Console: Xbox 360
Date Released: July 20th 2010
Date Reviewed: January 3 2012
Reviewer: Thomas
Pros:
*Space Flight open world combat and exploration
*One of kind experience for the xbox 360
*Easy to pick up and play, unlimited missions, and beautiful rendered universe.
*Upgrade the Dark star One as you see fit, many different combinations
Cons:
*Lack of variety in terminal missions
*Game career path doesn’t reflect story mode
*No online MP, would have benefitted with dogfighting online
*No support from Kalypso, No DLC
Dark Star One: Broken Alliance is the 2006 pc port of a what was considered run of the mill spacing sim. Mainly because spacing sims have been around a long time on the pc. Four years later CDV Software, Kalypso Media decides to publish IE port to the xbox 360 of this wonderful if not somewhat flawed game.
What sets it apart from every other title on the 360? Well simply put it’s a spacing sim in the vein of freelancer, wing commander, or even a fraction of the classic x-wing vs. tie fighter. I for one only knew of the game by looking through the coming soon section of Gamestop’s website which had this 50 dollar “almost” budget title. I was drawn in simply because I love sci-fi. (who doesn’t) More importantly the Star Trek like feel of exploration and the space dog fights largely thanks to George Lucas that I have come to love so much. Not to mention this is the only title of it’s type for the 360. On to the game at hand.
You play Kayron whose father met his untimely demise in the cold vacuum of space in the opening scene, which is wonderfully rendered and of course in 1080p HD. The whole game is presented in this format. Dark Star One has a backstory given in the manual about the universe itself and of course various alien factions that will help and hinder your progress through the game.
Presentation : B
Graphics / Animation / Sound
Graphics are 2006 but the enviroment of space is beautfully rendered, each planet also rotates and is done well to a high calibur degree. I love traversing to the SOL system and buzzing near planet Earth, the moon, Mars, Jupiter. Speaking of which there are a total of 300 galaxies to go to.
The music is superb, the battle music is also riveting while the occasional background music while simply flying around is both ambient, mood setting and gives you the impression of the lonliness of space the unforgiving mistress that is both beautiful and terrifying.
The voice acting is decent but dated. The pictures used during battle in-game or during communication are often not synced properly with the animation of the characters lips and overused on trading stations are the same picture of a blond woman with the same exact voice . This is a minor complaint but can be overlooked, same can be said of the other galaxies although instead of a woman it might be male alien species.
Single Player : B
Game mechanics / Length / difficulty
The game is presented primarily in the cockpit and on occasion a cinema that furthers the story along. Classic tale of friends and betrayl, love and loss and of course the iconic ship Dark Star One who your father and friend Robert left you. You’re every bit of a rookie pilot but the controls of the ship itself is easy to master and in a few short minutes you’ll be blasting pirates, cruisers and exploring strange new worlds….sort of.
The problem is you never get to land on any planets and never actually leave the ship except when you land on the trade stations where you can outfit your ship with weapons and other equipment. Go on the terminal and accept missions that are apart from the main story and view message and news alerts throughout the galaxy. News alerts also will sometimes lead into missions.
Your ship is made up of partially organic material and such can utilize alien artifacts to upgrade and after sometime will begin to look different and change and grow in size and power. These are found easily on giant asteroids in the different sectors of the galaxy and on the map show up as a green blip so finding them is relatively easy. And there are a whole load of them.
Combat is somewhat exciting and fairly easy to grasp and also difficult at times especially against cruisers until your own ship is upgraded. Its an easy game to pick up and master and is completly free to play as you want since the story missions again appear on your navigational map as a S so you know if you want to continue Kayron’s journey just venture there through hyperspace travel.
Well having said all that, the negatives are that it is extremely difficult to go down a specific career path. You can be a Smuggler, Assassin, Pirate, Mercenary, Mechant (Trader), Bounty Hunter. Some of the terminal mission will say Bounty Hunter on them and if you accept and win such scenario it will boost your Bounty Hunter on the career grid but since you run into pirates frequently destroying said pirates and or pirate leaders will always earn you credits which is called bounty but will only add to your Mercenary rank.
The game constantly funnels you down this path and after a very short time you’ll notice your mercenary graph be already nearly half,once maxed out you get a bonus of terminal missions give more credits. Each class gives some sort of bonus, Becoming pirate by shooting cargo ships or stealing from cargo ships run by the different factions in game will add the bonus once maxed out of Pirates will not attack the Dark Star One.
These are nice but becoming a merchant or assassin is an incredibly long process of buying and selling and or shooting down police patrols. There are the occasional assassin mission in the terminal but its very rare to see that actually. But never the less the mercenary path is something that is 100% unavoidable. You will max it out long before you become anything else in game.
The single biggest problem is that this effects the story in no way shape or form, meaning if Kayron becomes a wanted pirate criminal is means nothing because it never comes up in the story cinemas, so it’s mainly for the actual universe sandbox gameplay than anything else.
Multiplayer : F
Game mechanics / features / Online features
There is no online Multiplayer for this game.
Replay Value : B
Lasting appeal / Bonus Content / DLC
All in all Dark Star One will sastify as long as you are not looking for a deep experience and is somewhat a casual game but can engross for hours at a time which it usually does me when I play. You can continue to play it long after the final cinema and credits, there are always missions in the terminals and always something to do although it’s usually hunt down some pirates, deliver some cargo, or spy outside and listen in on meetings and record it and sometimes the mission where you have to fly to beautiful points in some galaxy and take photos for a space calender or the typical escort mission.
Directly ripped off are some aliens that are basically Klingon talking about honor and duty while still others are similar to the Ferengi, Kalypso was of course influenced by Star Trek in creating this game. Taken in small doses Dark Star One is a unigue and wonderful if flawed spacing sim but I give it good marks for being something so different from everything else on the 360.”
No bonus or DLC, mainly because it really came out originally in 2006.
Overall : B
