DarkStar One - Ascaron Entertainment - PC

[Paelos]

I picked up DarkStar One on Steam in a package deal for $15. I didn't know anything about the game other than the fact it was a space merchant RPG. The premise of the game is that you are a young pilot given his first ship a few months after your father was killed by unknown forces. In other words, story is not the strongest point of this game. It's the same standard crap you've seen 100 times just retold with different names. However, the gameplay generally makes up for the weak storyline.

The gameplay revolves around choosing different systems from a large map overlay, and then using the hyperdrive to travel between them. Once there, you go into a 3D display of the space surrounding the trade station in the system. The view is first person through the cockpit, so if you like playing from a third person view of a ship, this will probably piss you off. There's no way to change the view from what I saw. Controls also take some getting used to, and the in-ship menus are total shit. Luckily once you learn the hotkeys, you never use them. Combat is typical shoot-em-up against space pirates and cruisers, but there is also an active trading game in addition to blowing things up. When you dock at a trade station, you get several menu options on equipment to upgrade your ship, and a trade menu for buying and selling goods. In many systems certain goods are illegal, so you can earn extra money by smuggling them by police scanner ships ala Han Solo.

The upgrade system is not based around your typical experience points = levels. Instead, you hunt around space finding ancient artifacts that you can use to upgrade your hull, wings, and engine. You choose how you want to upgrade the ship so you can be a better trader or fighter. Wings give you more weapons, Hull gives you more HP and turrets, and engine gives you a better shield/weapon regeneration. Also, you can do side missions to open up more systems with new nav-keys, or you can liberate pirate-dominated systems to get extra artifact upgrades. Every time you upgrade a level you can gain access to better classes of equipment, guns, etc.

The trading side isn't as complicated as some of the other games out there. In fact, DarkStar One pretty much realizes you probably want to play a fun-n-gun smuggler rather than an accountant. So, every resource has a green bar rating b/w 0-4 bars. The less bars, the more demand, and the higher the price. Also, every system lists the goods they produce for export, so buying low and selling high usually isn't too complicated. There is also a reputation meter than tracks what activities you are doing (bounty hunting, smuggling, trading, mercenary, pirate, or killer) and at the top end you will have positive or negative consequences for your actions.

All in all, the game is a simple, fun little time waster with some dated graphics and repetitive gameplay. If you like the idea of flying around to different systems trading resources and blowing up pirates again and again, this would be a good game to try out for about $10 on Steam.

Overall: Buy it.

[Sir T]

I played this last year. Really enjoyed it.

Once you finish there's a secret system off the standard map you can only reach if you have completed the game and have the final drive. It contains the hardest fight in the game. Really good fun.

[caladein]

I really couldn't stand the in-ship controls for long and quickly uninstalled it.  If there's a decent game to be had outside of that damn ship, I might check it out again.