maverickrohan
SABER RIDER
For all those who loved Microsoft FREELANCER ... Another game in the same Genre which promises to improve on the negatives of most of the games in that genre including Freelancer ...
Release Date: 14th August, 2006
Minimum System Requirements:
Intel/AMD 1.6 GHz
Windows XP (32Bit)
512Mb RAM
DX9 Compatible 128 MB Graphics-card
Support for Pixel/Vertex shader 1.1 (GeForce 3 and above)
DirectX Compatible Sound Card
DVD-Drive
6Gb HDD Space
DirectX 9 (included)
Recommended System Requirements:
Intel/AMD 3.0 GHz
Windows XP SP2
1024Mb RAM
DX9 Compatible 256Mb Graphics-card
Support for Pixel/Vertex shader 3.0 (GeForce 6/Radeon X1x00 and above)
DVD-Drive
7Gb HDD Space
Most Important Features:
Elaborate story, related by more than fifty minutes of video sequences
Upgradeable space ship "Darkstar One": The player decides which type of spacecraft he prefers - a fast attack ship with many light weapons or a near-invincible cruiser with heavy weaponry
Over two hundred different weapons, shields and equipment items
Rockets, torpedoes and mines feature special tactical uses: mines can tactically fire at opponents or distract approaching missiles
The "Spell Weapon": the player will have a special weapon at his disposal that will have an area of effect similar to certain spells in role-playing games. This weapon will become increasingly versatile throughout the game and it will increase the tactical potential considerably.
A vast, simulated universe with numerous, completely different races, space ships and battle tactics.
Each race features distinctive weapon types with different functions that require different battle tactics. The player will be able to acquire these weapons in order to mount them on the "Darkstar One".
Special missions, for example in canyons, on the surface of planets or inside of planets
Freedom of choice: the player may earn his credits in many ways, i.e. fighting, piracy, assignments, smuggling, trading, escorting, transporting, rewards ...
Follow your own path, be it "good" or "bad", and take advantage of political disputes.
Compatible with mouse, joystick and gamepad.
IGN Preview/Hands-On:
Source: *pc.ign.com/articles/712/712013p1.html
I suppose my affection for space-based action adventure games started with Wing Commander, but WC was, at its core, a flight simulator. Being based in space allowed for some unique tactical options, but it wasn't reinventing any wheels. Then came the spinoff, Privateer. Now this was a cool game; a galaxy so big that you actually had to hunt down the beginning of the storyline. While not as ambitious as MegaTraveller 2, it had its own charms. You could be a mercenary, trader, or bounty hunter, or a combination thereof. Unfortunately, this type of action adventure game never really took off. Another Privateer came out, but it was an FMV adventure, and not particularly good. Then came X: Beyond the Frontier and its sequels, and the long-awaited Freelancer. I was starting to think that nostalgia had made Privateer seem better than it was. Then DarkStar One arrived in my mailbox. I had no particular expectations -- it was a preview build, in German with English subtitles, of a game that looked like Freelancer. Well, I've been there before, right? But, after several straight days of plowing through DS1, I'm here to tell you that it's turning out to be the best game of its type that I've played. That's right. Ascaron Entertainment, the guys mostly known for Port Royale and Sacred, have crafted an action adventure space game that puts previous watermarks to the test.
DS1, due in North America in August, has elements of all the games I've described above, but it also avoids many of their pitfalls. Privateer had some tedious trade routes and some vicious spikes in difficulty. Freelancer felt repetitive and arcadey. MegaTraveller 2 was perhaps too big of a game for its own good. X2: The Threat too often devolved into being an energy cell merchant, and its story wasn't particularly well told, or its characters very interesting. While DS1 has its problems, it manages a balance between guiding the player through a complex story and giving them freedom to wander around. It starts out slowly, with the main character Kayron inheriting an experimental ship from his recently deceased father. But as we learn how his father died and how the DarkStar One itself is tied to a larger plot with sinister overtones, the game begins to blossom. The game benefits greatly from cutscenes containing good voice acting, dialog and animation. There is tons of this stuff -- I don't know how Ascaron fits everything into one disk. And the main plot will weave these pre-rendered cutscenes in with in-game cutscenes and player actions, all woven together smoothly. What looks like a simple recovery quest turns into a multi-stage mini-adventure, and by the time you're done with the latest development, you're hooked into the plot and want to find out more.
Unlike Freelancer, DS1 doesn't lock you into one area where you have to assassinate some guy wandering around space or deliver a package from point A to point B until you gain an arbitrary amount of experience points, leading to the same pattern in the next solar system. Sometimes you do have to take some random quests, because the plot will move you along progressively farther and farther away star systems, requiring periodic upgrades of your "field drive," the key component to opening gates in hyperspace that allow you to jump from system to system. But the game never gets close to the churn that plagued Freelancer. And often you can take special side missions with premium rewards (and premium difficulty, natch). These side missions are actually pretty neat, because they usually involve large space battles and tense dogfighting.
