Even tho DS1 isn't such an amazing game, it's still recommendable for the most fanatic friends of space shooters.
The game starts off as everything but epic, you play as a young man called Kayron Jarvis, who sets off to find out who is responsible for his father’s death. To aid him in this mission he receives DS1, a brand new spaceship implemented with alien technology that allows the ship to be upgraded and to become the most powerful ship in the galaxy. There are some plot twists and towards the end the game takes up some epic features, but all in the entire story is quite bland, especially the end was quite dissatisfying for me. It also left things unfinished in a way that a sequel is possible.
Ironically DS1 itself is also one of the weakest parts of the game, it’s simply too overpowered, and at least to me it would had been more fun to purchase your own ships as you progress, than to just upgrade and modify your current one. Even tho it’s possible to develop DS1 either into a big freighter or a small and agile fighter, I believe that most players will end up in the same result as I, which is more or less a compromise between those two.
Weaponry is another weak part of the game, the ads said something about hundreds of different weapons, but this isn’t even close to the truth. There are less than 10 weapon types, just with different versions, for e.g. Mark I Laser and a Mark II Laser… And the weapons are also too similar, the biggest difference is in the fire rate; they differ from 2 per second to 6 per second. Then there is naturally the missile launcher and “secret service” weapons that are the same as previously mentioned, just a bit better and can only be acquired through some missions. But if you’re longing for e.g. some “Minbari” type beam weapons, this game won’t give them to you.
Special weaponry is an interesting addition and brings variety to combat, unfortunately it also makes it a bit too easy at times. What would you think of an ability to stop all the enemy fighters to their places for 30secs? Yep, you can do that, which leads to some boring and repetitive, yet effective combat manoeuvres. You gain these “abilities” as you upgrade your ship with artefacts (yet another weak part of the game), artefacts can only be acquired through few different means, free a system; meaning entering a pirate system and killing 3 formations of pirates. By collecting them inside huge asteroids, which gets quite tedious after a while, or sometimes you get one after completing a mission. And no, one artefact doesn’t equal one upgrade, you will need several of them. All this is very repetitive, and unfortunately not even very challenging.
And while on the subject of repetition, let’s talk about the missions. Outside the main story the missions just aren’t challenging or varied enough. You can escort freighters, which leads to fighting off pirates, you can transport stuff, which leads to fighting pirates, or you can just simply go straight after the pirates yourself. You will also be offered some sudden missions, for e.g. when entering a new system someone asks your help in something (usually fighting off pirates…). But even in these there is a strong taste of copy/paste left by the devs. It’s just disturbing when a representative of a completely different race asks you to do the exact same thing, with the exactly same voice and choice of words, that the other guy did just a while ago in the other side of the galaxy. You can also “mine” asteroids for minerals or attack pirate hideouts. So even tho there are many different ways to make money, it gets boring after a while since time after time the missions play out the same way with the same scripted events.
Gameplay
Luckily gameplay is one thing the developers got right. Mouse control is just as intuitive as it was in Freelancer, even tho this time you are forced to a cockpit viewpoint for the whole game. Still, once you learn all the keyboard commands it’s a rather enjoyable system. But DS1 doesn’t get a 10 for the gameplay either, the unfortunate repetition that seems to haunt the whole game experience is still there. Every fight follows the same pattern. For e.g. attacking a pirate hideout; you will ALWAYS experience exactly the same thing, first a wing of 6-7 fighters comes at you, then there are 2-3 “bodyguards”, and the “boss” which after his death is always courteous enough to leave you a “secret service” weapon. EACH AND EVERY FRIGGIN’ TIME! The graphics are very nice, but some annoying instability was present, especially turning object detail to High made my game crash frequently. Sounds are decent, a threatening music will tell you when the enemy is around and voice actors do their jobs most of the time. And even tho sometimes an alien will suddenly speak with a human voice, at least it doesn’t happen during the main story missions.
In the end DarkStar One is a decent, but unfortunately repetitive game, each system is the same, each space station is the same, combat is the same… well, you get the picture. Despite this, at least I managed to enjoy the game, but unless you are a true sci-fi freak, save your money and leave it in the store.