9/10 This game is a total an amazing space simulator. You start off with a tiny little gunship and move up to commanding Dreadnaughts and Carriers. You can command a mini fleet of 2 other warships. The AI is decent, storyline is phenomenal, gameplay is great! I did not feel like there was any grind at all in this game, making money and moving on to the next level and ship was fast and easy. Game was very intuitive with a very helpful UI, biggest complaint is the blech voiceacting and the horrific accents. Other then that the devs are super responsive and made a great game. I own almost 200 games and rarely give out reviews, when I do I either loved the game or hated the heck out of it. I loved this game and if you enjoyed playing Freelancer, Wing Commander Series including Privateer, this is like those games except on crack.

Up front: Not deep enough or fun enough to warrant a $35 entry fee. Definitely worth it for $10.

Pros:
+Artwork. Ships and backdrops are pleasant enough to look at and cruising through space in your ride of choice is nice.
+Simple, easy to use interface and controls. Love the interface.
+Straightforward missions
+Stable and nicely refined. Have yet to run in to a "broken quest" or a significant bug of any kind.
+Decent enough sized sandbox system to play in. It takes 15 minutes to fly across Gemini even with the fastest ship.
+Game adjusts difficulty rather well as you progress to bigger ships.
+Soundtrack is a definite plus that matches the mood of the task at hand.
+Lots of factions. No, they don't really fight all that differently but...they are labeled differently.
+Faction loyalty. It is simple to see who you are friends with and who you should avoid. System is easy and intuitive.
+Decent variety of ships, loots and weapons keeps things interesting.
+Fighters and bombers can be launched from you ship.
+Perk system. As you gain rank you can shape your fighting style and abilities. Easy and effective without being OP.
+Steam workshop enabled. I find looking at the hind end of an Intrepid Class is nicer than the stock ships.

Cons:
-Game progression can be very grindy at times.
-Uncompelling campaign became unbearable because of horrid voice acting. I began playing free-roam instead.
-Ships all fly and feel the same. A battleship handles just as well as a frigate, it just has more weapons, shields etc. :(
-Unable to target specific enemy ship systems.
-Sensor range is pitifully low. You'll always see things before your sensors do.
-Combat feels shallow a good portion of the time. Tactics rarely decide outcome, usually ship stats are it.
-Combat AI is downright stupid at times. As a level 18 I destroyed a level 70 pirate because they kept chasing me. My one pea-shooter gun could hit them from 800 out, their guns could only reach 550. As they chased me I eventually wore down their forward shield and nearly destroyed them before they turned and ran. At that point I ran them down, overtook and finished by shooting through their non-existent forward shield.
-Controls are simple, but can be awkward at times. No target padlock option. (Really?)
-3rd person views only. You will never be "in your ship"and that hurts immersion.
-Game does not track ships destroyed, troops lost, total money accrued etc. Nice touches that are easy to make.
-Small variety in mission types. Scan something, shoot something, ferry something. That's pretty much it.
-No ability to build up a true fleet, can just hire a couple mercs.
-No feel of actually influencing events in the game world.
-When you dock at a station or planet, all interactions are handled through a simple splash screen.

Summary:
Starpoint Gemini 2 is a nice little space romp for casual/arcade crowds. I would personally prefer options available to transform this basic game experience into something a little more hardcore. Replayability is hurt by lack of simulation options, inability to shape conflict and shallow combat mechanics. Less than 20 hours in I have a dreadnought class warship, have maxed out alliances with half the factions and explored roughly 60% of the systems in the game. I do not feel as though I will make any substantial new discoveries at this point, but may come back if I find myself in the mood for mindless point and click with a spaceship involved. Score: 7.5

I've been playing this game about a week, and got up to level 10.
It's not a bad little game, but don't expect too much, and don't pay more than $10 for it. The learning curve isn't too bad, but the controls aren't intuitive, so expect to stare at the screen dumbfounded a few times at the start.
The tutorial is not much. It's all reading with no in-game walkthrough. On the other hand, after only a few tries you should have the contols down pat.
The storyline is so Byzantine that you could never keep up with it, and their are no cut scenes, just cardboard cutouts in the top left of your screen trying to keep you abreast of the storyline. It's almost as if they made the game first, and then inserted a story. Also the voice acting is subpar, but to tell you the truth, there are very few games where I cared about the story (Homeworld, Starcraft, and that's about it).
The visuals are actually superb. Just flying through space and looking at the colorful planets and nebula is fun in itself. The combat is good, though there really is no dogfighting. If you are in combat and you have any kind of acceleration, you'll be miles away after only a few shots, and then you have to turn around and go back. Basically it's like the British and French during the Napolianic wars. You just stand there and hammer away at each other until one of you is dead.
Upgrading ships is practically unkown in the beginning of the game. When the next ship costs 10 million and you only have 250,000 and the missions give you a paltry 10,000, you aren't upgrading fast.
That too goes for the ship modules. Upgrading weapons, shields, propulsion, and the like is the same as upgrading ships; expensive.
The thing that I don't understand is that Freelancer was put out in 2003, and yet this game isn't a quantum leap in game play. In fact it's actually a step backward. It's like we didn't have 13 years of game development.

