PULSAR: Lost Colony

OK, if you like Star Trek, Void Crew (are excited for the upcoming Jump Ship game) like teamwork PVE games, like messing around, and are OK with janky graphics and some odd behaviour bugs from time to time - this game is for you! The game take a little bit of reading up on and learning at the first, but once you do that, it seems to be pretty straight forward game play (I can’t be sure as I have only played for a few hours solo with an A.I. crew). The academy is really helpful at getting you up to speed at playing the game and learning which class(es) you like. The game is pretty straight forward. The A.I. crew makes soloing possible, but not easy. There were many times I had to take over a job because the bots couldn’t figure it out. But they help out most of the time. I love that is isn’t a rush game like Void Crew. As in most sci-fi movies, you leisurely go along exploring while pursuing a vague main quest, pick up side quests along the way, and find yourself in life or death struggles from time to time. I haven’t played it with a group of people yet, but I think this is a game that will be really fun for role playing or just goofing around. There is a lot you can do. As I said, I haven’t played much and my main concern is quest repetition. I am not sure how varied the questing is and I can see it become boring real quick if there are only a few quests on rotation. At times there is a lot of text to read. That can become boring for the other players who aren’t doing the reading. It would be nice to see voice lines that everyone can listen to. The graphics are sad VR quality. There seems to be bugs here and there that ruin the immersion. Gameplay mechanics are fun, class responsibilities feel purposeful, and I enjoy how much it feels like Star Trek but isn’t (e.g. like Galaxy Quest). Makes me hold it under less scrutiny unlike Bridge Crew where I would want to make sure it fit my perspective of what a Star Trek game should be like. At 50% off (or cheaper) it is a great deal! I wish more people would play it. It is a lot of fun.

This game is a really good game. It is definitely a gem. Best played with at-least one friend, the story, adventure, and exploration are all great. The battles can be intense with ai boarding your ship and taking down your power, while a fire is going, and being shot at by another ship all at the same time. Learning your systems and having a good team is key. We are currently end-game with only the final boss left to beat. We are definitely going to play the other campaigns. My first attempt I would warp into sectors of space only to see a huge boss ship that kills me instantly, and I put it down for a few years. I played again with my son, and once we had an understanding of space commanders, and sections of space that has bosses in it we were able to progress. We now are considering turning the chaos level above it's default because we got that good. Even with the lower end graphic you will see beautiful scenes, and play in very immersive environments. Each map is hand crafted. These people did a great job! If they came out with a Pulsar 2, I would buy it.

They need to update the store page this game isn't playable in co-op unless you have 5 players they made it seem like you could play by filling up the slots with bots, if this is possible there is no indication as to how to do it. With only a 24 hour return period and depending on email support to address these issues it's not supported well enough to charge. They can try and see if people can figure out how to play it for free but if you want to charge you should at least have customer support or a hand holding feature to get someone started, or revise their feature description when they drop support for something they promised. You shouldn't base your whole developer strategy on how many suckers you can catch that won't realize it in time to get their money back. Thanks Elite and Dangerous for teaching me this valuable lesson.

