
It gives you options to take a more corporate and self-centred path to fame and fortune but seems to point you back on the straight and narrow with every launch that you partake in. I can’t help but feel that there’s a sort of shoe-horning happening in this game’s narrative. This brings me to your choices in this game’s story structure. But honestly, I found myself using the quick text setting that allows you to skip right to the next dialogue choice right away. Most people will reach out to you to make suggestions, offer channel partnership deals or new and better rocket parts, which is altogether meaningful. Not only am I not OK with calling a young girl cute as I launch her toy into the air or discussing breaking algorithms with a dude named FredomWarrior in the name of advancing my amateur rocket career, but I’m also not OK with the way they just kept going.

Yeah, that’s the one! Honestly, a lot of the conversations in this game, which take place on a sort of pseudo-WhatsApp platform deeply disturbed me. He’s even harder to take seriously than a lot of the other people you meet along this adventure because he just feels like he’s firing on all cylinders all the time.Īs I’ve mentioned, the story evolves from you taking on wholesome rocket launching projects with the help of a friend or girlfriend, it’s honestly hard to tell, and evolves into dealing with some pretty uncomfortable conversations with kids looking for you to launch their toys into space and call them cute, hackers looking to bring down StarTube and an eccentric group of rebels looking for you to help them bring democracy to space before the billionaires and governments take over. A sharply-dressed and quick-witted interpretation of an Elon Musk who truly cares about somebody aside from himself, Widner’s arch feels like my cult-leading youth pastor fused with the lead singer of a Dutch emo band. RocketGirl feels like a peppy Maeby Fünke-looking mad scientist who will quickly grow annoying.Ībout halfway through the game, you’ll be introduced to Radik Widner, who is all sorts of crazy. The acting feels forced and ironically like the types of videos the algorithm would hide deep in the far reaches of a video platform for being just a little too forced. What you quickly find is a rather pretentious commentary on selling yourself out to the man, gaming the almighty algorithms, bending the law for the greater good and eventually, launching the world’s greatest rocket high up in the sky for the little guy.įor the most part, Next Space Rebels tells its story through bright and bombastic StarTube video FMVs that drip with personality… and also cringe levels of cheesy. You play as an unnamed rocket enthusiast simply looking to harmlessly grow to the level of fame your idol, RocketGirl, has on YouTube stand-in, StarTube. At its very core, Next Space Rebels is a high-brow commentary on consumerism and space politics.
