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Starscape Review

Rating:

Starscape seamlessly melds overhead, space shoot-em-up action with the advancement of RPGs and addicting nature of city building games. Build your ship, build up your space station, research, mine and destroy lots of ornery aliens.

Additional Info

DeveloperMoonpod Games
GenreShooter, RPG
PlatformsWindows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
EngineUnknown
Filesize13 MB
Webpagehttp://www.moonpod.com/English/about_ss.php

Full Review

Starscape is a very interesting game from an interesting developer. Frankly, I love Moonpod games. No developer has better taken basic (or classic) game design and brought it to the next level, or maybe even a few levels above that. Such is that case with Starscape, which borrows from probably the simplest space game - that is, Asteroids - and makes it into an epic, space shooter adventure RPG hybrid...thingy.

There are two modes of Starscape. There is the one where you're out in your ship, shooting stuff from a top-down perspective and there is the one where you're inside your space station. The two compliment each other so well, it's like wine and cheese (or spaghetti and meatballs, if you prefer). This is where the shooter action becomes something so much more and, I daresay, ironical. Like I said before, the basic action of the game is too reminiscent of Asteroids to not say so, and in a gratuitous wink at that very game a large chunk of time in Starscape is spent mining from, yes, Asteroids. Those minerals (the anonymous green/yellow/purple gems) are in turned used by your station to research fancy new blasters and hulls with which you make better ships to go out and shoot stuff in the dead of space.

Thus, there are a series of progressions that keep you hooked on this game. The story progression, which is quintessential space adventure stuff, executed well enough to maintain your interest, the progression of your ship and that of your station, done via new weapons and hulls, and the progression of the enemy, who just keep coming. Starscape does what no shooter has done before, in that you get to research and design your own ships. You choose the loadout and the arrangement of equipment. Player choice is something Moonpod does terribly well and it's this mechanic that provides the "just one more thing" effect that will keep you in space until the wee hours of the morning.

You'll want that new ship hull or fancy blaster and you will take the time to harvest the minerals to research them (a menial task, intricate enough for the player to at least feign interest). You will want to find and destroy the next boss to unlock new zones. You might even try the "Instant Action" mode for some fine, no-strings-attached shmup action. Your ship will get destroyed, you will forget to save (how about an autosave feature next time?), you will get pissed off, and you will not stop playing.

Posted by Derek Kamal on June 16, 2010 Comments (0)