Darkstar One Broken Alliance -- Space Sim/Elite Clone for 360 - OUT NEXT WEEK!

Bamelin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aEdFpooJS4

Kalypso Media wrote:

Features

Action and adventure in one exciting package - an innovative hybrid game that moves the player seamlessly between story-driven adventure, RPG customization and action-packed space battles
Play as pirate, trader, mercenary, bounty hunter, smuggler or assassin, configuring your ship accordingly, as the game world reacts to your actions and reputation
Explore a universe of more than 300 solar systems populated by 6 distinct alien races with unique ship designs, tactics, behaviors and realistic economies
Fully customize the DarkStar One with weapons, engines, shields and over 200 distinct components through trade, salvage, exploration and plunder
Amazing visuals and sound - enjoy more than 35 hours of true 1080p High Definition gameplay, over 40 minutes of cut-scene storytelling and 90 minutes of original music

I'd kinda heard about this game but today was the first time I actually saw some gameplay footage. Does anyone know if we will be able to connect a proper flight stick?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1iiTRoeEX4&NR=1

Nalouto

wow darkstar for the 360.

I'm intrigued/skeptically excited.

Bamelin

I found this wikipdia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkStar_One


So it's based off the PC game? Is it going to be a port?

Cherrn

Darkstar One was a terrible game, and I cannot fathom why they would want to port it to the 360. It looked and felt antiquated in 2006.

When I saw the announcement, I was hoping it would be a reboot for XBLA or something, but this... is a truly horrendous idea.

Stormwatcher

The flight model wasn't very good, there were no interesting missions and trading was a waste of time.
It had potential, but it needs to improve a lot. A decent time waster.

Turkey

So, the game is coming out next week. I'm pretty excited for it after seeing the trailers, and have it at the top of my GameFly queue.

brynstar

I pre-ordered this the other day. I enjoyed the PC version, and a 360 version that's slightly enhanced running at 1080p with points sounds like just the thing I want to play.

Plus, I'm such a fan of space sims that I'd buy it just to support the genre.

Eurogamer gave it a pretty good review: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darkstar-one-broken-alliance-review

Bamelin

I think this game has a signifigant chance of doing well. There are ALOT of space sim fans that have migrated to consoles, and there is nothing else like this on any console this gen.

Elimination

Darkstar One for PC was terrible. Why would they even bother with this? It was bad on PC, why would it be any better on a console?

Just so you guys know, Darkstar One was nothing like Tie Fighter or Elite. Unless those games were terrible in your opinions.

Bamelin

I'm not saying I doubt you, I never played the original. But the Eurogamer PC review was decent: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darkstar-one-broken-alliance-review

And the more current 360 Eurogamer review above basically says it's the same game.

Elimination

Thats one guy who liked it. That doesn't mean it is good. The game was really, really boring and had a fair share of glitches (which may be fixed now though.). It was just really shallow for a space sim and really disappointing, imagine Elite or Tie Fighter minus all the fun missions and cool stuff, and you have Darkstar.

Bamelin

Elimination wrote: »

Thats one guy who liked it. That doesn't mean it is good. The game was really, really boring and had a fair share of glitches (which may be fixed now though.). It was just really shallow for a space sim and really disappointing, imagine Elite or Tie Fighter minus all the fun missions and cool stuff, and you have Darkstar.

SO it plays out like a first person Eve? *cough*

Delta Assault

I thought it was alright on the PC, but then again I hadn't played Freelancer.

It felt very shallow compared to X3 Reunion.

Renzo

Delta Assault wrote: »

I thought it was alright on the PC, but then again I hadn't played Freelancer.

It felt very shallow compared to X3 Reunion.

Freelancer is pretty shallow, too.

If you ask me.

I'll just be over here playing Freespace 2.

*smug*

Turkey

Renzo wrote: »

Delta Assault wrote: »

I thought it was alright on the PC, but then again I hadn't played Freelancer.

It felt very shallow compared to X3 Reunion.

Freelancer is pretty shallow, too.

If you ask me.

I'll just be over here playing Freespace 2.

*smug*

So it's like Freelancer?

Awesome

Bamelin

I'm still trying to figure out what this game will be like too.

A long time ago I remember playing Star Control II ... would love to see that on XBLA or PSN! Loved the exploration aspects of the game although I remember there was a timer or something that I hated.

Turkey

The trailer made it look like a Freelancer clone to me, and any thing that points to that is a major bonus.

