Romanians and Hungarians... now there's an interesting topic for you. Sure, it may not be as popular as America vs. the world, or the world vs. Germany, but for some of us living in Eastern Europe, it's been a hot topic from day one. And for many politicians, or retards (or retard politicians), it still is! Why is that? Well, early education - or lack of it - might have something to do with all this ethnic hate. I was lucky enough to watch "Esti Mese" (that's "Bedtime Story" in Hungarian) on MTV (that's Magyar TV) as a kid, so I can safely say I got over it pretty soon. Others, however, were less fortunate. And so, here we are today in this utterly ridiculous situation!

A little while ago, Romanian indie developer 2 Bad Design revealed a modest space game called Romanians in Space. Last month they even sent out an open beta invitation, earning themselves some attention and, with it, controversy. The game's parodical storyline sees a communist Romanian Empire conquering Earth and taking on the whole Galaxy, while a group of Hungarian separatists rise up to fight for their freedom. Now guess who's the parodical enemy in need of ruthless extermination!

But apparently not all Hungarians were able to read between the lines, and took the whole thing serious. The game has already been the subject of discussion on Hungarian TV, and has won a "Lemon award" from Hungary's GameStar magazine. Soon enough, flames began to swell on both "our" and "their" forums, with some exquisit samples of both countries' naughty phrases (indeed, Romanians are no better). God forbid any politician gets a hold of this non-issue!

Sadly, not much is said about the game itself in these heated discussions. So we'll briefly note that Romanians in Space is an ambitious attempt at the space genre, coming from a small team of indies. So don't expect it to rival with the likes of X3: Reunion or Freelancer in terms of graphics, complexity and overall value. But for a free, unter-low-budget game, it's not bad at all. Just give it a try and see for yourself.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)