Starcom: Unknown Space

this will probably be the longest review i ever make.... the beginning is fun, there's lots to do, many places to go, and lots of things to discover. Something i particularly love about this game is the endless amount of interesting interactions between your ship, your crew, and the physics around you. Like a lot of other games tho, the fun slows down over time. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this game is just a lot of the same. Mostly scanning and landing on random uninhabited planets. i haven't reached the end-game yet, but i am already getting relatively bored. this game reminds me A LOT of Endless Sky, it's a game i picked up about 7-8 years ago now and i fell in love with it then, and i fall in love with it again every large update they bring out, but i digress. what it specifically reminds me of is Kor space. lots of dead and messy places to visit with a lot of history to learn about. In Endless Sky this is just a minor part of everything, but in this game the fallen empire and the remnants are basically all there is to it. Sure there's other species with a few interesting things about them, but there's NO nuance in your relationship with them. Either you follow their instructions, or you ignore their instructions and beat them to a pulp, because this game's combat is asymmetrical: for some reason none of these super advanced aliens have invented repairing their ships. Endless Sky is an endlessly addicting game because you get to interact and actually influence the story of all these aliens, the symmetrical combat and frankly much more varied customisation make it a much more dynamic interesting game, even as you get stronger and further. Starcom: Unknown Space is much less interesting in customisation, combat, and interactions with aliens. The customisation is mostly just what weapons you want to use and the size and shape of your ship. The combat is fairly boring because the difficulty slider just adjusts damage and in most scenarios you are just a tank with way too much firepower to be stopped. The interactions with aliens are much more shallow and tend to just be like "so uhm, hi, wanna trade?" or "if you scan this planet we will annihilate you!!!!" or "you have broken all laws of our society by existing within 20 lightyears of us, prepare to die." A lot of things you can experience here are more fun in other space games, but for 12,50 euros, this isn't a bad deal by any means.

Star Trek vibes through arcade-like graphics. The ship designer is good: researching tech and gathering resources, with a little bit of creativity can result in a pretty awesome ship. Away missions are text based, but interesting, in a similar vein to Stellaris. The story is intriguing, so far. Best of all though, it is quick to dive in and get something done: finish a mission, gather some resources, explore a system, have a battle with one of the villainous factions, etc. It barely takes 5 minutes to get stuck in. And as for exploration, it has the "Civ effect", i.e., "I'll explore just one more system". I highly recommend it, and thanks to The Mighty Jingles for the recommedation.

Good immersion and nice story, trading resources is very basic but the ship building is nice.

это так тупо, но так круто абсолютно волшебная атмосфера исследования новой галактики, взаимоотношений, небольших текстовых квестов, сорздания корабля и боев. Слово за слово улетел на 40+ часов

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☑ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☑ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

I saw this game on a couple streams before I finally decided to buy it. I'm having good fun with it, even if it misses the mark in a few ways. First the bad. I really don't feel like there's much in the way of choice here. I know that might sound odd.... you select skills for your crew, you choose what system to explore, you can build out your ship in almost any way you want..... But my proposal is that most of that isn't really choice. The only real choice is obvious. The "options" are just illusions of choice that really aren't practical or realistic. Allow me to explain. Crew skills.... the crew levels up very, very slowly at first. And yeah, you can build them out by allotting points in any of the areas... except that if you don't spend the entire early part of the game burying points into their one core skill, you will rarely if ever succeed in your skill checks. Similarly, the ship building... yeah you have a big grid you can build out on, but your resources are very very tight through most of the early and mid game. You rarely have the resources to build much of anything. Every module you want feels like a struggle to buy. And don't get me wrong.... that does make the game have a good, strong economy that keeps you driving for more. But it means you really aren't playing with the ship builder as much as you might think... you aren't just buying cool frames to make cool shapes... you really only have so much, and can only barely afford the essentials. As far as exploration... it might feel like you can go anywhere, but let me ask you this. Go check out a couple streamers playing the first few hours of this game. They will all end up in roughly the same path, seeing roughly the same content. There isn't as much choice here as you think.... the game very much funnels you in certain directions. So my point here is that this game is, for the most part, a very linear experience. At least through the early game and into the mid-game, for sure. There is very little choice. You are mostly along for the ride to enjoy the combat and enjoy reading about the various discoveries. Now the good.... the story is fun and mysterious, the combat is great, and the loop is addictive. The game works! Even if you realize you are being herded in a certain direction, you still kind of wonder whats beyond the next jump gate? Even though you struggle to afford every ship module, it's still fun to outfit that new engine and see how your ship moves now! Once you get multiple weapon systems going, it's fun to watch the action unfold. Also the visuals are great. The ring worlds are cool, all of the mysterious alien artifacts really ring that classic mysterious sci-fi vibe. I'm enjoying the game. I think you will too. My only caveat is to realize that this really isn't a game about choice... it's more of a linear experience that you play through and enjoy along the way.

This is genuinely one of the best games I've ever played. The freedom of building your own ship and exploring however you want is wildly addicting. I'm on my 3rd playthrough and I'm already thinking about a 4th.

Цікава космічна гра, шукав щось подібне. Розробнику респект за підтримку України.