I love this game.
Despite its less than stellar name and relatively unknown status, it's one of the best games I have ever played. A game that blends the colorful world of casual gaming and the endless gameplay of hardcore gaming by creating an overworld sandbox of galactic exploration that encompasses a vast amount of sub-genre missions and events that take advantage of turn-based space combat, real-time strategy ground battles, text-adventure styled missions, and even arcade style black hole deathmatches.
Upgrade your ship, gain experience and level up your character's skills, create a fleet of followers or go it alone, trade with the deeper ends of space or smuggle drugs and booze wherever you go, hunt down pirates or become one, take up missions to start the greatest band in the universe or get thrown in prison and spend your days training a cockroach to win the roach races to kill the time.
The English version has some bad translations from its Russian original scattered around the game, which makes an awkward moment for the player that breaks the atmosphere the game creates. The retail version is protected by Star Force unless you buy the direct download version. Also, Space Rangers 2's English version remains unpatched, while the Russian version has many patches and a lot of community support and modifications. If you're fluent in Russian, then you'd ultimately benefit more from that version of the game. And lastly, since most of the game is 2-dimensional, the graphics stretch on widescreen monitors, so instead of spherical planets you'll have egg-shaped planets.
There is so much to do in this game, I must recommend it to anyone, young, old, and everything in between. Whether you're bored and looking for something to do on a rainy day, or you're looking for a deep game that can suck up a lot of your time, Space Rangers 2 has a little bit of everything for everyone.