Star Wolves? What the heck is that!?! Well my friend you may never have heared of it, but that doesn't mean its bad...
Your mothership is lumbering and reasonably powerful, but quickly becomes the most vulnerable part of your fleet, and seeing as you have to keep it intact to complete missions it can get frustrating when your nimble fighters knock seven kinds of hell out of the enemy, but not quick enough to stop them taking out 'big momma', your stuck with the same mothership all game and the upgrades available are never adequet. The key to winning therfore is patience, scouting around, finding and drawing off the enemy, taking them out piece-meal and generally hiding your mothership from the 'rough-types'. Missions sometimes take hours to complete this way, but its often the only way and at least you can save whenever you like. If you have patience with it, this game rewards you in many ways; firstly the story is as deep and wide as space itself, and highly immersive. You are essentially mercenaries free to be hired by all and sundry for cash or information, your clients will be private enterprises, big corporations, the oppressive 'empire' and even pirates, and you get to choose which you take on, which shapes the way the overall plot unfolds for you. After each mission you update your crew with new abilites using experience points gained and buy and sell equipment scavenged from space to improve your ships. There is a huge variety of items and abilities to choose from and no two squadrons will be the same.
For looks, this game is a real treat as its doesn't demand masses of hardware but still makes space look pretty, and combat it truly awesome; missle trails, muzzle flashes, engines, lazers, shields and explosions light up the dark in such a display of pyrotechnics that I lost the first big battle I got in because I was too busy looking at it to fight.
Sound is good in combat too, and the score kicks in appropriately in battles and mellows during quieter periods. The only weakness is the voice acting, which is largely none existent except for the news bullitins and they aren't read brilliantly. Most communication is via screen text, which contains some noticable, though not indecypherable errors thanks to a hasty translation from the original Russian.
Its a great game with plenty of reply value and a good mix of strategy and role playing plus a healthy dose of action, but the fact that it takes too long to get to the end of a mission and the lack of voice prevent it from being as good as it could be. But there is a sequel in the way soon, Space Wolves 2, add it to your Watched list because it would be a shame if it were passed over as badly as this one has been.