Speaking of dogfighting -- for those of you who like upgrading ship components (raises hand), you should really dig on this. The ship has a whole ream of different sections to improve -- the generator, energy shield, afterburners, capacitor (which makes weapons more efficient), port scanner, cargo drones -- and that doesn't even cover the weapons, turrets, missiles, or specialty items, like scanning jammers, shield boosters, hull field repair, or energy transfer mechanisms like fore shield to aft shield, or weapon energy to shield energy. In addition to this, the DS1 has its own unique tools, akin to the World of Warcraft talent trees. Its plasma cannon system has multiple uses that act as power-ups: energy shield regeneration, enemy shield deactivation, enemy weapon deactivation, and a couple other tactical bonuses. Once activated, you have to wait about ten seconds to use the plasma cannon again, so its timing takes some experience before you get into the swing of things. But with all of these elements onboard, you won't miss the fact that you won't be upgrading to new ships. The DS1 is very modular.
The plasma cannon system is also integrated tightly into the storyline. In order to improve it, you must gather artifacts, and each level requires more artifacts. As the cannon gains levels, so does the ship, and certain levels are necessary to install better and better gear -- including the field drive. Thankfully, collecting the artifacts is a relatively painless affair. When you arrive in a system containing an artifact, you'll get a notification, and the item will show up on the menu of things in the system that you can target. It might be a bit of a ways away, but you can just use the time dilation feature that X2 popularized. All of the artifacts that I've found have been inside asteroids, and navigating these narrow, twisting corridors can get disorienting. But it wasn't too long before I was sailing in and out like a thief in the night. Also, a system containing an artifact will have a special icon next to it on the galactic map, so there's no aggravating mystery of "Where do I go, who do talk to?" Also, completing those special side quests will typically unlock a system containing a bonus artifact. These systems are populated by pirates, though, so you have to be prepared. On the bright side, eliminating ne'er-do-wells nets you some reward money. In fact, the faction system provides bonuses as you lean into particular character types. As a player who does a lot of bounty hunting, the game rewards me with a premium to the amount of money offered. As a counter, nearby pirates are likely to attack me, even if I'm minding my own business.
Perhaps what keeps this game elevated above its competitors is the variety of missions and the quality of the story presentation. Mission types include cargo recovery, sabotage, satellite deployment, assassination, spying, patrolling, pirate elimination, and reconnaissance. You don't have to fight to make money, but that does form the bulk of the experience. Interestingly, one mission type can turn into another. Taking a photo of an asteroid turns into wrestling with the military over a government secret; obtaining some trade goods from a ship becomes a deadly corporate rivalry. I had trouble with the spy missions, though, which may be the result of a lack of documentation. You're supposed to record a secret meeting with a laser microphone, but I get caught every time. And there are some missions that will put you on the bad side of the law -- the descriptions don't always indicate what the faction repercussions turn out to be. Fortunately, travel time is so short that you won't waste much effort heading towards an unfavorable conclusion.
You can also make money by trading goods, but there are a couple caveats. Cargo is transported inside of containers that trail behind your ship. They're easily jettisoned and recovered, but they make your ship quite sluggish when they're attached. Two, although you can click on any known star system on the galactic map and find out what its four most popular exports are, I haven't been able to figure out what a given system needs. You have agricultural, pharmaceutical, industrial, and "research" economies, but those don't clearly translate into specific items. So far, trade boils down to buying whatever the station has in excess and selling it in a nearby system. In the long run, though, the missions available at the terminal, and the escort opportunities available in real time, are more financially rewarding in this game than buying low and selling high. It's too bad, because the trade system looks interesting.
There are other quirks here and there, but this is a preview build, and I'm having fun regardless. We took a bunch of video, but the subtitles are difficult to make out at the reduced resolution. At the least, you'll get a sense of how DarkStar One looks and plays. On a side note, the subtitles are actually quite good. There are a few odd word usages, but the writing in general avoids a lot of genre clichés. And the voice acting is well-delivered; I can only hope that the English-language actors can do as good of a job. I watch a fair amount of foreign films, so I'm used to reading my way through a movie, but a game like DS1 requires an amount of focus that can make this unwieldy. Still, perhaps the English-language distribution will have subtitles as an option, if they can fit multiple spoken languages onto that disk. Even if the English voice acting turns out disappointing, I think there will still be a good game to be had when it gets released for us near the end of summer. So stay tuned for when we get our hands on the final version.
