DarkStar One: Broken Alliance (Xbox360)

[S3M]

This little Xbox360 space shooter arrived in the post this morning, surprised no one else has said about this so far. Plays a lot like Freelancer in a lot of areas, liked what I've played so far as well.

Controls are fairly good, my only slight complaint is the fact that you can't roll your ship and slide at the same time. But asides from that it handles really well on the 360 pad.

Space combat is fast paced and there is plenty to do and see. As with freelancer you can join a number of space fractions and you actions will change how people see you. So you can chose to protect and escort cargo ships or rob them blind, depending how you want to play.

Has a GTA style crime rating system and I'll say now you don't last long at five stars.

Story is standard stuff and the dialog for the cutscenes is rather wooden and badly written in places but asides from that it's all good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUrxeTAfPQg

[briareos_kerensky]

Have you ever had the chance to try to PC original which came out years ago and draw a comparison between the two? I still have it and played for quite some time, but after a while it gets boring with same missions repeating over and over.

[SuperBeatBoy]

I've been interested in this, loved my old space combat simish games on the pc. Just need some more impressions really before i put my money down.

[Welrain]

I'm interested as well but will probably wait for a sub-£18 purchase price!

[SmokeMeAKipper]

The original Darkstar One is only £5.99 on Steam (for PC of course)

[S3M]

Have you ever had the chance to try to PC original which came out years ago and draw a comparison between the two? I still have it and played for quite some time, but after a while it gets boring with same missions repeating over and over.

Never played the PC version but what I've play so far I'm really enjoying. Only loading I've seen is when you jump between sectors and there plenty of ships moving around in each area.

Only seen slight slowdown in large fire fights when you directly crash into another ship head on. Difficulty seems fairly balanced as well.

Due to the nature of the game it will get repetitive and a lot of the missions tend to be jump to this sector kill this pirate or escort this ship here etc…

The sectors themselves for each area are quite small and all fairly similar, freelancer on the PC is hands down a better game overal. This is good however and makes a really change from other 360 games, the only other space shooter I've played on 360 is the excellent Project Slipheed.

Graphics aren’t anything to shout about but they get the job done, I’ll be surprised if there that much better than the PC version. Trade system works just like how it does in Elite and freelancer, there is a little in joke with the fact that you can trade video games and there banned on some planets.

This game is totally free roaming, unlike the mission based Project Slipheed. It’s does feature the usually tricks of advancing the story by telling you to go here buy this, do some jobs, steal, trade etc... to buy the item to advance. So in part it is a bit seen it done before, but it’s been ages since I played a game like this and I really am enjoying it, plus the game is absolutely massive so value for money there.

One of the achievements is rather amusing crash your ship on a planet. Price wise I got my copy for £30 from amazon.