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°roguelike
http://www.gearheadrpg.com/Gearhead is probably the only Sci Fi roguelike I know. But it's damn good at it. I've been playing (see: constantly savescumming) one file for a few months and while I do believe I've 'beaten' most of my playthrough (as in, the set quests, beaten the arenas, gotten to a ridiculous level) I still haven't even beaten it. It's got a lot of value in it, for sure.
The game's divided into Personal and Mecha Combat. You need the best of both worlds to win, for sure. There's lots of randomly generated quests that are dropped throughout the game to improve your reputation (better reputation = better quests = hardier enemies = better pay) and to get a buttload of cash, which you'll be needing to improve your GIANT WALKING[hovering/flying] ROBOT WITH GUNS AND SWORDS. That is, Mecha. Even the main storyline itself is semi-randomly generated, insofar that it's dressed up a bit different, but the main plot points are still the same. (Bad guy kicks your puppy, you escape to Earth, bad guy hunts you down, you have several encounters.) But it still manages to add interesting flavour to the game, even if it is somewhat predictable at times.
Image: http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/5471/ghscreen.pngOh, and it has some really nice isometric graphics. Interested yet? And that's just the first one. The second one's 3D and is a current work in progress, though you can pick up the mostly-completed work and try it out, it's still being regularly updated. I myself have only tried the first and refuse to move on to the second without finishing at least one playthrough.
Just be aware that the game is kinda rather quite heavily underdocumented, so the wiki will probably help if you want to get into the game.
http://gearheadrpg.com/wiki/index.php?title=GearHeadAs some starting tips: Your reputation is extremely important, if you go wangtta (Negative reputation, wangtta means loser, outcast) it means you failed a mission or died in battle. Winning random battles IIRC doesn't improve your reputation, only succeeding at missions do, and if you lose even one, or die even once, it takes several to raise your reputation back up. If you don't, you're going to literally be running into random encounters with the weakest robots in the game constantly, over and over, even if you're superskilled, and it gets really boring with no challenge and no chance for useful salvage. Hence why savescumming is somewhat necessary.
Your happiness, very strangely enough, varies mostly based on the quality of what you eat (Don't just eat boxed lunches, you need to buy from restaurants in the game, deluxe rations, and chocolate bars from general stores), how much you spend talking to people (higher conversation/seduction helps, these skills automatically raise with use, so just continue talking), and how often you fail/die. Positive mood improves stats, negative mood (which you'll find yourself in much more often) can incur some mean penalties. So monitor this carefully.
You will need all Mecha Skills. In fact, you'll need a lot of skills. So be careful what you put points in. Lockpicking is not necessary, you can destroy doors. Performance, I've never used, and know for a fact it's not vital. Conversation is, Seduction pretty much is, Investigation can be [Lawful], Science helps, Pickpocketting is useless. Pick either Melee Combat or Ranged, both is very stupid. So is personal scale artillery. First Aid is, Medicine is, Personal Repair is...
Hell, you need most everything. Savant feat helps by increasing your skill cap by three of four or so, Knowledge further helps. I think I've given enough advice that won't make sense right now, go ahead and try the game. Just pick the randomly generated character and see how far you go blowing up other giant robots. It's great fun.
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