs have produced a lovely platform which i think should scale pretty well (you can see the ship models switch from low-res to higher res on approach) so clearly with iPhone5+ the amount of detail, texture quality etc can be bumped up but i think the engine in itself is fine. The flight model could be made more interesting ... but again i think that could easily be done with a little time. I think the game overall is a tremendous achievement for the iDevice platform and hopefully Fishlabs can and will either produce an expansion pack DLC with a new story line and a re-stocked universe (higher level equipment etc) and new races / territory - Could easily use Khodor drive as a slingshot into a new galaxy
We can only hope that GoF2 made and is making sufficient income for them to justify either expansion into a new galaxy etc or a sequel based on the same engine but with a new multi directional story etc
Sorry, bManic, but I have to say: I agree with most of the points you mentioned on your review... But aren't you judging an iPhone game too much? When you see the iPhone game charts, you can try to draw a profile of the majority of iPhone gamers. Do you really want me to believe that Angry Birds is more popular to the community because it offers more immersion? "Angry Birds is better because I can really believe that I'm there with a sling throwing birds on nasty pigs"... LOL Jokes aside, I don't want you to think that I'm a GoF fanboy, because I'm not. I was probably one of the firsts that complained about the lack of throttle. But after spending a good time with the game (thing that I did because it was enjoyable, not a chore), I get it, you know. Since you are probably from the same flight sim era than me, do you remember that most of the flight sim's required a proper joystick to play? I think Freelancer was like the first created intented to be played with a mouse. I still remember rubbing my mouse 27 times to do a U-turn playing X-wing in my 386. But again, it's a phone game! I can't really blame FishLabs... They have a payroll to pay, and they have to focus their game on the target market that is spending more in App Store... And these people are after casual games... Wrote too much, I want to hear more constructive comments from you to keep this discussion... UPDATE: The conclusion is that I think that GoF2 is a GREAT space sim... On the iPhone!
i'm one of those that remembers playing and enjoying the old school games like elite, wing commander, privateer, etc. your thoughts ring true on many levels, but at the same time, i don't remember this game being advertised as being brought forth to be a revival of those. it is its own game, and should be enjoyed as such. if it claimed to be privateer 4 and didn't incorporate features from previous privateers, then yeah, i'd complain too. strafing/throttle though seem like no brainers for any space flight sim though... i spent 10 hours on the first one, running around and having fun, i'm sure i'll enjoy this one as well, once they unlock the ipad version...
tried searching the thread but nothing showed, where's the AMR extinctor blueprint at? zzzz. edit: nvm found it!
So why did you spend 15 hours playing it? I've played it 15 hours - and for £3.99 that is incredible value for money. (I've enjoyed it too. In fact it made me go and download the Privateer remake!) You are expecting waaay too much for an ipod game I think. X-Wing, Freespace, Elite and so on were fully immersive yes, but also (Frontier Elite especially) had manuals as thick as War and Peace, and some came with a keyboard overlay. I dont disagree with your points particularly - a throttle would be very welcome, and the option to play from a 'cockpit' view would help immersion immensely (remember the cramped cockpits of Privateer?) - but I feel you are detracting too much from what Fishlabs have actually achieved here: a great-looking enjoyable space-trading game in your pocket. Really - who cares if there are asteroids everywhere? It makes the game more accessible - if you want to mine you can do it quickly. Dont forget this is a mobile game and a damn good one at that. 4/5 from me.
Update 1.0.2 submitted Hi Guys, thanks for all your feedback. We have just submitted an update. Below there's the list with all fixes, improvements, changes and additions: 1.0.2: ------ Universal support for iPad will be added not in this but in the next update! --Major bug fixes:-- Fixed a bug where menu buttons became extremely unresponsive on the iPhone 3G Fixed a bug where resuming the app resulted in unresponsive buttons and rapid progression through the dialogues Fixed a bug where using the khador drive during the last mission lead to an infinite loop Fixed a bug where you wouldn't get the german version of the game when bought via iTunes Fixed a bug where bronze and silver medals were not correctly forwarded to OpenFeint and GameCenter --Additional bug fixes:-- Fixed an issue where you would not be able to fire rockets and missiles one after another. Also, the recharge time was not correctly handled. Fixed a bug where cargo containers sometimes were not removed when a courier mission was cancelled Fixed a bug where the tractor beam sometimes kept floating around in space after a crate had vanished Fixed an issue where it was possible to permanently loot a ship once its emp energy was below half Fixed a bug where a wingmen dialogue played over a mission debriefing dialogue Fixed a bug where a false dialogue sound was played when Carla or Thomas reminded you of your task Fixed a bug where the pirates wouldn't speak their dialogue when a pirate station was discovered Fixed a bug where container brackets were displayed at the wrong place after destroying a freighter Fixed an issue where you were not able to rotate around the ship in Free View mode after leaving the action menu Fixed a bug where explosion planes were sometimes not correctly aligned to the camera Fixed a bug where a newly created item was not immediately shown in cargo when tapping the ship tab Fixed the Night Owl model so it only has two missile pods instead of three Fixed a bug where music wouldn't start playing when disabled all sounds before Slightly increased probability of occurence of energy cells Fixed some minor cosmetic issues --New features:-- Added Spanish, Polish and Russian language (thanks to our great Fishlabs forums moderators!), more to come with the next update There now is a button that allows you to fast-forward time if the autopilot is active and there are no enemies in sight You can now change the language from within the game You can now listen to your iPod music while playing You can now skip the Space Lounge camera movement You can now find Void Crystals on Thynome if you "accidently" sold your Khador Drive after finishing the main story The level cap was raised to 20 -------------------------------------- Game on! Michael
For a mobile game GOF2 is good enough. There will be always someone who will want more even if it's impossible.
Thanks fishlab! I noticed that you fixed the Night Owl model. Thanks for listening . ... but I just discovered another model problem lol. I hope I'm not getting annoying by this point hahaha. This is a problem in relation to the Terran Groza. It is suppose to have 3 missile pods on the ship, yet I can only see 2. ... one on each wing.
