Things get more challenging as you move to the second and third campaigns. The government tries to put a squeeze on your trade and you may need to resort to violent measures to evade their greedy tax collectors. The distinctions between legal and illegal cargo never really amount to much since they only difference is that some merchants will buy one and not the other, though you are rarely at a loss in finding the guy or gal you need to unload your cargo. Even a die hard socialist will have no trouble finding a reason to hate the Accounts Ministry, though given how many times you have to bribe them or break into their HQ; it’s probably no coincidence that they hate you.

The problem is that it is a real chore in working up the interest to unlock the advanced levels. Failing missions and being forced to retry them over and over so you can move forward is tedious in even the best of games, and Space Trader is not in that league. The story is not compelling enough to urge you onward, with only the promise of more money to buy more things and travel to new space ports. If the game were structured with an open sandbox galaxy, opening new routes as you upgraded ships or something, it would have more staying power and maybe even give you some emergent gameplay beyond beat-the-clock stories that force you to replay the same bits again and again because Venus decided to be 30 hours away this time instead of 8.

Some of the achievements are a nice touch (you get “snitch” for turning in a particularly odious schemer) and, exploration/shooting mode aside, the game doesn’t look too bad. The interface is intuitive and the mysteries of time aside, there is little confusion over what you are supposed to do next. You can jump from merchant to merchant without having to run around looking for them, making the tedium of station crawling much smoother. There is competitive and co-op LAN play though it will be a challenge finding anyone to play with you.

Ultimately, however, Space Trader is just too traditional to ever move beyond mediocre. A young teen audience might enjoy it if there weren’t so many roadblocks to completion; the game is simple enough to be a good starter game for a burgeoning gamer but if you want a real enjoyable economic challenge, it wouldn’t hurt to load up a classic from the past. Space Trader doesn’t bring enough new to the table even at the bargain price.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .