Darkstar One Critic Reviews

This is not a stingy game. Nearly everything you do will earn you some sort of profit, but it's about the long-term gratification.

The breadth of the world in DarkStar One which is part of what makes it such a great game can also be adownside as well.

This game "gets" the template of 1985's Commodore 64 classic Elite in a way that many other space-trading games released over the past decade or so didn't, thanks to its emphasis on the mid-'80s classic's simple principles of buying low, selling high, and blasting pirates for fun and profit. It comes with a few minor problems in the fit-and-finish department, but the game is still an outstanding return to the frontier spirit that made Elite so memorable.

The key element of the game, of course, is combat and here it excels...Compared to many of its peers, Darkstar One may seem slight - but what it does, it does expertly.

It was fun to play a space action game that used trading to get you into opportunities for a fight rather than study for a degree in advanced intergalactic economics.

It's clear that Darkstar One is the most amusing space game in many months. It's just a shame that it weighs in like a cash starved version of "Freelancer," without any particularly inventive ideas to back up its broad scope and sense of ambition.

But for sheer shoot 'em up fun in outer space, enhanced with enough peripheral activities to make things interesting, there isn't much out there today like it.

DarkStar One is the game you might have played before, but everything that you’ve seen before is done just as well here, if not better and still makes for an enjoyable experience.

A good solid game worth the price of admission.

If you have been looking for a space combat game this is not the end all game, nor is it the best trade sim ever or exploration game, however it does combine all three of these options better than most of the other games out there that have tried to put them all together.

Though hardcore 4X fans might stay away due to the game's melting-pot depth, DarkStar One is a fun career-oriented romp that deceptively allows for a lot of personal freedom in play style in a style similar to Privateer that not many games have been able to recapture.

The streamlined gameplay helps a little, but the game itself is too repetitive and simplistic. There is no real freedom, and the galaxy turns out to be beautiful but dull.

It is DarkStar One's repetitiveness that decimates its chances with anyone other than space-sim buffs. While it's addicting, the gameplay just isn't varied enough to fulfill the game's potential greatness, nor keep you engaged for the game's lengthy storyline.

Not a terrible game, but far from a good game, DarkStar One finds itself right in the middle, orbiting the planet mediocre.

Even when completed, you can go back and play it over accepting different missions and/or playing with a different style.

Constricted. It isn’t so much that Darkstar One is a bad game, it’s just that the developers failed to optimise on good ideas - it seems as though they took the easy way out rather than expand on them.

Darkstar One is as cold and empty as space itself once the novelty of trading or being a "system rebel" wears off.

If you've been craving the flavor of hot ion bolts and heat seekers, but can't bear to reinstall Freelancer yet again, DarkStar One should hit the proverbial spot.

Fortunately, it's easy to detach yourself from DarkStar One's story and immerse yourself in the moment-by-moment excitement of traversing a sometimes-hostile galaxy in a hot-rod of a ship.

As good as the combat is, Darkstar One is too simplistic to evolve into a real classic. It's a great look back at a fading genre, but lacking a stronger story and economic system, it's not likely to foster a major revival.