In Star Wolves 2, your dreams of becoming a fleet admiral come true. Like the prequel, Star Wolves 2 puts you in control of a frigate—complete with its own supporting cast of fighters! You’re the leader of a space-faring mercenary group (known of course as the Star Wolves) traveling around the universe looking for and accomplishing freelance missions for money. Eventually you’ll get involved in a galaxy-wide conflict, casting your lot with one of the major factions. The choice you’ll make determines how the story develop, and what the ending will be.From a production value standpoint, Star Wolves 2 is a mixed bag.

The graphics are obviously inspired by Homeworld, but there’s nothing wrong with copying what works. The explosions are big and beautiful. Laser beams cut through space. Missiles streak towards their target. A big part of Star Wolves 2 is space combat, and it’s great to see how it’s believably and interestingly presented. The cool rock soundtrack kicks in when you encounter hostiles, pumping you up for the battle ahead.

The game system is even more similar to Homeworld. It’s a true 3D environment, where ships can fly along the X, Y, and Z axes. This adds an interesting dimension (pun intended) to the gameplay. A useful tactic involves attacking the enemies from above or below, exploiting the fact that there’s minimal weapon coverage in these areas. Managing only a few number of ships (a maximum of 7, including your frigate) makes for an easier command experience, at least compared to the hundreds, if not thousands, of ships under your control in Homeworld. You can also pause the game at any time, taking a breather while you adapt your tactics to how the battle is playing out.

Star Wolves 2 differentiates itself by adding some RPG elements to the mix. The pilots have skill trees much like Diablo 2, with each new ability costing a certain amount of skill points earned as the player dispatches enemies or completes quests. Individual ships have weapon, missile, and system slots, which can be filled up with different kinds of items with their own characteristics and abilities.

There’s also a story to follow where many times you have to decide what to do. Some decisions change the way the plot develops, others make life a little easier for you and your crew. Exploring the results of each choice extends this game’s lifespan with a dose of replayability, if only to see the various endings.

Unfortunately, it looks like Star Wolves 2 was released before all the bugs were worked out. Crashes were very frequent, so much so that I had to run the game in windowed mode for easy recovery when the game hung. I had to summon the task manager many times to end the program manually. A very significant drawback, one that frustrated me to no end.

Originally a Russian game, Star Wolves 2 also suffers from poor voice acting and translation. The characters always come of as robots who have faulty English-speaking programs. It’s also a bit anti-climactic that once you get to upgrade everything on your frigate and fighters, the game suddenly ends. You wish you had more chances to unleash your ultra-powerful fleet on enemies.

Star Wolves 2 had so much promise, mixing the revolutionary RTS-system of Homeworld with some RPG elements that lets you specialize your pilots into specific roles. But Russian publisher 1C’s effort is hampered by bugs, and poor translation into English. I give this a 6.5 out of 10.