But, like I said, it's not a bad game, just don't expect too much and don't spend too much money on it.

OK so if your a grumpy old git gamer like me who played feelancer on its release day you will know that this game is a blatent attempt to COPY FREELANCER without the massive budget and holiwood actors used to make the oridginal. The game uses places ship names faction names directly from freelancer without even trying in any way to hide that fact. Frankly im amazed Microsoft havent sued them into bancruptsy by now lol. But heres the mindblowing TRUTH this game is infinately better than eve better than star citizen which so far is a catastrophe and X rebirth a game for which egosoft should be stripped naked in public and pelted with rotten eggs. If you want a goode game similar to no sorry directly plageriseing Freelancer this is the game you want its a lot more fun than Elite dangerous too so BUY IT NOW before it gets banned. 8 out of 10

it's a good game but i wouldnt pay full price for it...i wouldnt even pay half the asking price,,,but, im pretty cheap (or so im told)...

Grand Space Sim that puts you in command of a space ship to fly, shoot, trade, save the universe, blow up stuff, do the laundry, collect files hidden in floating junk, level up, hire recruits, upgrade your ship, and do pretty much anything else your starfaring heart desires. The game looks nice, plays well (albeit at a slowish pace), has enjoyably 'space-y' ambient music, and offers a ton of different content that may not always 'wow', but will definitely satisfy.

27-Jul-2016 : Finished main story + extras
Equipment : MSI GT80-2QE Notebook

REVIEW :
First thing first, this is not arcade space sim combat like Elite Dangerous, this is RPG game with space sim combat. You start with a small ship and you can play it like arcade space sim combat since the RPG elements seems irrelevant at the beginning. But as your rank get higher and you get access to bigger ships, you find yourself constantly outnumbered and outgunned. Tactical combat and RPG elements (properly developed character and ship) becomes essential to win a combat.

The game is open world. To be powerful enough to progress through the main quest, you can do faction side quests, freelance quests, mining. trading, bounty hunting, pirating and capturing ships. The graphics and soundtrack is great, the story is mediocre with really bad voice acting. This game is not a high budget A-List game, so there's no fancy 3D cutscenes with motion tracking and real voice actors.

The game also really mod-friendly. You can edit stats and even your savegames using a simple text editor. This mod-friendly approach is more handy that it seems. For example, my favorite Carrier-class ship doesn't come with a cloaking device. Easy, edit the ship stats file using Notepad and add the cloaking device myself. There's also Mod Tools to build your own contents. If you're a Trekkie, make sure you try the Star Trek Ship Mods in the Steam Workshop.

The developer also generous enough to give a free DLC titled "Origins". This free DLC offers 30 storyline missions of the original Starpoint Gemini, re-envisioned and ported to SPG2 engine. So if you never play the 1st one, you can play it now without extra cost. Basically you get 2 games for the price of one.

CONCLUSION :
Recommended on full price, a must-have on sale price.

First Impressions:
For an early access game this game is already really playable as the sandbox mode works just fine. See this game as EVE offline. You fly your own ship (which you can upgrade or just buy a bigger one) around a HUGE universe that has highway like wormholes and natural wormholes. You can also move around anywhere under your own power so just traveling on highways or through wormholes isn't a must. There are hints of fleets in thwere but haven't been able to start one, although you can already by extra ships and leave them in your garage.

Your Ship:
Upgrades for your ships are plenty and the weapon systems include, lasers, plasma cannons, railguns, missiles, and much more which you can freely add to any supporting hardpoint on your ship (light for guns, heavy for ammo consuming launchers). All upgrades and repairs happen on the station and I've noticed you really need to shop around the stations to get the best stuff.

Your Crew:
Yes, this game has crews as even your starting ship is more then the usual fighters you get in other games. There are 3 shipstations which you can hire crew for. The crew gives you boosts on weapons or ship systems like engines, shields and cloaks depending on their skills. Again every station/planet offers different crews with different skills.

Gameplay:
Random missions are generated all the time wich includes simple "go there and shoot.." missions, scan anomalies and bringing around cargo and passengers. You can visit many many stations (and planets) to upgrade, repair, hire crew, trade and lots more. The universe is very much alive as you encounter friendly and non friendly ships all over the place. Some sectors and stations really don't like you and can form a real challange when fighting in those sectors (enemy reinforcemants and stations blasting you). Fighting is mouse controlled, aim and shoot your light weapons by clicking the right mouse button and fire your heavy ammo consuming weapons with X. Also you can give the command "Fire at will" which will basically unleash all weapons on all in range enemies (this can be very much fun to watch while you just fly around avoiding damage with guns blazing).

Trade is already present in the game but is still in it's first stages so you get very little info on prices except for a news scroller that is viewable on every planet and station.

Development:
Patches are rolling out in a steady pace and the devs are very active on the forums (Post a question, suggestion or comment and you'll likely get a reply within the hour). This just gives you extra confidence to buy this game in early access and help in it's development.

Current Verdict July 18 2014:
Highly recommended early access game that is only getting better with each update.