*img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/maverickrohan/DARKSTARONECover.jpg
Release Date: 14th August, 2006
Minimum System Requirements:
Intel/AMD 1.6 GHz
Windows XP (32Bit)
512Mb RAM
DX9 Compatible 128 MB Graphics-card
Support for Pixel/Vertex shader 1.1 (GeForce 3 and above)
DirectX Compatible Sound Card
DVD-Drive
6Gb HDD Space
DirectX 9 (included)
Recommended System Requirements:
Intel/AMD 3.0 GHz
Windows XP SP2
1024Mb RAM
DX9 Compatible 256Mb Graphics-card
Support for Pixel/Vertex shader 3.0 (GeForce 6/Radeon X1x00 and above)
DVD-Drive
7Gb HDD Space
Most Important Features:
Elaborate story, related by more than fifty minutes of video sequences
Upgradeable space ship "Darkstar One": The player decides which type of spacecraft he prefers - a fast attack ship with many light weapons or a near-invincible cruiser with heavy weaponry
Over two hundred different weapons, shields and equipment items
Rockets, torpedoes and mines feature special tactical uses: mines can tactically fire at opponents or distract approaching missiles
The "Spell Weapon": the player will have a special weapon at his disposal that will have an area of effect similar to certain spells in role-playing games. This weapon will become increasingly versatile throughout the game and it will increase the tactical potential considerably.
A vast, simulated universe with numerous, completely different races, space ships and battle tactics.
Each race features distinctive weapon types with different functions that require different battle tactics. The player will be able to acquire these weapons in order to mount them on the "Darkstar One".
Special missions, for example in canyons, on the surface of planets or inside of planets
Freedom of choice: the player may earn his credits in many ways, i.e. fighting, piracy, assignments, smuggling, trading, escorting, transporting, rewards ...
Follow your own path, be it "good" or "bad", and take advantage of political disputes.
Compatible with mouse, joystick and gamepad.
IGN Preview/Hands-On:
Source: *pc.ign.com/articles/712/712013p1.html
I suppose my affection for space-based action adventure games started with Wing Commander, but WC was, at its core, a flight simulator. Being based in space allowed for some unique tactical options, but it wasn't reinventing any wheels. Then came the spinoff, Privateer. Now this was a cool game; a galaxy so big that you actually had to hunt down the beginning of the storyline. While not as ambitious as MegaTraveller 2, it had its own charms. You could be a mercenary, trader, or bounty hunter, or a combination thereof. Unfortunately, this type of action adventure game never really took off. Another Privateer came out, but it was an FMV adventure, and not particularly good. Then came X: Beyond the Frontier and its sequels, and the long-awaited Freelancer. I was starting to think that nostalgia had made Privateer seem better than it was. Then DarkStar One arrived in my mailbox. I had no particular expectations -- it was a preview build, in German with English subtitles, of a game that looked like Freelancer. Well, I've been there before, right? But, after several straight days of plowing through DS1, I'm here to tell you that it's turning out to be the best game of its type that I've played. That's right. Ascaron Entertainment, the guys mostly known for Port Royale and Sacred, have crafted an action adventure space game that puts previous watermarks to the test.
DS1, due in North America in August, has elements of all the games I've described above, but it also avoids many of their pitfalls. Privateer had some tedious trade routes and some vicious spikes in difficulty. Freelancer felt repetitive and arcadey. MegaTraveller 2 was perhaps too big of a game for its own good. X2: The Threat too often devolved into being an energy cell merchant, and its story wasn't particularly well told, or its characters very interesting. While DS1 has its problems, it manages a balance between guiding the player through a complex story and giving them freedom to wander around. It starts out slowly, with the main character Kayron inheriting an experimental ship from his recently deceased father. But as we learn how his father died and how the DarkStar One itself is tied to a larger plot with sinister overtones, the game begins to blossom. The game benefits greatly from cutscenes containing good voice acting, dialog and animation. There is tons of this stuff -- I don't know how Ascaron fits everything into one disk. And the main plot will weave these pre-rendered cutscenes in with in-game cutscenes and player actions, all woven together smoothly. What looks like a simple recovery quest turns into a multi-stage mini-adventure, and by the time you're done with the latest development, you're hooked into the plot and want to find out more.
Unlike Freelancer, DS1 doesn't lock you into one area where you have to assassinate some guy wandering around space or deliver a package from point A to point B until you gain an arbitrary amount of experience points, leading to the same pattern in the next solar system. Sometimes you do have to take some random quests, because the plot will move you along progressively farther and farther away star systems, requiring periodic upgrades of your "field drive," the key component to opening gates in hyperspace that allow you to jump from system to system. But the game never gets close to the churn that plagued Freelancer. And often you can take special side missions with premium rewards (and premium difficulty, natch). These side missions are actually pretty neat, because they usually involve large space battles and tense dogfighting.
