Kalypso Media announced today that the space adventure, DarkStar One is scheduled to release on the Xbox 360 this summer. It looks like PS3 fans will have to get their space adventuring elsewhere, because a lot of developers seem to overlook it when it comes to games that involve venturing off the planet.
According to the press release…
In DarkStar One – Broken Alliance, players will explore the vast reaches of space, encountering, battling and trading with six mysterious alien races in a quest to unravel the mysterious death of the protagonist’s father.
The real highlight of the game is that players can choose from multiple career paths, including brigand, mercenary, privateer, merchant or smuggler. Not only are there plenty of career choices available but the game sports hundreds of combinations of customizable ship options for the player’s ship, the DarkStar One.
And for graphic whores, the game is expected to run with full 1080p, HD support.
If you're currently in San Francisco and watching a demonstration of Kalypso Media's DarkStar One: Broken Alliance for the Xbox 360, you're probably at GDC 2010. But you may not be familiar with the game's origins as a 2006 PC game developed by dearly departed studio Ascaron Games. Broken Alliance will be a 1080p high-definition remastered version of the original game brought to the Xbox 360, complete with updated graphics and a new controller-friendly control setup. Please be advised that this story may contain plot spoilers.
Make the final frontier your own in DarkStar One: Broken Alliance.
The story of DarkStar One (both the original and the remake) is informed by a few key events but is otherwise largely open ended, taking a cue from classic, open-ended exploration games, such as Elite and Sid Meier's Pirates!. You play as a young pilot whose father (also a pilot) was recently murdered by a mysterious assailant. All you have left is your father's ship, the DarkStar One, a highly flexible vessel that can be upgraded with an expanded hull and more powerful engines to carry cargo as a merchant ship or with high-end weapons for use in escort or piracy missions...or with a little bit of everything. However, while you explore the stars and seek your father's killer, a mysterious race of aliens is quietly taking over the universe one planet at a time, so your second goal is to eventually assemble an army that will do battle with this threat.
Those seem like two very focused goals, but there's a whole lot of room in between them to explore. DarkStar One's universe is enormous and is, thankfully, divided into various sectors that are merely huge. At the start of the game, your ship has limited travel capabilities, but you'll eventually acquire the hyperkeys and the ship enhancements to jump to the farthest reaches of space, picking up new characters as copilots and taking missions from cargo merchants, interstellar police, or wily space pirates. Over time, you'll develop a reputation as either a saintly merchant who plays by the book and always hauls freight on time (and is therefore always welcome at every space station) or as a low-down, dirty pirate who attacks convoys unprovoked and eventually becomes persona non grata among the authorities. Or, you can end up somewhere in between--it's entirely up to you.
Anyone can trade cargo or raid cargo, but only you can save the universe.
Much of DarkStar One's gameplay involves traveling between space stations, where you can repair your ship, pick up missions, and trade for whichever resources may be available in the area. However, you can upgrade the hard points on your ship with weapons, engines, shields, and hull space whenever you like. And as far as weapons are concerned, you'll have a wide range of weaponry to mount on your ship, including various types of blasters and even organic weapon technology you may learn from various alien races. Throughout the course of the game, you'll eventually discover a secret type of weapon technology your father discovered and hid on the DarkStar--it was the reason he was singled out and assassinated, but it also represents the universe's last hope against the alien threat.
DarkStar One: Broken Alliance will offer an experience that has drawn inspiration from numerous classic PC games but hasn't really been seen on consoles before. Even though the game won't offer any multiplayer, it will have a lengthy and open-ended single-player campaign and the full suite of Xbox 360 achievements you'd expect. The game will ship later this year.
Game play video :
In other words they are remaking the original game Dark Star One PC with bumped up graphics to xbox360 and renaming it to DarkStar One: Broken Alliance
As far as I see,it's the exact same game that came out 4 years ago. Graphically and otherwise.
Only changes I see is the controls are a bit more stiff(thanks to the pad) and autoaim(did the pc version have that?).
No reason for me to play this anymore. If I wanna replay it,I'll do so on the pc.
As far as I see,it's the exact same game that came out 4 years ago. Graphically and otherwise.
Only changes I see is the controls are a bit more stiff(thanks to the pad) and autoaim(did the pc version have that?).
No reason for me to play this anymore. If I wanna replay it,I'll do so on the pc.
there is a reason :
the PC version was NEVER EVERY properly cracked
and it was a bugzilla
FUCKING EW!!! Uninstall from HDD. Take DVD out tray. Put DVD in bin. Why? because to roll your ship left you have to hold l-trigger and move the r-stick RIGHT!? To roll right, you have to hold l-trigger and push the r-stick LEFT?! There's also no control over your speed, you're either doing 0 .. or you're doing 100% (150% for afterburner) NOTHING INBETWEEN? Seriously, this is an absolutely horrific port job and Proekaan is right; there's no difference in the graphical quality either. Not even any AA, unlike the PC version.
DE-FUCKING-LETED.
-Objective list of FAILS with this port-
Performance. Game sometimes hitches at the start of a voice dialogue, when music track changes, and when you activate Plasma skills.
Gameplay. This isn't aim ASSIST, this is full on automatic aiming. Point at an enemy and
you lock onto them. Pew Pew.
Gameplay. You can't even fly into asteroids any more. Now they have huge cut-away segments where the artefacts are just lying there on the surface. Pathetic.
Controls. No degrees of speed, just zero, flat-out or flat-out +50.
Controls. Rolling left means pressing right, rolling right means pressing left.
Controls. Menu navigation whilst in space is a PITA.
Camera. External camera is a vanity cam only, it's not functional for gameplay.
Graphics. Jaggies galore, moar bloom, no visual fidelity increase over PC version.
Audio. Same crappy low-budget voices from original PC release.
I'd say the only reason to play this and not the PC one, is if you're an achievement whore (1000/1000 is piece of piss in this) or if you don't have a PC made in the last decade >_>
Last edited by sabin1981 on Sun, 13th Jun 2010 01:08; edited 5 times in total
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