Space Rangers HD

For people which never played any game in the series:
Game is a turn-based aRPG in 2d environment, with optional arcade hyperspace fights (couple are plot-related), optional real-time strategical battles, and optional text quests, which differ from linear and easy to roguelikes and turn-based strategies (prepare pen&paper!).
Most of the time you would spend in the space with the hand on the "Space" while looking for fight or carrying loot.
Fights also would look for you - pirates sniff for weaknesses like leaving weapon on the planet to pick up more goods, dominators simply want to kill everything, civilians can remember that "Hey, you robbed me ten years ago! Now die!", and planets can send battle fleet against you if you decide to sell narcotics or weapon in bulk.
Difficulty ranges from "sleep on end turn key and win" to "I'm still alive? wow"
This series was made by gamers for gamers, I recommend to play it.

Space Rangers 2 is a lot of things: it's a wonderful space sandbox, it's also a strategy, it's a collection of wonderful text quests, and it's also a game with an incredible cheeky style in everything it does. Truly one of a kind game.

I played this game almost 20 years ago, when it was on a "Computer Bild Spiele"-CD. Back then it was called "Space Rangers 2: Dominators". It's still one of the best Space RPGs I ever played and I still play this game from time to time. This release is from 2013 and it still gets updates. They're not big, but the game is getting even more polished. Thank you so much for this gem and taking care of it for all these years!

Days of my life gone, but I don't want them back. Good times. Fond memories. No regrets. +10

Genuinely did not expect to sink over 160 hours into a game that looks like it was made in a shed in 2002, yet here we are. Had the original disc from a PC games magazine back in the day, so this is basically nostalgia hitting me like a freight train. Space Rangers HD does everything: space trading, text adventures, RTS battles, arcade shooting and somehow doesn't fumble most of it. The RTS segments are the weakest link, but they're short enough to not overstay their welcome. The text quests alone are worth the price of admission, some of them are actually hilarious. It's rough around the edges, but in a charming way, like a stray cat that occasionally bites you. If you like games that respect your intelligence and don't hold your hand, this one's for you.

20-year-old game with a lick of (somewhat) fresh paint. Holds up surprisingly well. The addons (or conversion mods made part of the game - whatever you want to call them) work fairly well with the simulated galaxy. Nothing looks broken or imbalanced.
Which is important to mention since the original was very well polished and balanced game with complex (for the time) world simulation. Set the difficulty high and sit on a planet doing nothing and the galaxy will be overrun by the baddies. Set the difficulty too low and NPCs push the baddies to far corners of the galaxy themselves. The world is alive, it doesn't stricly need you.
There are some frustrating elements.
The difficulty of text quests does not correlate with the payout. How much you'll make depends mostly on the level of the corresponding attribute.
Text quests themselves can be very frustrating. Fails and deaths without any warning or a good reason. A lot of trial and error. Significant amount of random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that can kill you during very lengthy quests. No saves in the middle, only retry from the start.
Only good thing about planetary battles in the payout. It is comparatively huge to any other kind of mission in the game. But that is not a very good deal since trying to control units on the field is a real psychological torture. The pathfinding is horrendous.
'Find and destroy" missions are not worth trying. You'll be lucky if the target gets killed by somebody or something else. Otherwise it turns into cat a mouse game, where the target avoids combat any way it can and quest just times out.
But these are very specific things that don't take all the attention all the time. The game is fun, looks very good for how old it is, plays on almost anything with a CPU and a display. One of the GOATs of my youth that aged very well and still worth playing.

I remember picking up Space Rangers sometime in my 50s, back when I still had the patience to get lost in a proper game. It reminded me of the old days - complex, unforgiving, but full of charm and surprises at every turn. Even now, it brings back that quiet satisfaction of plotting routes and making tough choices in a living galaxy. Not many games stick with you like that but this one did, and still does.