To this day, it's the only space shooter I've enjoyed.

egofalter

I bought this for the PC off steam for like $3 a couple of weeks ago. I'm assuming this will be a major overhaul.

egofalter

Bamelin wrote: »

I'm still trying to figure out what this game will be like too.

A long time ago I remember playing Star Control II ... would love to see that on XBLA or PSN! Loved the exploration aspects of the game although I remember there was a timer or something that I hated.

SC2 is one of my favorite games of all time. There were a couple of time-sensitive events but they weren't too bad. The overall game didn't have a timer the way the original Prince of Persia (PC) or original Fallout games had.
I remember being blown away by the music at the time :P

Orogogus

SC2 totally has an overall timer, although I don't think it tells you exactly how long it is, and you can push it further out with a few events.

If you waste too much time, the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah defeat the Kzer-Za, and start wiping out the remaining races one by one. I think it's almost impossible to run up against this time limit unless you're trying to fail, though. The game gives you more than enough time and tends to give at least 2 hints pointing you towards every key item in the game.

Renzo

egofalter wrote: »

I bought this for the PC off steam for like $3 a couple of weeks ago. I'm assuming this will be a major overhaul.

According to the review, it's not a major overhaul.

cwapfobrains

Yeah this was a bad clone of Freelancer, but in a very starved genre we take what we can get. I beat it, I think it ended up with about 24 hours played, getting all the upgrades and doing the story mission. It was entertaining, and had some nice space environments. Not as deep as X3, but not as convoluted either.

Also has some of the worst voice acting and cutscenes I've ever seen, and the alien designs are laughably bad. There is a race that are basically giant sentient slugs.

Cherrn

Basically, this game is space sim scraps. There are a million better ones out there, but if you MUST have one on the 360, I suppose this is a game.

Though I'm not even sure it is the best one. Isn't Project Sylpheed a space sim, too?

Cantido

Cherrn wrote: »

Basically, this game is space sim scraps. There are a million better ones out there, but if you MUST have one on the 360, I suppose this is a game.

Though I'm not even sure it is the best one. Isn't Project Sylpheed a space sim, too?

Lotsa anime bullshit but if you were patient with the tutorials and all, good times can be had. I coudn't finish it because I had no idea what I was doing. But now that I have a nicer TV, perhaps that will help with all the instruments.

Page-

Project Sylpheed was alright. I rented it once because it was the only game of the type and I really wanted to see if it was possible for a console to do a space sim justice.

It's arcadey. Not as arcadey as Rogue Squadron, but almost there. The real problem with the game is that, even on hard, almost every mission is solved through use of overwhelming missile spam before your targets can do anything. It's just a matter of acquiring targets in the right order and using the right amount of spam before moving on to the next. I beat it in a weekend, but brought it back before they released the free dlc missions and weapons.

Turkey

Cherrn wrote: »

Basically, this game is space sim scraps. There are a million better ones out there, but if you MUST have one on the 360, I suppose this is a game.

Though I'm not even sure it is the best one. Isn't Project Sylpheed a space sim, too?

How does it fare as a space shooter with RPG elements? I don't really care for space sims, which is why the comparisons to Freelancer grab my attention.

Bamelin

Project Sylpheed was more of a shooter if memory serves

Delta Assault

Turkey wrote: »

Cherrn wrote: »

Basically, this game is space sim scraps. There are a million better ones out there, but if you MUST have one on the 360, I suppose this is a game.

Though I'm not even sure it is the best one. Isn't Project Sylpheed a space sim, too?

How does it fare as a space shooter with RPG elements? I don't really care for space sims, which is why the comparisons to Freelancer grab my attention.

It's basically Freelancer made by Eastern Europeans.

Bamelin

For what it's worth the game will be running native 1080p @ 60 fps ... should look pretty at the very least.

brynstar

I picked this up. It's a nice retooling of the original PC game. Makes good use of Radial menus on the bumpers to give access to all the interface functions.

The graphics look really nice in 1080p, although it doesn't maintain 60FPS 100 percent of the time. I've had a frame drop here and there during intense battles, but nothing unplayable.

Machismo

Fuck the haters!

This game is great! The controls are so damn smooth. It really puts the Xbox controller to the limit. Menus are smooth radial dials, while all the buttons are mapped to the standard actions. A time-advance button is mapped to a radial, a nice thing to include (similar to most PC time-lapse functions like X2/X3).

