Written by Hot on the heels of yesterday’s rant about how I don’t review enough stuff because I am a cheap, whiny wretch of a man, I get to write about a game that was handed to me at PAX East. I happened to be standing in the right place at the right time and wound up getting handed a free copy of Dark Star One: Broken Alliance at the Kalypso booth. Not a word was spoken; the box was simply thrust into my hand by one of the exhibitors. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I tucked the game into my bag and finally got around to playing it recently. I went in cold, having never heard so much as the title before.
After a couple hours of play, I can safely say it’s exactly the kind of game I would expect to be handed for free at an event like PAX (though how I arrive at that conclusion is a mystery to me, since PAX is my first such convention, but that’s neither here nor there). Considering that the game came out last year, the production values are pretty dismal. Cut scenes are ugly affairs, with voice acting that had me laughing out loud at all the wrong moments. The in-engine visuals aren’t so bad, but the mission HUD has a tendency to get cluttered very quickly, and the need to constantly access sub-menus during missions can get annoying. On the subject of menus, the menus that drive you from one section of the game to the next don’t look like they came from a console game in the year 2010.
With those mean things said, I’m sure that there are people who really did enjoy this game. There is something very freeing about space flight done right, and I think that this is a good example of just that. Having to actually radio into the trade hubs for permission to dock is an interesting touch that brings some element of realism to the proceedings, though you may curse it when you dawdle and get turned around for not docking within the narrow timing window. The distances involved in the various locales are absolutely stupendous…just like real space! I spent a full half of my play time (that’s a whopping two hours) with the game just trying to fly out to the nearest sun, fighting little clusters of space pirates along the way. Combat was nothing special; my ship handled like a box, and enemies who constantly out maneuvered me nevertheless fell before my clumsy defenses.
It takes all types, but I wouldn’t recommend this particular type unless you are really into space simulator games, and have some patience for quality that isn’t quite up to snuff with most of the stuff on the market today. If you can get it for free though, all bets are off.
In case you were wondering, I never did reach that sun. In fact, I’m reasonably sure that you can’t. Damn sky boxes.