Review of the game Space Rangers HD: A War Apart

The reason for the popularity of HD re-releases of old hits that have recently proliferated with cosmic speed seems to be obvious. Fans will see their favorite game in a new, beautiful and modern wrapper and will receive another reason for healing nostalgia, and young people unfamiliar with the cult once hit will finally be able to fill the gap without receiving a moral trauma from contemplating ancient graphics. And everything, including the authors, turns out to be satisfied. However, the example of the game “Space Rangers HD: Revolution” shows that not everyone can be satisfied and not always.
The second part of the cult "Space Rangers" It came out in 2007, and since then there haven’t been such projects where arcade, strategy, RPG, text quests and a living world around would have been equally successful. Therefore, the idea to resurrect the project in HD format was liked by everyone. Moreover, the authors promised not only to pull the picture up to modern standards, but also to expand the well-known game with new content.

The developers of the original "Space Rangers", in particular Dmitry Gusarov, did not participate in the work on the reprint.

And in general, they fulfilled their promises. "Space Rangers HD: Revolution" runs on all modern operating systems, supports high-resolution and widescreen monitors, multi-core, anti-aliasing, and so on. In general, outwardly, the game really changed and looks quite nice.
Many innovations in the gameplay. First and foremost, in addition to dominators, Coalitions are now threatened by space pirates. This is a completely new force that has brought a lot of changes to the balance. Some time after the start of the passage, they begin to seize the star systems, and the player has a choice to join the space robbers or remain loyal to the Coalition.
Accordingly, many new tasks have appeared, including very specific, truly pirated ones - for example, one of them suggests killing an apostate pirate. A paradise for lovers of playing evil characters! And many quests have an alternative solution: Coalition or plot characters often get in touch with the hero-pirate, asking him to think again and work as an undercover agent.
In addition, in the HD-reprint you can find more than 30 new text quests, which have always been a special highlight, so to speak, a cherry on the cake "Space Rangers" . Here you will find not only the traditional "Adventures" or logic puzzles, but also quizzes, detectives, "taxi driver simulator" and even "fishing simulator". There are also new missions for planetary battles, and with different interesting conditions: one of them, for example, offers a limited detachment to quickly capture the enemy’s base before reinforcements arrive.

More or less equal forces with pirates only on the normal level of complexity.

Well, a lot of smaller changes: more asteroids are now flying in space, new types of goods, weapons and devices have appeared, unique buildings have disappeared, replaced by more adequate counterparts.
Space on the patch
It seems that here it is - happiness! However, immediately after the re-release, the forums turned red with the wrath of the players. First, the updated "Space Rangers" did not avoid the typical problem of the Russian games - the release of an unfinished project, crowded with bugs. Permanent sorties, buggy planetary battles, an incorrectly working trading skill that allows you to earn a huge fortune in 10 minutes is just the tip of the iceberg that crashes into the hopes of the fans in the very first days after the release. And there, inside, are spelling errors in the menus and quests, failing tasks and many other things ...
Immediately, naturally, patches fell down. It is probably possible to correct technical flaws with them, although after some patches, departures, on the contrary, began to occur more frequently. Much more difficult to bring to life the balance. Pirates turned out to be frankly stronger than the Coalition - they are better armed and act more aggressively. The coalition allows space filibusters quickly enough to capture almost all systems. After that, life there almost stops, new jobs and even news stop coming from there; their own stations and quests at the pirates a little. The authors, of course, tried to oppose something to them - for example, they allowed players at the start to buy powerful enough weapons and devices for the ship. But all the same alone to cope with the pirates is difficult.

New screens at the stations sometimes puzzling. Where did the inscriptions in English and these Soviet posters come from?

***

In general, a typical situation in the series “we wanted the best, it turned out as always.” Of course, someone less flights and bugs, someone more. Someone managed to adapt to a new, specific balance, someone did not. But in general, it is clear that with the reprint something is wrong. It could be better, more stable and more interesting - why not, for example, invent something really new in the ground strategy? It remains, as usual, to hope for patches and additions.
Pros: modern graphics; new text quests; additional side conflict in the plot.
Cons: a lot of technical flaws; broken balance.