Don't take my played hours into account, I reset my Steam timers when I purchased a new computer. This game, in my opinion, can easily be considered one of the greatest games out there. It knows what it is and it stays true to it to the very end. Is it going to be for everyone? No, and if it isn't, this game is definitely not for you. For those that it is, you'll have one of the most fun, most memorable gaming experiences you'll ever have. The last time I felt this way playing a game and made memories like these was plugging in my 8 bit Nintendo and playing Mario for the first time, and experiencing my first massive living world mmo Everquest about 10 years later. This is the space sci-fi gamer's wet dream. You play a role on a ship. It has experience and level ups to be better at said roles. It has different races with their own strengths and weaknesses. It has space combat, planet exploration, equipment and gear for yourself and your ship. Upgrades, resource management, biscuits. Break neck action and stress as well as leisurely downtime and travel. Quests, factions, and a true sandbox experience if you just want to ignore it all and put around space. Add to that there is a few different campaigns to play, and you have a game that you can spend literal hundreds, if not a thousand hours and more playing and never truly see everything there is to see. The graphics in this game are a strange mix of simple efficiency and immense beauty. It is clear that the designers of this game have a true love and appreciation of space, because the galaxy itself as you fly around in your ship is breathtaking in places and a lot of the graphical power in this game is put there. The character models themselves, the interior of your spaceship, and the planetary environments are simple and in some places plain, but they serve the purpose they intend and I don't find myself wanting more. If it were more graphically intense in these areas (as much as things are going on simultaneously), my old computer when I first discovered this game may not have been able to handle it. As such, the simplistic but fun graphics style allow for this game to be nearly lag free in multiplayer environments, which is terribly important given how intense this game can be at times. If you stress easily, I don't know what to tell you. Have a wank before playing this game or smoke a bowl or something because it spikes hard. Engaging with two separate hostile spacecraft while fighting off a landing team boarding your ship AND trying not to die from lack of oxygen because there's a stage 3 fire in your engine room and life support systems have been disabled from a virus attack from the enemy vessels all at the same time is enough to make your heart pound like you just ran a 6 minute mile. It sounds a bit pathetic, maybe it is, but (imho) if you're playing the game right and you risk losing your 70 hour campaign because you failed in some diplomatic talks and the star cruiser is about to blow your space doors off, the game takes on a new level of stress and fun. I can't speak for all, but that's how my friends and I enjoy it. (Again, I said this game isn't for everyone). On that note, don't buy this game intending to play it alone. The AI bots are actually quite adept and will allow you to have a good time, but there's nothing, NOTHING like playing this game with a dedicated group of 4-5 friends who know their roles and play them well. My friend is an insane pilot, and we've survived things we never should have because he pulled some crazy ♥♥♥♥ to buy us time while we fought off a boarding party. To that note, my other friend is a great engineer and keeps us going when we do take a brutal hit and systems go down and requires repairing. The best part of this game is the stories you get to tell after. Like my pilot telling us how he barrel rolled our ship, narrowly missing an asteroid and causing our pursuer to peel off that NONE of us were aware of because we were having a blaster fight in our medical bay fighting off pirates trying to loot our cargo. To balance the stress, you have a great economy and quest system to earn credits and xp. You also have good areas of downtime, especially after you've obtained some upgrades to your warp distance. Traveling from location to location takes actual time outside of the wormhole warp gates, and is the perfect opportunity to spend talent points from leveling, reviewing and trading equipment to your comrades and comparing and installing new ship upgrades. It also gives you plenty of time to grab a snack/drink and use the potty before trekking off on your next adventure. I could go on and on, but there really isn't much more to say that would further my point more than I feel I already have stated. Buy this game. It is an incredibly underappreciated gem of a game that is far, far more intricate and detailed in its mechanics and design than most AAA games have ever aspired to be. This team is good and if this is the only game they ever make, I'll be ok with it. As it stands, I hope PULSAR 2 is something I see on my horizon one day.

This game does not get the attention it deserves. If you like a team based game that relies on communication and trust, this is it.

It's THE space sim. The devs saw The Firefly, and thought "Hell yeah!" You take the ship, you take your friends/bots, and you can go ANYWHERE! The amounts of cool and immersive systems in this game is insane, too. For example: a scientist on YOUR ship can create a virus program to hack into enemy ship's systems, and sabotage them. Every ship you encounter in this game, has a fully simulated NPC crew that runs around the ship and fixes it's systems, just like on your ship! This is just if Starfield used starships not just for space combat sections, and if you could walk around your ship at any time, if love and care was put into it... This game is simply amazing. 3 people made it, yet the amounts of little details here and there is just mind-blowing. For example: an enemy's missile caused one of your rooms to set on fire? Heh, now FIRE drains OXYGEN! Cool, right? You want to fire that big cool plasma canon your ship has? Heh, gotta check the enemy ship's movement vector first! Oh, what's that? Firing the gun applied the velocity to your ship, while your pilot was carefully maneuvering along the asteroids? Heh! That loss of the ship's hp will be the cause of miscommunication! Oh, also, the Engineer role. Playing as him feels like that one scene from Age of ultron, where Tony programs Altron along with Jarvis. Seriously: you need to manage the ship's reactor temperature, the warp drive's ready-ness, the shield energy consumption, the brandmauer systems, and all of that is on different screens, in different tabs! Literally the most stressfull micro-managing sims I ever played. So, grab a few friends, read a manual, and get ready for the most memorable space adventure you'll have since the last time you've played Mass Effect 1.

There's this weird genre of multiplayer game that has popped up recently that is like this bizarre blend of being ridiculously complicated and also being multiplayer. Games where a ten to thirty minute tutorial video are a prerequisite to success. Make your user interface better. Make what you're supposed to be doing intuitive. And shove your damn tutorial videos up your butts.