*My above opinion still hasen't changed, latest update is again full of content. Recommend to pick up on current sale :)

Current Verdict September 16 2014:
Latest patches have added full controller support for fans of those things. Also the game is nearly complete as release is almost here, they've been busy with optimizing the game and adding final features, complete campaign/story mode is not finished yet but devs have indicated it's coming soon! (And in the past they've proven time and time again that they uphold their word!).

So still a big fat recommend from me at this final stage of early access.

This was the game I wanted when I wanted to be a space captain/pirate. There are ships. The ships come in different sizes and configurations. You start in a tin can with a couple of turrets and work your way up to space battleships. Some of them can be challenging to get your hands on, if a faction you've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off is the only one that makes it. There are different weapon systems, each with strengths and weaknesses. There can be a story/plot if you want it to be the driving reason behind your space-captaining/piracy. The game punishes you for thinking you are a main character with plot armor and can charge at whatever your quest is without strategy. It rewards you for doing a bit of grinding on the side for money and xp, be that with asteroid mining, quasi-legal trading, playing space police, or space piracy.

Being a space game, there are a lot of different controls and interface options. There are less than other space games I've tried. Navigation is relatively simple, and wormholes, ion storms and radiation clouds make that more interesting than the vastness of space probably is. You need captain 'levels' to fly bigger ships, but xp can be earned from basically doing anything. Aiming is done via turrets. Pick a view mode you like, aim the turrets yourself or let the computer do it for you, find a ship you like, and fly around space. That's what you're here for right?

It took me 40 to 50 hours to finish each story line, taking my time and taking advantage of the vast numbers of pirates just waiting to be boarded and salvaged. Ultimately this was the first 3d space game I've tried that gave me some complexity while still making 'fly a ship through space' enjoyably easy. I enjoy leveling, working my way up from the bottom and becoming an unstoppable juggernaut. I enjoy flying a ship through space and shooting things with lasers, or guns, or plasma cannons. I enjoy some odd challenges and impossible odds. I enjoy exploring. I felt accomplished when I finished the plot in my decked out dreadnought. I enjoyed this game. And the free DLC.

Spaaaaaaaaace. What's your favorite thing about space? (mine's space)

TL;DR: At the verrry bottom, ya heathens!

This game, wow. It is eating away at my soul here. Like I need to sacrifice another small vessel for creds so I can sleep again.

I bought this game cause I had a gut feeling it was what I needed in a game right now. Yeah sure there are others like it, but I just wanted singleplayer and something really solid and fun. An man was I in for a treat! I had no idea I could enjoy a game so much again, like back in the day with all the old systems around and gramps was trying to figure out why the TV is calling him.

So far the story has been very engaging with some smug and unsavory characters, not to mention a bunch of stuff to do on the way. Clearing asteroid fields for some spare loot to fill that cargo hold, capturing enemy ships to either sell or dock for your own collection. Beaming aboard your crew to steal stuff for you on a old mining field or enemy ship in battle to turn the tide an steal it for yourself, you will have to tractor beam it the whole way at impulse speeds to the nearest planet or station of course, who wants to do anything the easy way any way? Psssh.

You have your classic worm holes you can use to travel or them good ole relays for cash, but who wants to waste money?
Also you will run into random slipstreams in which you can use to traverse.. well the verse, by steering your ship properly through it. Be warned about worm holes though you can loose people, but don't worry you can get more red shirts at the nearest docking bay :D.

Even combat is savvy. Tell your people to fire at will, take the helm do it yourself or root all power to engines as the words of Firefly's Jane "Let's Moon'm" cascades from your lips like lavander and oats. Be a commander, be THE commander. Hire merc ships to roll in your space posse, have a fleet of some bad to the bone misunderstood ship captains looking for redemption and love among the stars. You can of course also customize your ships colors and a few decals, but the real bread n' butter is the all the parts you can fit the ships with. An there is a lot of parts ranging from pulsar cannons to rail guns.

You are not constrained in anyway wanna be that scruffy looking nerf herder? You can! Got that Serenity Smuggling Fever? This game has the cure my friend! Wanna travel across space corralling convicts like Cowboy Bebop? See you space cowboy, I'll be chilling with Jet. Wanna make enemies of a gang Outlaw Star Style? Look no further time to pop that space cherry Gene Starwind! Need to feel like you're back in Star Fleet Academy with Kirk? Picard? Riker? Janeway? Tuvok? Classes start as soon as you hit the buy button cadet! An tell Neelix I sent ya ;D.

What is also great is that the devs have been very responsive and helpful working with the community to solve issues, active devs have really made this product shine and continues to better. I do hope you get the game and enjoy as much as I am.

In my conclusion yes I recommend this amazing game, I have spent the last few years just really yearning for something, but sure what exactly. When I saw this I knew my sacrifice to the Game Satan had finally been heard. The graphics are solid and just breathtaking, the gameplay is as smooth as Bruce Willis's bald spot in The 5th Element. An steam workshop also? All I can say is beam me up Scotty, we can do it Captain this time we have the power.

TL;DR: Game good. Combat fun. RPG Loot Funsies. Space much of. Do lots o' stuff. Very shiny graphs. Much impressed. You should buy it too.