Ruslan74
12th June 2006, 07:42 AM
A nice preview on IGN (http://pc.ign.com/articles/712/712013p1.html) on this potentially worthy succesor to Freelancer and Privateer.
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.
I hope they can make it stick as space sim free roaming games with some long term appeal have been scarce.
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.
I hope they can make it stick as space sim free roaming games with some long term appeal have been scarce.