Darkstar One

This game isn't terrible, but you pretty quickly see everything there is to see in the first few hours and everything else is a grind from there on. Each system, while very pretty, is basically the same and so there is no real motivation for exploring. The side missions fall into a handful of categories, repeated many times with just different systems to visit. The trading is uninteresting and because of the way the upgrades work, there really isn't anything to spend your money on anyway (also, it stops showing you how much money you have once you reach 9,999,999 credits). The story is okay, if very linear and uninspired, with a rip-off ending and very little challenge. Also, once you've finished the main story, there is no motivation to continue. The voice acting ranges from passable to absolutely horrible with, unfortunately, the main characters falling into the horrible category. Unless you are huge space-sim fan, you might want to spend your money on something else.

Darkstar One is generally a fair game. The missions, while they get repetitive after awhile, are varied enough that they won't get overly tiresome, and you always have the option of cargo missions or hunting pirates. The problem comes from the bugs. The game has a tendency to crash or bug up your display drivers, which if you haven't saved is a serious problem. There's also numerous minor issues with it. The voice acting is horrible. Your little co-pilot is the worse, constantly shouting annoying and repetitive messages that have no use into your ear in battle. I just can't take another, "That Oc'to is rather close." Also, you'll get tired very quickly of staring at the interfaces of plain gray space stations. Unlike Privateer, which let you land on planets, and spiced things up now and again with unique palettes, there are only about three set pieces for every race, and they're all utterly forgettable. This is a problem, since generally the trade stations are the only thing in any given system that you can interact with. That means the systems, despite their beauty, really just come down to one station with a lot of doodads and gimmicks around them. I don't recommend it, even at 9 bucks. If you're looking for the next Privateer, you'll have to keep the same lonely vigil we've all been keeping since 1993.

Okay, first off id like to say I LOVE Space Sims, everything about them just makes me so happy. The grand and epic freedom of them, the pure array of ship choices, interesting storylines, exploration... so you can tell why I didnt enjoy DarkStar One. When I saw darkstar in the stores, I naturally thought "Woo! space game" and purchased it, ready for another freelancer or elitiesque experience but what I got was neither. The game itself is very pretty, has a lot of dogfights, trading, minimissions like you would expect from a good space game... however, the game is not worth that much praise. Most of the game consists of dogfights, and nothing but. Systems are bland and univiting, all with a star, planets, nothing much else... While the planets themselves are drawn rather nicely there is no real orignality and every system it just the same old boring flight in. The storyline is uneventful and is litterally just GO HERE, KILL THINGS, GO HERE, KILL MORE THINGS, no real twists, or gaps in the storyline.. and even if there was, the submissions are just as basic and boring, and when coupled with the set upgrade system for your ship which tell you which systems you have to go to to get an upgrade there is no real reason nor invitation to actually bother exploring. Overall, this game is a SOLID space SHOOTER but fails to withstand the test of what makes a good space sim. My star ratings should reflect that also,

Darkstar One, as seen by me, is quite light game that you jump in when in the right mood. You have a simple story and not much to remember about what you were doing or planning to do so you would not have any problems if you have not played the game for a while. Do not be mistaken, though this game has trading and missions and stuff, fighting will be your main job that you will do a lot. There are only a few mission types so it gets repetitive and trading is mostly useless. Not long into the game I played along the story-line doing side missions only when in need of money and skipping the trade altogether. Darkstar One is not a bad game, it is just a simple light space shooter for casual player.