DarkStar One: Broken Alliance Info

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance 

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance fills a very huge annulled. And in spitefulness of its many quirks, this long and available space combat sim does a fine job of doing so, putting you after an upgradable spacecraft and giving you a vast universe to conquer. A need of depth and lots of mission recurrence make the later hours start to drag, and some cringe-worthy voice acting and overly solid cut scenes lend the story some chance campiness. But there's no reason the flaws should weigh too heavily on adventurers eager to save the cosmos by blasting spiteful alien ships into smithereens.

Like the PC version out in 2006, DarkStar One: Broken Alliance puts you in the shoes and ship of Kayron Jarvis, son of a artistic pilot who was killed after an act of ship damage. Like it so often does, vengeance forms the basis of this fiction, though Kayron soon finds himself wrapped up in a political drama in which wait for it the fortune of the galaxy hangs in the balance. The twists and turns of the plan do their part to stir interest, but low decree cut scenes and odd, oft-repeated voice-overs make it hard to take DarkStar One's story critically. The actors portraying the leads aren't so bad, and a few side players come across well, like the energetic, strutting Captain Hornblower. Others, such as the impassive actress performing monotone communication duties at space stations throughout the universe, sound like they scarcely understand what their lines mean. It's easy to think highly of its spunk, but you won't stay glued to the screen on the qualities of this routine space opera.

Providentially, a light role-playing system that lets you raise your ship the ostensible DarkStar One will keep you approaching forward when the story has lost its appeal. You fly about the galaxy looking for artifacts, most of which can be found ruddiness on asteroids, though some are earned as a reward for cathartic systems taken over by nasty space pirates. With enough artifacts, you level up your ship, yielding it more hit points, possibly, or giving you access to the next weapon class. This is also how you augment your catch-all plasma machine, which can be used for an further layer of caring or to produce an electromagnetic flash, among other possibilities.

You push during the galaxy in a first-person viewpoint, collecting artifacts and shelling up something that turns your reticle red when you target it. DarkStar solitary is easy to pick up and play from the get-go because of the instinctive controls that make it simple to select targets of letter, control missile types, grab cargo, and more. You shoot your mounted arsenal with a single trigger, while turrets fire robotically, assuming you have enough energy to power them. As you move from bunch to bunch, you put on access to more weapon types, from ion throb weapons that hurt shields to graviton guns that fire slowly but do a good amount of damage. Its some hours before you feel like your foes are putting up a resist, but a few later encounters force you to keep an eye on your weapon energy and scheme carefully around giant cruisers that would turn you into space dust. Most skirmishes play out more or less the same: you objective the near enemy and pummel it with lasers and spores until it blows up, and then you move on to the next one until the flotilla is gone. Combat is simple and humdrum, but it's super fun to zoom about, zapping Thul drones and Arrack bodyguards, and later enemies mix up their activities, which add a touch of brave and variety.

This inevitability ultimately leads to sameness, due to copy-and-paste side missions that see you doing the same actions over and again. Caption to a waypoint to snoop on an unwary group of conspirators is a nice modify of rapidity, until you grasp the plotters you hear always deliver the same lines and always need to be blown away at the end. Providing support for a cargo vessel is a fun distraction, but every such operation plays out exactly the same as the last one. These side missions are possible, but only to a point: you need money to make sure the DarkStar One has the most up-to-date arms equipped, and these missions are the easiest way to earn credits. Luckily, there are other ways of earning a living in the dark of space, should you find yourself in a furrow. If you believe yourself a space trader, you can buy low at one trade station and sell high at another, and the easy border lets you do so with a least of argument. If you'd rather subvert the law, you can attack cargo ships and pilfer their payload.

The story missions do offer a bit more range, maybe giving you a few wingmen to aid you against a huge cruiser or sending you off to fix a few satellites. The first dire exodus from formula sends you through a run of planetary trenches, taking down turrets and other nasties, which is great fun when you're not fraught with the same mission's troublesome visual delay. Another welcome mission takes place in the inside of a great vessel, and while its fun to steer these tight spaces, the monotonous puzzling level intend dampens the temper a bit. Fortunately, most of DarkStar One's vistas are much more attractive, showcasing colorful starscapes and appealing planets with patterns of light that spot the cities on their surfaces. Its best not to stare too closely at asteroids as you float their surfaces lest you notice the low-res textures and it's a shame every race's trade stations look closely the same, both inside and out. Nonetheless, the game looks nice, and while they tend to bear from some adverse frame-rate jitters, battles are colorful and cool to watch.

You could add a few others criticize to the list of DarkStar One: Broken Alliance's slight problems. The incapacity to drop a side mission in progress can be a real pain if you select one that takes you to a location you haven't yet gaping.