Galaxy on Fire 2

The Good
* Review for iPhone and iPod Touch version only. The gameplay is known to be different on other platforms.

Now the review starts.

Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard. Those are the basic hierarchy of difficulty modes found in most games. Too many games do this the wrong way. Too often, the hard mode requires the player to possess superhuman skills and patience. And recently I've stumbled upon quite a few games that require this even on the normal difficulty mode. I say NO to that. You hear me? The moment I realize a game raises its difficulty by asking me to transform into superman, by taking the fun out of it, is the moment I stop playing that game.

A game should never require unreasonable skill levels or patience, not even on hard difficulty modes. A game should always be meant for fun, entertainment (except for Braid, which is meant for other deep stuff that I don't care much about).

I completed Galaxy on Fire 2 twice, the first time on Easy difficulty, and the second time on Very Hard difficulty. It's likely the only game that I managed to beat, and actually cared to beat, on the hardest difficulty setting. Because it never sacrifices fun. The Very Hard mode remains fun throughout. The difference between Very Hard and Easy is that you need more strategies. You can take your time to develop these strategies. (The action and battles are in real time, but you have plenty of preparation time while resting in the space lounges.) There is a wide variety of jobs (missions). It reminds me so much of, well, life. In life, we suck at our job first, we learn, we get good at our job, and then we get real good. Time will handle all that. If you're talented, you'll learn faster and improve faster than others. Galaxy on Fire 2 is very similar. There are jobs you simply can't do during the first 5, 6 hours. And then you get good at it, and those missions eventually become a cakewalk to you. The hardest difficulty encourages you to become a veteran at every job category that this game offers.

It's like life because, life also has four difficulty modes. Some of us have easy jobs. Some of us have very hard jobs. But eventually we're all going to manage, to survive. I think this message is invaluable, a message that so many games failed to convey. So many games are just too hard, too hopeless. Life isn't hopeless.

The Bad
Everytime you fly through a wormhole, a gateway, a star gate, a star portal, whatever it's called, there will be a 10-second animation. You'll be flying a LOT. You'll be watching a LOT of these animations. This is the main annoyance.

The Bottom Line
Not recommended for people who play games during the day (as this is a space exploration game that should be played at night).

Not recommended for people who have no experience in the space combat sim genre. You fly a spaceship. You fire weapons at other spaceships. You figure out ways to make money. If you've never played games like this before, the learning curve will be about 3 hours.

Also, I wasn't able to connect to the server that provided the downloads for the two expansion packs. I wanted to play the expansion packs but there was no way to download it on the App Store. The only method is In-App Purchase. This is not very clever, since the game company's server isn't very stable, and I've never been able to connect to their website.