For gamers of A Certain Age–that’s a fancy way of saying “Old as all hell”–titles like Starlancer and Wing Commander conjure up a heady nostalgia. They may even throw money at you if you promise to make a game that’s just like those games, but more modern. And, finally, that game has come out. No, it’s not that one. It is Rebel Galaxy Outlaw.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Developer: Double Damage Games
Price: $30
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw channels the Space Western aesthetic–gritty style, hard-luck cases clinging to the edge of a tough and uncaring galaxy–but without Joss Whedon jerking himself off. Let’s call it Cowboy Bebop-esque. You’re a space Han Solo-type named Juno Markev trying to track down the bad hombre that killed your husband, only you don’t quite manage to kill the guy. Instead, you wind up on a backwater planet with no ride, no money, and no hope. An old contact takes pity on you and loans you a garbage truck of a spaceship–no, really–to run a few jobs and get back on your feet.
That’s the opening in a nutshell. There’s not a tutorial segment or a lot of hand-holding to tell you what you’re supposed to do. Instead, like the 90s games it channels, you just kind of try stuff and figure out what works. Maybe you can chat up that bartender and find out there’s a freighter or bad guy with a bounty and get their coordinates. Maybe you just shoot pool or play in the arcade. Maybe you launch into space and follow the breadcrumbs of a story.
The space game is the bread and butter of the experience, and it’s just as good as you remember but with some nice enhancements. At lower difficulties, you can pop into third person mode and zoom around that way, but there’s also the option to play sim-style. The cockpits are just as crammed as they were back then and cockpit visibility is a major feature when considering a new ship. There’s guns and missiles, there’s lights flashing everywhere, and there’s swearing as you fight to shoot someone down before they shoot you down. It’s like being 14 again but you have a soul-crushing job to go to in the morning instead of a soul-crushing school. Where was I? Oh right, game review.
Call it a sop to console players or call it a nice concession to aging vets like myself, but when you lock on a target, there’s an option that basically turns the ship to keep the target within view, letting you focus on the pew-pew instead of trying to navigate. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is built around the combat, but it wants you to enjoy the combat, and the combat is plenty of fun, especially if you use a gamepad.
The experience is streamlined to always be chucking you into or out of the next fight. You can liberally use autopilot so you don’t have to cruise mindlessly for hours. You don’t have to have the landing skills of an actual fighter pilot to get on the ground. All you need to worry about is killing that pirate or freighter, gathering the sweet, sweet loot, and moving onto the next score.
You know what you’re getting with the missions: deliver some stuff, kill this guy, shoot that guy, go here and talk to this person. But it’s the variety of them and the pathways you can take where it really gets its hooks in. Maybe you don’t want to see where the story goes. Maybe a life of crime appeals to you, so you want to jump that freighter instead. Maybe bounty hunting is pretty sweet, so you just focus on roaming the galaxy and tracking down bad dudes for money and prizes.
More importantly, it has style. The ships tend to be lumbering hulks. The stations are bizarre and lived-in. Everything’s kind of worn. The soundtrack is a little bit southern rock, the kind of thing you might stumble on trucking in the cornfields of Space Nebraska. You may not be a citizen of the stars, say, but you are a hard-bitten space trucker that’ll fight a little if you need to. It’s all about being a freelancer on the edge, risking it all for a big score, only you get a cool spaceship instead of a Microsoft Word document.
The Final Word
With space combat that feels just like the 90s and some nice, new quality of life features, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is the game your 14 your old self would’ve killed for.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
