I also tend to agree with Gammix. I think the game is underated and whining about it like the few here who have just makes me roll my eyes. Ok no one here has any reason to complain about the game being souless and repetitive and not bring up Privateer. Sometime in the late 90s I grew so frustrated with privateer that I took the CD and broke it in half. Now I have been playing computer games since I was 5 and now I am 35, and there has never ever been a game that has been as repetitive and frustrating as Privateer, and I have not ever done that to a game since.

This game may have bad voice acting at times, it also may have less than stellar animation during the cutscenes but I think you all are demanding a little too much. The company was a hungarian company, and I've heard it's since gone under. I put up with a lot of bad voice acting in the Witcher before the big patch, and in Gothic 1 and 2, and I sit around complaining about it, instead I just take accept it and enjoy the game. It's not "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US," so get off it.

The scenery in space is beautiful and there are different ways to play the game. You can play as a trader, pirate, or bounty hunter and they give you plenty of different types of missions. Haul Cargo, listen in to corporate meetings, eliminate someone notorious, or even attack government forces, there is variety here. Then there is liberating systems from pirates, and going after the artifacts to upgrade your ship which has different paths by the way.

This is also the first space game that I have played where you can actually go from space to the planet surface. It may not have been a short five minute excursion but hey I thought it was neat.

It's not a supergreat awsome game that will rock your socks but it is far from being terrible. I think the rating between 70-80 is a good mark for it and thats where the average ratings place it.

The only way a game of this game type will ever be done would be if some major company tries to do it right. I think Rockstar has the means and it is quite possible one day they might even make a space game with all the bells and whistles like Red Dead Redemption was to western games.

Has anyone played Sundog from the 80s? If they take the basics of Dark Star One and merge everything you could do in Sundog, and heck even the game from Sid Meir's Pirates and do it well, then I think the game would be what i'm looking for. And that is exactly what i'm hoping Rockstar will do a game like this one day. Till then, all we have are half decent games like this. The age of Space games is over, or at least on hold till some big company starts making them right again.

I have this game up and running on my XPS 720 with Vista and an MSI HD 6970 Lightning video card. The game looks great. The only thing I can say to the folks that diss this game is to get on their PCs and try and make a game as good as or better then this one. I mean, I hear the comments, but no one seems to know or to go into detail on exactly HOW to make a better one for its type. And I am talking to the "game players" here, not a professional with an entire studio and big bucks behind them. You can't do it. If you do, then I will certainly take your negative comments more seriously. Well, I got to go and do the first FLAK mission now. Remember, you need to get the game out so the rest of us can play it and see how wonderful it is, for 6 or so bucks.

I bought this from GOG to test it out as I am a huge Freelancer fan, and regret that Freelancer was ultimately a rushed product (despite being in the works for years) that didn't fulfill its potential.

Freelancer's control scheme is what more space games should have, at least as an option. It is intuitive and functional. The UI in Freelancer is worlds above that of Darkstar. On the first Darkstar mission I had difficulty identifying the beacons that I was supposed to destroy. Freelancer made every objective abundantly clear. IMHO the combat in Darkstar One was also inferior to that of Freelancer.

The graphics in Darkstar One are also pretty abhorrent. I remember the game being praised for its graphics when it came out, but in the modern era it looks awful. Freelancer's graphics are simple and pre-millenial, but they seem to have held up better.

I was also expecting this game to have Multiplayer, as GOG says it does. That was a real let down. Freelancer has multiplayer :(

I suppose this game is still decent, but it isn't what it should have been, it isn't what even GOG said it was. I'll be sticking to my Freelancer and, even though it has some serious flaws, X3 for my space combat fix.

Well I bought it and I'm giving it a go. to me the graphics are pretty darn good for the time it came out. I loved Free Space 2, so if this is mostly a shooter fine by me.

Let us know if you finish it, scampywiak - I'd be interested to see if the game redeems itself. As I said in my previous comment, I liked the game but it wore thin very quickly.

I might have to go check out the Space Rangers 2 HD reboot when it's released - that may be more my type of game.