Darkstar One

This was one of my favourite childhood games. I can never forget the awesome experience I had with it. I still have the box with me.

I bought a box copy years back and played it. I was looking forward to the game as there was little in the flight sim market at the time, this was before Star Citizen or No Man's Sky was visible. Just to give you a gauge of my taste, I'm an old fan of Wing Commander and Freespace, including both Privateers, and Rebel Galaxy. I didn't have any expectations of this game, but I know what I like. The game started off okay. The graphics are pretty and all. I saw that there was an interesting system by which to develop the starship, it not bothering me that there's only one, and what appeared to be a fairly open universe to play around with. As time went on, I figured out a few things. The world is fairly open, but the missions do moderately funnel you into a particular direction. The universe serves no other purpose than to act as a backdrop to the main story. No side stories. No varying experiences or characters. The starship can be equipped to be anything from a speedy skirmisher to a hefty gunship, but it's going to center around direct confrontation and when you pass a certain threshold, you become untouchable by the enemy. I created a multi-gun corvette and I would simply fly by as my automated turrets tore holes in everything. I rarely dodged a shot. This became boring. Since I was funneled into a single storyline, it better be good. Instead, it was a bland story with horrible voice acting, unrealistic dialogue, the cheesiest ending, and a final mission I couldn't lose, even if I sabotaged my own efforts. In the end, it's a movie that has a flashy opening sequence but then becomes a cliche and ends trying to sell you a twist you saw coming from a deus-ex-machina mile away that you kept trying to refuse but was forced into your arms anyway. So, I finished it, shelved it, and there it has stayed for reasons I can't fathom.

This game is a bit weird in that it might appear like a Privateer-like but access to new solar systems is locked behind story missions (later missions often make you visit a single system of a large cluster and do multiple back and forths before the other systems are finally unlocked), single missions are useful only at the very beginning of the game, same for the weapons in shops since you can just consult the news for information about pirate gangs and when you take one down you get a special weapon that's better than the one sold there. Also for some reason the in-flight menus are often mouse-driven which means that if you play with a joystick you still need the mouse and if you fly with a mouse you can't move your ship while selecting a specific target or doing most of the mouse-driven stuff (same with the stick) fortunately it's not necessary that often but it can be problematic in certain circumstances. Said that it's not irritating like, say, Privateer 2 but the story in comparison is rather bland. You have a sort of RPG-like mechanic in upgrading the ship with the "artifacts" you can recover with the secondary missions or just laying around some of the systems which is potentially interesting but space combat is rather bland too. Trading is done by towing containers which weigh you down so you need to drop them in case you get attacked, which is irritating enough that I never bothered with it outside story missions that require you to carry containers. Graphics are fine and support high resolution in 16:9, the game on my win7 system was overall stable but I occasionally got crashes while shopping on space stations. It's fine if you want a space-shooty thing without even the slightest pretense and a story that is a bit brainless but it's a bit too long for its own good and it can get repetitive. It's no classic for sure and probably you are better off playing something with more personality in both gameplay and story.

I love this game with a passion.

Great game!! Ship maneuverability is somewhat clunky but otherwise 5/5.