Be Excellent To Each Other

...but still pretty good.

Straight up Elite clone with reasonable graphics and a gentle learning curve. The combat is reasonable enough (although at least initially you are really slowed down by cargo). I've not done much trading but it's in there.

One ship only (the titular Darkstar One) but fully upgradable so it's not as complex as Freelancer or Elite but it doesn't suffer for it. Graphics are a bit more restrained than Project Sylpheed (which was a colourful mess of a game).

Pretty good so far. I can see me sinking days into it and it was only 18 quid from Zavvi despite being less than a fortnight old and being 40 quid in the shops.

Any takers?

That sounds right up my brown alley.

My Dimztranzlator is on the fritz. Is that good or bad?

Well I've just ordered it, so yes. Quite an interesting review on Yerpgonks for it. Sounds niche. It was also originally made by Ascaron, makers of mediocre-game-awful-voice-acted Sacred 2, for the PC back in 2006. I hope there's plenty of entrails to soil my weapon.

I have it on PC from a number of years ago. Is it the same game?

Yes, but with updated graphics.

The voice acting in the game is particularly awful with everyone being voiced by a posh Englishman. Oh and it has teeny-tiny-text.

Pedant alert: Isn't there only one ship in Elite?

Or could you get another one by doing a mission?

Original Elite , single ship (Cobra MkIII) , other follow ups allowed you to change the ship

Ooh.

Convinced that Ascarion couldn't write a plot if their lives had depended on it.

A possible glitch may have fucked the 1000 on this for me. Approach with caution.

I'll retry tonight and see if it unfucks.

Played the PC version right the way through, and thoroughly enjoyed it (though Freelancer may have a slight edge... but not much).

One thing I really liked was that you could choose which parts of the ship the bio upgrade thingys were applied to, so you could "grow" your ship towards having the characteristics that were important to you. That was quite satisfying.

Hmm that sounds very interesting indeed. What's the best way to earn pennies in this?

I am having a space dogfight with a Scotch space frog. He has changed his voice/accent three times during the encounter, though.

There are some pretty massive problems with this game, aren't there?

The targeting is bordering on useless. Just jumped into a system and heard yet another British space captain in his cruiser saying that any pilots joining in with his pirate hunt would get bounty for each one killed. Awesome. Which cruiser was it? Fuck knows. Opened up the target list to see if I could gather any knowledge from it; loads of neutral targets (so evil, so neutral) and friendly targets, but none with any names to single them out. No enemy pirates on the radar at all. Wheeled the viewport around madly while the unknown cruiser man kept jabbering about the pirates receiving reinforcements. No targets. Then he said they were all dead and "well done".

Same thing happened when I took on a targety mission requiring I go to a system and bring down a captain that had been smuggling. Jumped into the system in question and the captain contacted me saying "blah blah saving humans no wrong blah blah no fire on me blah blah". Could I find him on the target list or nearby? No. Then someone said "The greenhorn is delaying! We'll do the job for you!" Are they on the enemy list? No. 30 seconds of wheeling around trying to find a target; "mission failed". What?

Also quite shocked that this got through the spell checkers:

Is there ever anything other than one planet, a trade station and possibly a research centre / asteroid field in every system? Do you ever actually get to land on those planets or are they just painted on the space wall texture? If not, it comes to something when Frontier is still more advanced than this.

I'm quite shocked you could read the fucking text in this game. It makes Dead Rising's font look like the Hollywood sign.

I like the choice of movement speed it allows you. 0%, 100% and 150%. Plus going to 0% thrust after cruising at 100% instantly stops you in your tracks. These people really have no grasp of physics, do they?

more niggles today;


jump into a system, get 62k in credits for absolutely no reason.

trade prices and, even worse, dock area tech levels change when you revisit a planet. I'm looking for a level 7 energy generator so I go back to the last planet cos it was level 7 tech and now it's a 4.

pirates that sound like Stewie Griffin.

That's shit, play Oolite.

Did. Meh. Want newness.

I like how they've foregone the usual "'merican voice actor doing shite 'Brit' (tooth grind) accent" in favour of "British voice actor doing shite 'merican accent"

After playing this for a couple of hours I can't really like it above: meh. It just seems such typical lazy Ascaron questing of "go there and fight, man's moved on so follow and fight to find he's moved on and fight follow man moved fighting following there man man fight fight follow follow follow"

Seriously, do the systems change from orbital trading posts in an asteroid field? Ever? Please say they do. I don't think I can stand "over 300(!)" of these systems.

they've all been that so far (I've seen over half of them)

I hope you heard me howl from where you are.

There's absolutely no point in trading in this game, is there?

Install OXPs, consult the wiki for information. Configure game according to taste - missions, skins for ships, dockable stuff, new ships, new planets, ship equipment, sounds, etc. Just playing Oolite is ok for a bit, read into what mods you can get now and it's a going concern, especially with a decent flightstick. Your ten-year-old self will love you for it.

And to get a mod (oxp) running, save it from the wiki into your oxp folder having read up on it. Piece of piss.

Does it have really bad power metal. And a mission to collect intruments for them to tortuure people with?

There is very bad rawkin rawk music when you get attacked by pirates.

Once you've got the Trader achv, you never need to go back to it.

In fact you are actively encouraged not to by the fact that it slows down your ship's movement, although this can be countered by upgrading your engines (although that will cost you one of two missable achievements).

planets not unlocking is getting on my tits a bit but this game is pretty addictive.

which is probably why myself and Dimzles are still playing it.

I've just done the shite canyon mission. "Your craft will handle differently in atmosphere." No, it'll just wobble a bit when you level out because the programmers didn't understand physics.

The endless trudge through 300+ identikit systems continues.

Eek, I picked this up for the cheaps, and i don't know if i can face starting it...

It's not bad. It's just painfully long and mediocrely not changing.

Like picking up posh chicks.



[edit]Oh, I read that as 'challenging' not 'changing'. Joke fail

This game is as shallow as an Ethiopian child's paddling pool. The races have supposedly been created on the spot by getting a hat, writing down personality traits on pieces of paper and "alien" looking creatures on another, then drawing them out at random. Ah! A slug that's health obsessed! An insect that's bureaucratic. A lizard that's religious.

I've even been told how to react to a storyline character. "Cap'n Hornblower is so lovable." and "That's probably what makes him so lovable!" Met the man and he's a ginger Santa Claus that gets killed. "Good", I thought as I watched his ship get smithereened.

SPOILERS!

One warp jump after Hornblower gets killed.

"I am always thinking about Cap'n Hornblower."
"Yes, I am too."


Such wonderful dialogue!

I don't know how you can put yourself through the hours of crap gaming, but I'm glad you do so I don't have to.

The very worst part is that you're FORCED to sit through this utter shit dialogue and can't speed through it with the time lapse function. It's like trying to swim the English Channel full of raw sewerage, but someone keeps pulling at a rope around your ankle so you have to inhale the nuggets and tampons.

I think I'd stop swimming the channel at that point.

I don't remember any of this from the PC version. Is this the same game?

"We must survive otherwise we'll never find out what's going on here!"

"Are you kidding? Do you really want to take a mess with me?"

You can tell this was made by Germans.

Oh for gods' sake.

"Your friends are about to die."
"I do not believe him."
"Neither do I, but I would like to know how our friends are doing."

Talking of which, it's on offer at GOG at the moment at $4.99.