Having a single ship stream-lines the experience. Instead of studying stats on new ships to buy, you accumulate artifacts and apply upgrades to parts of your ship. The changes they effect are understood at a glance in the upgrade screen and plasma cannon screen.

There are lots of little details to enjoy. A reputation system they gives you benefits (like more bonuses or better trade prices) when you are sufficiently adept. Pirate gangs that move and hide on the fringes of systems (that you can hunt down an eliminate for great profit and secrets).

The game also does a fair job of sparing you of fruitless, boring searches and activities. The Star Map indicates the state of various systems: economy, produced products, illegal products, ocupatied?, and whether artifacts are present or not.

Anyway, I am loving this game. It is easy to job into. So far, it is quite stable. The voice acting is hillariously bad, but the experience is still quite fun and thrilling.

It beats X2 as my old fav simply because X2 would have crashed several times by now.

brynstar

I think the hilariously bad voice acting is just part of the charm when you're dealing with low-to-mid budget European PC games.

Machismo

brynstar wrote: »

I think the hilariously bad voice acting is just part of the charm when you're dealing with low-to-mid budget European PC games.

Eona. Run for your life?

THe terrible CG and voice acting is almost an art form.

Never mind all that, though. The pew-pew action just plain rocks. And the game galaxy is F-ing huge!

brynstar

Machismo wrote: »

brynstar wrote: »

I think the hilariously bad voice acting is just part of the charm when you're dealing with low-to-mid budget European PC games.

Eona. Run for your life?

THe terrible CG and voice acting is almost an art form.

Never mind all that, though. The pew-pew action just plain rocks. And the game galaxy is F-ing huge!

Indeed, it's a cool game and I need to play more of it.

Ah_Pook

im going to have to get a 360 one of these days i guess.

brynstar

If you're considering it just for this game, you might try seeing if the PC version will run on your machine first as it's available for fairly cheap and it's easy to find.

Machismo

brynstar wrote: »

If you're considering it just for this game, you might try seeing if the PC version will run on your machine first as it's available for fairly cheap and it's easy to find.

Agreed. I heard it was five bucks for a while on Steam.

Ok, the surface-based canyon run was so fucking stupid. I am rather effortlessly dodging stone columns and arches, shooting stuff down as I head for the shield generator, but then it starts to pause for a quarter second everytime I turn a corner in the canyon. I crashed twice simply because I got disoriented from it and smashed into a wall too hard.

Glad it is over with.

As a side note, I am not even half way through with the game?!? What the fuck. I JUST entered Raptor territory. Everything wants me dead. I love it.

mojojoeo

Machismo wrote: »

brynstar wrote: »

If you're considering it just for this game, you might try seeing if the PC version will run on your machine first as it's available for fairly cheap and it's easy to find.

Agreed. I heard it was five bucks for a while on Steam.

Ok, the surface-based canyon run was so fucking stupid. I am rather effortlessly dodging stone columns and arches, shooting stuff down as I head for the shield generator, but then it starts to pause for a quarter second everytime I turn a corner in the canyon. I crashed twice simply because I got disoriented from it and smashed into a wall too hard.

Glad it is over with.

As a side note, I am not even half way through with the game?!? What the fuck. I JUST entered Raptor territory. Everything wants me dead. I love it.

TY so much for this! I have been eyeing this for a min but 50$ seemed too much for me.

Its currently 9.99 on steam.

Machismo

mojojoeo wrote: »

Machismo wrote: »

brynstar wrote: »

If you're considering it just for this game, you might try seeing if the PC version will run on your machine first as it's available for fairly cheap and it's easy to find.

Agreed. I heard it was five bucks for a while on Steam.

Ok, the surface-based canyon run was so fucking stupid. I am rather effortlessly dodging stone columns and arches, shooting stuff down as I head for the shield generator, but then it starts to pause for a quarter second everytime I turn a corner in the canyon. I crashed twice simply because I got disoriented from it and smashed into a wall too hard.

Glad it is over with.

As a side note, I am not even half way through with the game?!? What the fuck. I JUST entered Raptor territory. Everything wants me dead. I love it.

TY so much for this! I have been eyeing this for a min but 50$ seemed too much for me.

Its currently 9.99 on steam.

A good pirce.

This isn't worth $50 since some of the action can get repetitive, but I paid the right price at $30 or $40 (I forgot). At ten, it is a steal for anyone that can enjoy a space sim.

Ah_Pook

there are a couple other games on the 360 too. also i dont play PC games, so theres that.