Starscape

6.0
Average

Gameplay	6.0	"Oh what might have been - but unfortunately isn’t."
Graphics	6.0
Sound	6.0
Value	6.0

By Alan Bell

No gimmicks – just gameplay; such is the promise offered by Starscape developer Moonpod, on their website (moonpod.com). The theory is a noble one – after all, with a limited budget (Starscape is not a commercially released product – the download only release much more closely resembles the shareware model of gaming days gone by than our readers might more normally encounter), what better thing to focus on than the gameplay – right?

Starscape is a tricky game to describe. Part action adventure, part shooter, part rpg and yet not really anything like what you might imagine, should you know only that. Instead, it’s a game of Asteroids with a bunch of extensions. You fly a ship around a sector of space, blasting apart asteroids (the big ones even break into medium ones, which break into small ones, which are ultimately destroyed) as you attempt to find resources. You need these resources to first fix up your ship, then boost it’s basic abilities – as well as construct more ships, fix up your “mothership”, research new weapons and so on.

During your journeys you’ll encounter hostile enemies which must be destroyed or avoided at all costs. They’re pretty seriously aggressive and your mothership’s automated defences will eventually be overwhelmed if you don’t intervene. Repairing your mothership is also pretty seriously expensive so it’s best to keep those bad guys away – the most effective way to do that is to blow ‘em up so keep that trigger finger handy, you’re going to be using it a lot.

That, unfortunately, is where the first of the issues that Starscape is unfortunately lumbered with rears its ugly head: the controls. Controlling a space ship in an asteroids-style, top-down environment doesn’t have to be a chore. In the nearly 30 years since Asteroids was released (1979), videogames have come a long way – why, then, does Starscape feature the same control set? Rotating your ship with a couple of buttons whilst repeatedly hammering a fire button might have washed when I was but a wee nipper (quiet in the cheapseats!) but in these post-Geometry Wars days, it’s positively archaic. Worse still, given the long gameplay session nature of this title (it’s a fairly grind-intensive experience, more on that in a bit), it actually contributes (rapidly!) to discomfort – discomfort which, if ignored, will lead to OOS injury and possibly even permanent damage! How did they not notice this side effect in their gameplay sessions?

Pain and injury risk aside, there’s the fact that such a control mechanic leads to a very basic combat experience: you fly in whatever direction you’re facing when you push the thrust button and you fire in that direction as well. There’s very, very limited movement when not thrusting (Asteroids actually had a far more advanced simulation of Newtonian physics, in fact, allowing you to far more effectively strafe targets, etc), massively limiting your strategic combat options. Ultimately, you’ll just bear down on whatever is shooting at you and hope your armour outlasts theirs. Basic stuff indeed.

Aside from the grinding up of asteroids, which makes up the bulk of the gameplay, and the basic combat (which rapidly becomes a chore, thanks to the frequently spawning bad guys), there’s the opportunity to research and build new equipment to improve your odds. This takes the form of negotiating the game’s user interface (UI) and allotting portions of your crew and the three resource types you’ve been gathering in the field against each object’s various requirements. It’s a basic system but one that works well – in theory. In practice, the cumbersome UI makes even this (otherwise relatively enjoyable) task a frustrating affair. Inconsistent screen layout and poor interface design in general inhibit the player from really getting down and dirty with the game’s mechanics.

Starscape (ultimately a grind-based action RPG in space, a genre which is all too sparsely populated for my mind) all too glaringly reminds the user of its low-budget nature, seemingly at every opportunity. It’s not a crime to make a low budget game and the price ($25 USD) isn’t going to break the bank for most gamers but then, when they can get something like Loco Roco (PSP) on platinum release, buy a classic PS1 game for their PSP / PS3 or download any number of amazing games from Xbox Live Arcade, why would they pay the same price for this?

Here’s a tip, budding developers: if you don’t do something well and you don’t have the resources to get someone who can do it well to do it for you, don’t do it. Weird, stilted cutscenes with poorly formed animation and strained voice acting is only going to do you a disservice. You don’t have to have it to be good – look at something like Star Control II; no voices, 100% pure awesome. Nintendo rarely use voices and they’re the biggest name in videogames (and nearly everything else).

Sure, the core mechanic is pretty simple but it’s still enjoyable – hunting down cool loot so you can improve your “character” is a gameplay method as old as time and for good reason: it’s fun, it’s motivating. But when participating in that mechanic is likely as not to give you carpal tunnel syndrome and cause you to learn some arbitrary, clunky menu system just to get around, whilst occasionally forcing ill-conceived and downright ugly animation on you… why bother?

Fortunately you don’t need to take my word for it – you can try the demo for yourself, from their website (moonpod.com), something we here at NZGamer fully encourage. If you’ve read this far and are still intrigued, try it out – it’s only 12MB. Just be sure you're going into this knowing what to expect.

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