StarControl: Origins

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Note: This is my review of the game upon release without any patches and before replaying the older games for comparison.

There is so much controversy over StarControl: Origins that I wouldn't even know where to begin any arguments. Although I am very much amused how Brad Wardell suddenly became aggressive after the announcement of "Ghosts of the Precursors" from Paul and Fred in the sense that they were no longer "fans of the creators of StarControl" by now stating it was "developed by a team of many other authors". The game does highly reflect The Ur-Quan Masters from game mechanics to music. However, there were only a fraction of actual references to Star-Control 2 that I found:

  • A translation problem displayed the word "Frungy" in among the rambling.
  • An entire solar system is named "Fwiffo."
  • Finding three interconnected ruins within a specific solar system tells a story of an alien that travels through some kind of rift and uses words identical to the Orz
  • A specific trading ship sells a fuel tank that runs from something called Quasi-space.
  • When speculating about other universes, they mention that some might even be in a lower resolution.

It appears that there were quite a few last minute changes to the game since the lawsuit came out. I bet they had planned to use "Super Melee" instead of "Fleet Battles" and offer Arilou and Chenjesu DLC Themes (which is basically one song and a wallpaper).

But enough about that. Let's talk about how I felt about the game. The game took me 35 hours to complete. Honestly, the game was rather difficult. My first enemy encounter killed me three times. That shouldn't happen! Other times I ran into ships so frequently that I couldn't move without defeating 5 squads, one after another. If that wasn't hard enough, the final "level" of the game can be quite brutal when trying to defeat an enemy that can instantly kill your ships in one blow. But honestly, I bet the game would be much easier now that I know how the controls. The differences in AI is still questionable though (whether controlling your ship or the opponent).

I definitely hated the progression of the game. As I was browsing Stardock's Preludes of the Game, I found it hilarious they talked about all the critters they could have added to the planets but "most of the player's time would not be spent on a given planet." I think I once read a rumor somewhere that you would spend 10% of your playthrough on planets. Wrong. I spent around 80% of my time visiting planets. Honestly, I think my first 10 hours was just visiting planets. What else did I wish I knew beforehand?

  • Visiting new aliens usually provides additional quests exploring certain aspects of space that can reward you the value of 10 planets, maybe more.
  • There are a total of 11 starbases that teleport you instantly across the universe. They usually reside right next to an alien's homeworld.
  • You can gain a free ship from a friendly alien simply by visiting them and asking instead of trying to buy one at the cost of one planet. (I once received 5 ships from one alien just by asking over and over). If they are allied, simply asking one of their ships patrolling the Sol System will provide you with one free ship.
  • You can gain free fuel from visiting one of your ally's colonies.
  • Things get cheaper the more progress you make especially after you obtain a certain officer. A lander originally cost 5000 RU but now only cost around 375 RU.
  • The majority of material on planets have no benefit other than selling cost. 300 Francium and some Neutronium is needed. The rest? Worthless. Don't ever bother landing on a planet with items that only provide you 1, 2, sometimes 5 RU each. There is no crafting system and you can't store them anywhere. You also can't sell a specific amount.
  • It is perfectly safe to continually run out of fuel. I think they intended you to run out of fuel sometime just to have that unique encounter. I once read that they might as well given you a button that instantly teleports you back to Earth when you run out.
  • You can click on galaxies and make a little note. You can also color-code your notes. I ordered them as Blue: Homeword, White: Cleared/Empty System, Light Blue: Cleared/Encounter System, Yellow: Colonies/Invasions, Green: Traders, Purple: Mission/Destination.

If you were following along the main story, which can be quite extensive, it may take you roughly 15 hours to complete the game. Stardock wanted to buffer this with their planetary exploration. Sadly, I will have to say that 25% of the planets will either have a wrecked ship or some kind of ruin with an item attached to a small paragraph of what happened there. Nearly 10% of planets will actually have material worth gathering.

There was a massive range of tiny bugs and problems:

  • No physical change or modification when changing your fleet ship (like in Star Trek Online) despite the game having a ship creator tool... and don't give me that "it is because we couldn't change the cinematic" nonsense. No way of changing the look of your ships in campaign. I will concede on the thought that the ship would look rather silly if modules were actually visible.
  • The codex doesn't update at all with new races or starbase fun facts.
  • Volatile planets with high graphics/shadows will cause your system to crawl or even crash to desktop.
  • Saving/Loading can sometimes break narration progression. For example: After reloading to a point after defeating a huge ship, StarControl told me that I needed to go defeat it.
  • Background images can disappear entirely (usually when using alt+tab while the game is running).
  • Tooltip dialog missing from a weapon.
  • Reagents cannot be divided up when being sold.
  • Some ships continue to follow me even after conversing.
  • Overriding a save slot does not update the time stamp.
  • Switching between galaxies on the star map can sometimes copy previous notes.
  • Auto-pilot to starbases doesn't automatically dock you.
  • Backing out of buying supplies from an alien's homeworld doesn't revert you back to your previous conversation.
  • There is roughly a 5-second delay before being able to talk to ships/planets after a conversation.

I could add more but I think you get the idea. One person mentioned that if they only had another year to work on the game that maybe these issues could be resolved. They are already addressing a lot of issues in their 1.01, 1.02, and future 1.1, 1.2 patches. Basically what I'm saying is my expectations weren't met. It is still a good game! I feel like it is more closer to StarControl 3 in the "fun department" while highly-imitating the design choices in StarControl 2. But the humor was definitely there.

 

 10-9-2018