Darkstar One

I remember playing this game a long time ago, when I got it the first time it was already a nostalgia purchase, because I remember playing WC:Privateer 1 & 2. I checked online and there's some mods that expanded the universe, I would try them after I finish the vanilla version again

Like Freelancer, with newer PC hardware it is easy to run all settings to max. 20 year old game, still supports 2k resolution graphics! Get the game and set everything to max. only the cut scenes are a bit low resolution because of its age. I'm about 3 systems in now. Turrets are a huge help, dont overlook them.

Jó kis lövölde, és cselekmény is van. Fejleszthető a hajó. Hiány pótló.

Before I start nitpicking, the game is quite good. Don't let the following discourage you too much, but it's stuff you should know. The voice acting in this game is quite horrible. The various characters sound like they are completely detached from the events in progress, and don't mesh well with eachother. It's like they never heard what their co-actors were supposed to say, and thus had to just play things by ear. The same goes for the dialogue itself. It seems disjointed and not really relevant to their co-actors' remarks or conversation. The gameplay itself is good, albeit a little too much of a Freelancer ripoff to me. It's like they decided to mod Freelancer to be a First-Person simulator instead of a third-person simulator. The trading and mission system is almost plagiarized 100%. The only thing that differs is that the menus involved are slightly less intuitive. We've all seen the storyline before. The main protagonist has suffered some sort of loss, and is now working himself back up to the top. He's got some sort of specialty that no one else does (in this case, his ship) and is pulled into an ever increasing conspiracy and ends up having to save everyone. The unavoidable female, added entirely to attract the attention of the love-starved gamer, is about as two-dimensional as a cardboard cutout. Fits the main protagonist perfectly, in that respect. However, all this aside, it's a good game. The fights are fun, the control system isn't bad at all, and there's a certain open feel to the game. It's not really an open game, but it gets close. The storyline, while horribly cliche, still adds a bit of flavor to the game. If you are capable of overlooking the atrocious voice acting, the robotic feel of every cutscene with a living being in it, the cliche storyline and the overall feel of a Freelancer ripoff... Well, this game isn't bad at all. I bought it and played it, and I can't say I've wasted the money. Still, if you're teetering on the edge between this one and let's say Freespace 1&2 or Tachyon the Fringe and so on, the go for the other games. They are older, but far better made than this one. Be aware that this game can also bug out on high-res widescreen monitors. Make sure all your video drivers and so on are updated.

I considered being a lot more verbose with this review, but hungyeung has said much of what I was going to. He's absolutely right, the star systems were copy-pastes of each other, the gameplay pretty much ignored everything but combat. There is one thing he forgot to mention that's stuck with me since I bought the game just because of the sheer laziness it shows. On (if I recall frequent) occasion, when you were near one of these cut and paste jumpgates in one of these cut and paste star systems you'd get a bit of dialogue between two pilots. Pilot One: "Look at that ship! That ship is awesome!" Pilot Two: "I've never seen anything like it! That must be really expensive!" This encounter would feature the same two (male) voice actors, regardless of the species the pilots belonged to, and regardless of how that species' voices would be otherwise presented. This included systems populated entirely by Thule, who were exclusively female, save for apparently these two pilots who were twentysomething surfer dudes despite looking exactly like all the other Thule. Also also, whoever gave the lead male VA his lines should've slapped him. In response to some alien describing, "the schismatic Thule." the main character asks, "The 'Charismatic' Thule?" In what dialect of English do schismatic and charismatic sound anything alike?! I know the recording probably wasn't done ensemble, but that almost makes it worse. YOU HAD THE SCRIPT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! THE DIRECTOR HAD A COPY OF THE SCRIPT RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM OR HER! One of the greatest Elder Scrolls memes comes from the accidental inclusion of an unprompted do-over by Linda Kenyon into actual game dialogue, but Ascaron just took the botched reading, said, "Good enough!" and went with it. So yeah, in conclusion, poorly made as hungyeung said, but also tremendously lazy.