Born and raised in a distant colony isolated during the war you come back to Earth, bringing the ancient technology found in your planet to improve your civilization and help if the war still ravages. But it has already reached the end with the fall of the alliance and the eternal imprisonment of all those that didn't want to become slave warriors for the Ur-Quan. And humanity is among the trapped ones.

Create alliances, improve the mothership, recruit fighters, explore planets and talk with aliens. It is part of the work that awaits if you wish to recover freedom for your species. And be fast, because the Ur-Quan, now somewhere deciding the future of the galaxy, can come anytime.

More exactly, they will come back in five years. Which is plenty of time for all that haves to be done, starting with recollection of the resources required for the two main things your fleet depends on: crew and fuel. The first serves as health for the ships, like in the first game; while the second is spent when travelling through hyperspace.

To get resources you go to a planet, scan it for minerals and send a special ship to recollect it. There is also an organic scanner, to find animals which give biological data; and an energy scanner, for locating story related things. Each planet is different, with its own gravity, which affects to fuel consumption when landing; and geological and atmospheric dangers. But they are grouped based in similarities with descriptions like "crimson world" or "treasure world" and more imprecisely by their colour and their sun characteristics, something that with a bit of experience can help greatly to mineral gathering.

Those resources are used in the starbase located in Earth's orbit, and they serve for two other important things, building ships and creating modules for your mothership, which can have a bunch of them. Some are for crew, other for fuel, and there are some weapon related ones that can transform your ship into the more devastating one. But more importantly, there are motors for speed and control, without them travelling near a sun or fleeing can be a horrible experience.

The fights still are in real time, a one to one battle even if you fight against a squadron. You can choose which of your own ships send to battle, but can only change them after fleeing, which means not using again in this battle that ship, and sometimes losing it while waiting for the motor to charge.

A good part of the old ships are still here, along with a bunch of novelties. They keep the easy system of having a main weapon and a secondary one or special skill, both requiring energy that, normally, recharges automatically. Gravity and asteroid are still here during the combats, and you can play a two players melee which haves all the new and old ships.

Those new ships include things like a mobile turret one that is also capable of sending marines to kill the enemy crew, a fast ship that gets back energy insulting and can resurrect, another with a turbo which leaves dangerous energy paths or a sniper ship with a huge coil back and great reach that recovers energy faster sending crew directly to the furnaces.

Talking with aliens is one of the main parts of the game, the dialogs are good, and all the species are different, with their own way of speaking that range from menacing to confusing, and usually also are fun and comical.

And talking with them is necessary for getting new allies but also for important and background information, mothership improvements and new ships blueprints (which really is what usually a new ally means).

There are missions and adventures to make aliens friendlier to you, there are some quests for getting useful tools but there is also the possibility of avoiding of causing the extinction of an entire species.

The games haves a lot to do, it doesn't get boring even thought the map is huge and haves many generic places, planets that serve only for recollection, as when you wish to advance in the main arch there is always something awaiting.


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