Darkstar One

This game was a title i was looking forward too, at the first time it was announced. Ascaron is a very good studio, or better said, was a good studio. They were getting part of Kalypso the time Darkstar One was developed. Kalypso is a bad company. Dont misunderstand me, the programmers and the dev stuff are good, but management is stupid as hell. But its same on most game dev companies, some idiots only see the fast money they can make asap, selling a 30% finished game. You can see it here. It works on companies with big budget, doing a agressive marketing like EA and Ubisoft. They also selling broken/alpha state games, but with their great marketing, the customer take it "as it is". Kalypso doesnt have any big budget, so Darkstar One flopped so hard and cutting a deep wound into the companies balance. Ascaron for themself, made some amazing games like the Patrician Series, man i love that game... To bad a handful of idiots at the top of a company can ruin one game after another without any consequences.

I played 3 missions of this game and had to put it down, I paid £40 for this game and I could of cried probably the worst £40 I have ever spent on any game, the graphics is terrible, the game play is dull, the voice acting is tragic, probably the worst flight sim game ever made.

I don't really see the point of a combat game where you have to retreat to charge your weapons to make them effective. it's stupid and boring. This rubbish mechanic is on the turret defense on space stations ( think of the quad guns failing on the Millennium Falcon 5 second into combat and Han Solo sitting there with his thumb up his arse waiting for them to recharge.) Stupid frustrating and annoying. Are these space stations operating on car batteries? considering about 90% of this is combat you'll be swearing alot at the lame weapon mechanic. it's also got an awful maze sequence half way through which has a timer section to compound the misery. Get rebel galaxy instead. I was sorry when I completed that. This, i might just watch the end on you tube.

If you're new to the Space-sim genre and want to start with something a little less involved than something like X-3, this game is perfect. If you're a space sim veteran, this game is still worth your time, as it takes the standard space sim and makes it slightly less involved - You wont play a single run for several months to years... Unlike other space sim games, DSO is much more linear, which some players will find better, as you're not without any direction or idea on what you should do next. Combat features heavily in the game and is much harder to avoid than in the X titles (as an example). The combat controls are very intuitive, handling moving in all directions and changing speeds easily. The trading aspect of the game is adequate for the title, but if you're after a space trading game, you may find other titles more appropriate. The trading is reasonably simplistic and the economy reacts only to your actions. In short, this is a good introductory Space Sim title that features most of the features of more focused space-sims, in a streamlined package that makes it much more friendly than other titles in the genre. The voice acting isn't truly amazing, but it wont make you turn off the speakers. Some of the plot points are a little bit tired, especially in the genre ("Your father, my good friend died. Sorry. He was a good man. On the plus side, he left you a ship! Since you have a ship, can you do me a quick favour..?"), although I didn't complete the game to give a good view of the entire plot.

Darkstar One is enjoyable, has a good soundtrack, has good graphics, some competent voiceacting and generally gets the job done. However, unfortunately it falls short in almost every other field: 1) weapon customisation almost feels like getting linear upgrades 2) ship upgrades are linear and boring at that, so are the Plasma Cannon upgrades going alongside those 3) every system is, mechanically, the same. You get 300 copy-paste systems, only varying with small aesthetic details, to visit, where 30 well-defined ones would've been much better. 4) the plot isn't especially riveting, and isn't very well structured 5) side missions tend to be very same-y 6) the game doesn't really support any other style of playing than a gun-totting mercenary. Trade is a chore and the game doesn't give you enough info on it to make it worthwhile. So yeah, if you've got no other game to try out, you might want to grab this when its on sale. But generally nothing to write home about, and too much of it to boot. The game's shortcomings could've been forgivable if it was 10 hours long, but its probably at least twice that long.