Darkstar One

I Missed this game when it first came out. It sports wonderful graphics for its time, as you can see by the screens. The game play is fast paced and fun. Dog fights make up most of the action, they can easily be played with mouse and keyboard, no need for a joystick. You get to upgrade you ship as you go along, by finding artifacts. I found that hunting these artifacts are really more of a chore than an adventure. Also, you really dont get alot of choice with you ship upgrades. Its not like Masters of Orion or Space Empires in the customization department, you can choose to upgrade the hull, wings or tail of the ship. An add abilities to a plasma cannon. Kind of weak actually. The major draw back to the game is that It gets repetitive after 10-12 hours of play. All the missions are basically the same, and pirates keep throwing themselves at you in waves. Another strange thing is that being an outlaw is less fun than being a good guy. See the police hunt you when your an outlaw. Sounds fun, yeah? Nope, The police are very weak, but they come in endless waves, you can never destroy all of them and you cant leave the system until their far away from you, leaving you only the option of running. Its like being swarmed by gnats. Also you cannot destroy buildings (starbases and the like) making my experience of being an outlaw very lame. Over a pretty good game, great graphics and a good experience for the first few hours, It is certainly worth the 9.99 gog wants, and dont buy it in the bargain rack, its got the nasty StarForce DRM, unlike at gog. I give it 3 stars.

Alas, GoG, your sale came too late, as I already purchased this during the Steam sale for the same price, and I'd much rather have had it from you, with your ideal approach to DRM. For those who missed it, I suggest you buy it here. I've been enjoying it for nearly a month now. If you like space combat with resource trading, escort missions, and other odd jobs to make money while going through a story at your own pace in a nice-looking space environment, you should enjoy this game.

I got this recently and was surprised to find it's a great take on "Elite". It blends a sandbox and mission campaign nicely. The graphics are absolutely beautiful with swirling nebulae, spinning asteroids, corona flare, detailed animations and sweet looking ships. Missions are the usual assortment of escort runs, dogfights, courier, mining, dogfights, trading, dogfights, rescue and dogfights.. did i mention dogfights? there's a lot of combat. So it's definitely a Good Old Game.

Very similar game mechanic to Elite and X-Universe series, although lacking a certain amount of their complexity. This game's strongest point has to be the entertaining dogfighting, and the readily available and reasonably varied selection of missions. However, there is very little to the game that does not fall under this heading, so if you're looking for trading or exploration then look elsewhere.

I necer played Descent, Wing Commander or Freespace or any other simulator for that matter. With this in mind I was wary of buying darkstar one because of the reviews but since it was on sale I risked it and was very surprised. Starting the game I noticed that the graphics were good, the voice acting could use some improvement but good or bad it does add to immersion. I love whenever I want to dock my ship and I need to contact the space station and receive a voiced reply. There's trading, exploring, you make allies, you make enemies and also have a criminal record. You may become a pirate or a mercenary, there's plenty to do in this game and it's fun. My only complaints are that there's no Multiplayer or some easier way to prolong the game and some of the missions can get repetitive. The game may have it's faults and it's very combat oriented but it doesn't deserve anything less than 4 stars.