![]() There's a very deep and detailed mythology behind the game, but most of it is delivered through the manual or huge chunks of optional text. Making matters worse, the game's absence of dramatic tension and lack of "wow" moments during play only served to magnify the flatlined energy level. Each part looked and felt like the others, and a sense of cookie-cutter repetition set in far too soon. However, after checking out a number of galaxies, I began to notice that each star system was essentially the same, both visually and in terms of content. The scope of the available area and lack of restrictions were very much appreciated, and simply traveling kept my interest for a good while. When tired of any given area, the player can warp to another system at will and continue the process of discovery. When entering a new star system, there are usually loads of ships to interact with (both friendly and hostile) and points of interest found scattered around. ![]() It has a very likable, earnest air, and the general concept of freely piloting around the universe is a good one. How exactly does a turret work? What's this purple plasma glow doing to my ship? What's the advantage of having a level II docking computer? Maybe the approach of "dump everything in the player's lap and let them figure it out" works on PC, but it doesn't fly on a console.Īfter abandoning much of the peripheral content and deciding to stick with the main storyline, I do want to say that DarkStar One feels as though it was put together by people who really cared about it. There's plenty to see and choose from (missiles, cargo drones, etc.) but the game makes no effort to make the choices between them transparent or relatable. It was a similar situation with the other pieces of tech. The effects of upgrading should be blindingly obvious-by comparison, RPGs have had this sort of system down for years. Only after I spent my upgrade did the game bother to tell me which one was the correct one to start with, but by that time it was too late. I made a blind choice hoping for the best, and had no idea what improved once I committed. ![]() When first given the chance to upgrade it, the benefits of choosing between fore, aft, and center sections wasn't clear. The DarkStar is apparently some sort of living craft, capable of growth and enhancement. If the content's there, why not take the time to acclimate players to it?Īnother area where the devs could take a cue from consoles are the ship and its equipment. My interest gave way to apathy, since I felt if the developers weren't going to take the time to explain the murky systems, then I wasn't going to take the time to stumble through them. I struggled with it for a bit, failed to glean anything significant from the manual, and then simply gave up and moved on. I could read the menus and see the charts when tooling around at the local trading station, but the content was just there. I'm not sure how well it was received when it was first released, but compared to current standards, it feels extremely low-rent and in need of polish.įor example, participating in smuggling or in goods trading is not explained clearly, and there's no mission serving as a walkthrough for players to get the gist. While the first-person ship controls are fine and the graphics get the job done without being overly impressive, my main impression of DarkStar One is that the game feels like a bare-bones port with very little concessions or tweaking for console players. After completing a brief series of training exercises, the player is essentially set loose in the universe to either follow the storyline and solve the murder or participate in a number of other activities not essential to completion of the game- things like trading cargo between star systems for profit, becoming a pirate, or hiring on for escort missions. The main character's father is killed under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind the eponymous DarkStar spacecraft. There have been several notable PC entries in a universe-exploration vein (or so I'm told) such as Freelancer or Elite, but none have made the jump to consoles until now.Īs implied, DarkStar One is a free-roam spacefaring game. The absence of interstellar adventuring was understandable in previous generations when the hardware couldn't support that kind of scale, but while consoles have been lagging, PC developers have not historically been working under the same constraints. I'm surprised current console game developers don't tackle it more often. Taking command of a spacecraft and exploring the stars is a concept that I find extremely fascinating. WTF Have these developers never seen a good menu system? LOW Each star system is nearly identical to the next. To Middlingly go Where no one (on 360) has Gone Before…
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