Speaking of dogfighting -- for those of you who like upgrading ship components (raises hand), you should really dig on this. The ship has a whole ream of different sections to improve -- the generator, energy shield, afterburners, capacitor (which makes weapons more efficient), port scanner, cargo drones -- and that doesn't even cover the weapons, turrets, missiles, or specialty items, like scanning jammers, shield boosters, hull field repair, or energy transfer mechanisms like fore shield to aft shield, or weapon energy to shield energy. In addition to this, the DS1 has its own unique tools, akin to the World of Warcraft talent trees. Its plasma cannon system has multiple uses that act as power-ups: energy shield regeneration, enemy shield deactivation, enemy weapon deactivation, and a couple other tactical bonuses. Once activated, you have to wait about ten seconds to use the plasma cannon again, so its timing takes some experience before you get into the swing of things. But with all of these elements onboard, you won't miss the fact that you won't be upgrading to new ships. The DS1 is very modular.
The plasma cannon system is also integrated tightly into the storyline. In order to improve it, you must gather artifacts, and each level requires more artifacts. As the cannon gains levels, so does the ship, and certain levels are necessary to install better and better gear -- including the field drive. Thankfully, collecting the artifacts is a relatively painless affair. When you arrive in a system containing an artifact, you'll get a notification, and the item will show up on the menu of things in the system that you can target. It might be a bit of a ways away, but you can just use the time dilation feature that X2 popularized. All of the artifacts that I've found have been inside asteroids, and navigating these narrow, twisting corridors can get disorienting. But it wasn't too long before I was sailing in and out like a thief in the night. Also, a system containing an artifact will have a special icon next to it on the galactic map, so there's no aggravating mystery of "Where do I go, who do talk to?" Also, completing those special side quests will typically unlock a system containing a bonus artifact. These systems are populated by pirates, though, so you have to be prepared. On the bright side, eliminating ne'er-do-wells nets you some reward money. In fact, the faction system provides bonuses as you lean into particular character types. As a player who does a lot of bounty hunting, the game rewards me with a premium to the amount of money offered. As a counter, nearby pirates are likely to attack me, even if I'm minding my own business.
Perhaps what keeps this game elevated above its competitors is the variety of missions and the quality of the story presentation. Mission types include cargo recovery, sabotage, satellite deployment, assassination, spying, patrolling, pirate elimination, and reconnaissance. You don't have to fight to make money, but that does form the bulk of the experience. Interestingly, one mission type can turn into another. Taking a photo of an asteroid turns into wrestling with the military over a government secret; obtaining some trade goods from a ship becomes a deadly corporate rivalry. I had trouble with the spy missions, though, which may be the result of a lack of documentation. You're supposed to record a secret meeting with a laser microphone, but I get caught every time. And there are some missions that will put you on the bad side of the law -- the descriptions don't always indicate what the faction repercussions turn out to be. Fortunately, travel time is so short that you won't waste much effort heading towards an unfavorable conclusion.
You can also make money by trading goods, but there are a couple caveats. Cargo is transported inside of containers that trail behind your ship. They're easily jettisoned and recovered, but they make your ship quite sluggish when they're attached. Two, although you can click on any known star system on the galactic map and find out what its four most popular exports are, I haven't been able to figure out what a given system needs. You have agricultural, pharmaceutical, industrial, and "research" economies, but those don't clearly translate into specific items. So far, trade boils down to buying whatever the station has in excess and selling it in a nearby system. In the long run, though, the missions available at the terminal, and the escort opportunities available in real time, are more financially rewarding in this game than buying low and selling high. It's too bad, because the trade system looks interesting.
There are other quirks here and there, but this is a preview build, and I'm having fun regardless. We took a bunch of video, but the subtitles are difficult to make out at the reduced resolution. At the least, you'll get a sense of how DarkStar One looks and plays. On a side note, the subtitles are actually quite good. There are a few odd word usages, but the writing in general avoids a lot of genre clichés. And the voice acting is well-delivered; I can only hope that the English-language actors can do as good of a job. I watch a fair amount of foreign films, so I'm used to reading my way through a movie, but a game like DS1 requires an amount of focus that can make this unwieldy. Still, perhaps the English-language distribution will have subtitles as an option, if they can fit multiple spoken languages onto that disk. Even if the English voice acting turns out disappointing, I think there will still be a good game to be had when it gets released for us near the end of summer. So stay tuned for when we get our hands on the final version.
