DarkStar One: Broken Alliance
Review
Four years on and still the same...
by Chris Davis
reviewed on X360
You Aren’t Actually Going IN to an Asteroid Field?! (cntd.)
One other nagging problem you will find yourself experiencing is the game’s failure to encourage true exploration. With hundreds of star systems to explore, you would think that there would be endless amounts of things to find but the problem is that this simply is not the case. Almost all of the star systems, while vast in size, are lacking in differentiation between almost all the other systems. Most systems have a large asteroid or debris field in them. In fact, other than the Terran Sol system there is almost nothing worth visiting in almost half of the star systems. Most visits the systems that have missions and quests in them will result in only a handful of minutes being spent in them before moving on to the next one on the map.
The main part of the game that Ascaron Entertainment got right was the combat. While most of the space battles are far from epic in size (the most you will see of enemies in a map at a time is usually no more than a dozen fighters or so) your engagements will have you dogfighting waves of enemies at a time with the occasional back-up of AI mercenary ships. These ships share the same AI as the enemies of the game and thus charge into battle with almost no hope of survival. But hey, as long as you survive, there are no real consequences. Regardless, the controls for the flight mechanics are spot on and the game’s auto targeting system allows you to all but slaughter your foes.
The Wall of Space
DarkStar One was originally released in 2006 as a PC title. Back then the current console generation was still in its infancy and thus it was visually on par with other titles of the time. Today, however, four years after the game’s original release, Broken Alliance does not match up. Despite being advertised prominently as being presented in 1080p, the game simply does not hold up to expectations. While some scaling on large asteroids and planetscapes look nice, the game does have noticeable pop-in issues and the frame rate can dip significantly should the number of rendered objects in a given map be exceptionally large. In other words, if you are in the middle of a large battle, be prepared for some shuttering.
The biggest offender technically speaking is the voice work. Put quite simply, this reviewer has not heard such a horrendous effort put into a Western-developed title in years, and that is saying something. In fact, if I had to hazard a comparison, I would liken it to last year’s aurally detrimental Onechanbara Bikini Zombie Slayers; it is that terrible. Almost every single line you will hear is cookie-cutter at best and downright read-straight-off-the-page quality. The voice work does not even lip-sync to the characters depicted on screen, nor does this port even seem like this was attempted. Eona is the biggest offender in this case as her attempts at humor neither amuse nor enlighten the player. May her voice actress find work outside the realm of video games in the future.
One last quip that needs to be mentioned is the cinematics. While pre-rendered FMV sequences still exist prominently in video games, they are becoming increasingly obsolete in an age in which visual wonders like Mass Effect 2 and Killzone 2 exist. While this is not to be expected of a four-year-old port, it would have been appropriate for the cinematics to have been at the very least up-scaled properly, if not having undergone a complete reworking, with enhanced models and redone character articulations. Sadly this is not the case. More egregiously it seems that the cinematics have had almost no work done on them at all, as they have been poorly scaled to match the demands of 1080p. There are even visual artefacts during these sequences, something that is almost unforgivable in my book.
All in all, if you are looking for a visually compelling game you are not going to find it in DarkStar One.
The Wrong End of the Galaxy
Overall DarkStar One, despite many items that have not aged well and some technical flaws, is still a welcome entry in a genre that rarely sees new titles anymore. For those looking for a decent game to pass the Summer gaming drought, DarkStar One Broken Alliance is an appropriate fix, especially so for obsessive compulsive collectors. But those who have plenty of other games to play should stay away from this veritable black hole.
6.0
fun score
Pros
Large galaxy to explore, decent space combat
Cons
lackluster story, terrible audio
