DarkStar One: Broken Alliance
There aren't many opportunities on modern consoles to gallivant about the galaxy shooting space pirates and trading android parts, so DarkStar One: Broken Alliance fills a very large void. And in spite of its many quirks, this long and accessible space combat sim does a fine job of doing so, putting you behind an upgradable spacecraft and giving you an enormous universe to conquer. A lack of depth and lots of mission repetition make the later hours start to drag, and some cringe-worthy voice acting and overly compressed cutscenes lend the story some unintended campiness. But there's no reason the flaws should weigh too heavily on adventurers itching to save the cosmos by blasting nasty alien ships into smithereens.
Just like the PC version released in 2006, DarkStar One: Broken Alliance puts you in the shoes and ship of Kayron Jarvis, son of a talented pilot who was killed after an act of ship sabotage. Like it so often does, revenge forms the basis of this tale, though Kayron soon finds himself wrapped up in a political drama in which--wait for it--the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance. The twists and turns of the plot do their part to inspire interest, but low-resolution cutscenes and eccentric, oft-repeated voice-overs make it hard to take DarkStar One's story seriously. The actors portraying the leads aren't so bad, and a few side players come across well, like the boisterous, swashbuckling Captain Hornblower. Others, such as the emotionless actress performing monotone communication duties at space stations throughout the universe, sound like they barely understand what their lines mean. It's easy to admire its spunk, but you won't stay glued to the screen on the merits of this humdrum space opera.
Luckily, a light role-playing system that lets you upgrade your ship--the titular DarkStar One--will keep you pushing forward when the story has lost its appeal. You fly about the galaxy seeking artifacts, most of which can be found glimmering on asteroids, though some are earned as a reward for liberating systems taken over by nasty space pirates. With enough artifacts, you level up your ship, granting it more hit points, perhaps, or giving you access to the next weapon class. This is also how you enhance your catch-all plasma device, which can be used for an extra layer of shielding or to emit an electromagnetic blast, among other possibilities.
And so you push through the galaxy in a first-person perspective, collecting artifacts and shooting up anything that turns your reticle red when you target it. DarkStar One is easy to pick up and play from the get-go because of the intuitive controls that make it simple to select targets of note, switch missile types, grab cargo, and more. You shoot your mounted weapons with a single trigger, while turrets fire automatically, assuming you have enough energy to power them. As you move from cluster to cluster, you gain access to more weapon types, from ion pulse weapons that damage shields to graviton guns that fire slowly but do a good amount of damage. It's some hours before you feel like your foes are putting up a struggle, but some later encounters force you to keep an eye on your weapon energy and maneuver carefully around giant cruisers that would turn you into space dust. Most skirmishes play out more or less the same: you target the nearest enemy and pummel it with lasers and spores until it blows up, and then you move on to the next one until the fleet is gone. Combat is simple and predictable, but it's terrific fun to zoom about, zapping Thul drones and Arrack bodyguards, and later enemies mix up their behavior, which adds a touch of challenge and variety.
