Darkstar One (PC)

RRP £19.99
Lowest New Price
£4.98

Ascaron

Release date: Friday 11th of August 2006

Manfacturer maximum age: 216
Manfacturer minimum age: 132 months

RRP: £19.99
I can see the space fans licking their lips for miles...
Review date: 2007-09-19 Rating: 8 out of 10

No, this is not really an Elite clone. And it doesn't match up to that seminal game. Here are the negatives: Dark Star One has fairly bland, empty systems that consist of a core area with ships, a planet, a trading station and perhaps some asteroids. If you fly too far away from them... there's nothing. Further, the trading is pointless. Missions give a lot more money faster, but they too are repetitive and primarily consist of "kill a pirate", or "escort a ship", "record a communication", or "defend a ship".

But look past these problems: the graphics are fantastic, the combat is great fun, and yes the game does have a mildly interesting story. It starts with some poor acting in the intro, but this improves rapidly once you meet Kayron and Robert. No, this isn't Oscar-worthy stuff, but it's not bad! The main draw of the game is to earn money to power up your "modular" ship, so you can continue the plot, and it is this lite-RPG aspect that makes the game so compelling. It's ultimately repetitive, and once you complete the main story, the game turns into a free-mode to let you go where you like. You won't, you'll stop because it's not worth bothering. But everything up to that is good fun.

I may sound overly critical, but currently DSO is your best bet if you want an accessible space shooter on PC (WSAD ship controls really help - learn to pull back and strafe when fighting!), although if you haven't already played Freespace 1 and 2, do so. Also look out for Tarr Chronicles.

Reviews

Doesnt deserve the low score
Review date: 2007-07-12 Rating: 8 out of 10

Not sure why this game is getting such negative reviews. first off, i never had any problems and it worked fine, if you do run into any issues i believe that there may be a patch which can be downloaded. overall its alot of fun its fast-paced action we're talking here and alot more fun than x2/x3 are.
For this price you really can't go wrong. graphics are very nice and well done (if a little repetitive) and the story isnt too bad if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Could have been a mediocre game
Review date: 2007-06-02 Rating: 4 out of 10

This game could have been a mediocre freelance rippoff had they just bothered to work on it a little more. Instead its plauged with bugs and really REALLY bland systems that are almost exactly the same, over and over and over again.

There are however some positive features to this game... If anything edits your exicutable file, the games checking assumes your running a pirated version and does some really cool things, like making your interface shake, and having things cost random amounts.. which is funny for a few minutes.

The box artwork also looks nice sitting on your shelf.. As long as you dont play it, you will probably apreciate the box sitting next to X2 and X3 and freelancer.

Bug Ridden
Review date: 2006-11-26 Rating: 6 out of 10

Look quite good to start with. Graphics are good, but can be quite slow on all but the best machines. Missions get very repetive. Very bug ridden in my version can buy any weapon as all are free. If you want a very good space combat game go for Star Wolves in another league to this game.

Promising, but failed execution
Review date: 2006-11-09 Rating: 2 out of 10

This game is great fun - when it works. Which is, sadly, not often. It's the first really good space combat sim in years (much better than X2/X3, which focussed on trading at the expense of combat - this is as good as freespace), but it has severe issues with both the engine (causing the game to crash) and the mission scripts (causing your game to get stuck, so you have to revert to an earlier save and try again). Ascaron have been promising to fix these issues ever since the game was released, but they haven't done it yet. In case that wasn't bad enough, the game uses aggressive anti-copying software that regularly decides that legally purchased CDs are invalid, and instead of warning you about this, silently cripples the game so it becomes unplayable.

Before purchasing, check the forums on the game web site to see if these problems have been resolved. If they have, and you like space combat sims, buy this. If they haven't, stay away.

Product Details/Specifications

Recording label: Ascaron
Manufacturer: Ascaron
EAN: 4014935261012
Binding: Video Game
Number of items: 1
Release date: 2006-08-11
Manfacturer maximum age: 216
Manfacturer minimum age: 132 months
Platform: Windows XP
Brand: ASCARON Entertainment (UK) Ltd.

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Darkstar One (PC)

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