This game has one fundamental fatal flaw that removes much of the enjoyment. The enemy respawn time and their incessant hostility. You are expected to traverse the roads between quests but armed checkpoints are frequents, clearing them is a chore, skipping them is leads to vehicle chases, the enemies are persistant and reappear every time you come past. It's enough to make you put the game down when you see this broken mechanic. If there is a mod to fix this out there, it would make this game a great gem of ideas and innovation. With the perfected FPS health system, the use of brushfire and explosions, the open ended engagements, the buddy system (where you can recruit, help, rescue or be rescued by them), the factions with choices and consequences (albeit very light and ultimately make little difference), and the great orienteering map and vehicle traversal. That plus all the great animation like the healing bullet wounds and repairing cars. I saw the game through the frustrating times and putting it down for days at a time and eventually finished it, and despite the looming flaw I see it as much better than many linear shooters with their six hour campaigns, and worth trying, and sticking it out for the rare light freedom you get from it.
This is an immense, unique and ambitious game from dedicated devs back in the day. There is a story here, but largely this is an open galaxy in which to trawl through. Interact with aliens with varied morals. Discover loot, trade it for cash to hire and upgrade your crew and to upgrade your ship. The randomly generated terrain of most planets is a side effect of the limitations of memory on discs when this came out but in Starflight they've spun it into a feature. All the planet scanning, mineral collecting, galactic exploration you see here became the basis for similar concepts in many space games not the least of which is Mass Effect. With the only downside being the cumbersome UI and other relics of old design, this is a grand game of space exploration.
