Publisher: Fishlabs
Price: $6.99/£4.99 in-app purchase
Description: Open Universe Space Trading Game
Fullscreen Support |
Mouse Support |
File Size |
Launch Date |
Required Specifications |
Yes |
All (Keyboard Control) |
1.22GB——- |
21st September 2012 |
OSX: 10.6.6
|
Rating
Pros: New characters, more content.
Cons: Monotonous missions, dragged out story, no new core gameplay changes, in-app purchase scheme, not many new items.
Review
Supernova is an expansion on Galaxy on Fire 2 Full HD which is purchased separately from within the game. Want the review of the full game? Go here.
What was I expecting from Supernova, Galaxy on Fire 2’s second add-on? In short, something a lot better than what I got. Supernova seems to have forgotten the difference between adding content and adding value. Yes, the campaign will probably take you 10 hours to complete, but most of it consists of tedious mission objectives that don’t serve any real purpose other than to waste your time. Supernova doesn’t showcase the value that has been added onto the existing Galaxy on Fire game, and feels like a flat, non-existent expansion.
The new add-on’s story has a lot of promise. A supernova has exploded in a neighbouring star system, leaving the residents fleeing for their lives. You start off helping in the evacuation of trapped civilians, but uncover a much deeper political plot, and some strange new stealth fighters. Unfortunately, it only gets worse from there.
The new mission’s are really unoriginal and tedious. It seems that everything small objective requires you to jump through pointless hoops to achieve it. Take for example; you are trying to find one Professor Moonsproket. You have to go to three different space stations before finding him, with each barman telling you something to the effect of ‘sorry, he’s in another castle’. I might be more lenient if it weren’t the fact that almost every level has this sort of approach. Looking for some crystals in a wreckage? Well, there’s four different waste containers to search, with the last one always containing the thing you’re looking for. The sense of danger and suspense when evacuating civilians from exploding space stations is non-existent, making the back-and-forth ferrying of your cargo really quite boring job. I don’t mind a bit of downtime, but the extent to which Galaxy on Fire 2 Supernova makes you feel like you are wasting your time even makes the main character, Keith, moan when he is given more chores to follow.
Aside from the story, it doesn’t feel like much else has been added upon the original game. There are a few new ships and weapons, some new side-mission types which don’t really capture my imagination, and some added space stations which don’t serve a purpose outside of the campaign. Galaxy on Fire 2 feels exactly like it did before purchasing the Supernova add-on.
Galaxy on Fire no longer rewards you for completing missions either, meaning you are going to have to pay your way to new ships and weapons independently. You even have to finance the cost of all items required for the campaign. Money can be earned on the side through commodity trading, side missions and mining, but it’s all pretty mind-numbing stuff. Plus, you would have to dedicate hours of monotonous work to earn enough for a new ship. Might this just be a ploy to encourage players to purchase more in-game coins via in-app purchase? I seriously hope not.
Difficulty has also been knocked up a notch in Supernova. Chances are your previous ship set-up, no matter how many shiny bells and whistles you have in your cargo hold, won’t hold up to the improved fire-power of all enemies in the game. There are some ridiculous difficulty spikes at points, and the fact that buying a new ship costing 4,000,000$ is probably out of the question unless you want to sell and buy turrets at different locations for 2 hours, you’re probably not going to be able to afford the latest technology to keep inline with your enemies. Unless of course you buy some coins via in-app purchase…
It saddens me to think that a game so excellent could fall so far with just one add-on. If you haven’t already guessed by now, just stick with what you’ve got. There isn’t much you are missing out on.
