[h1]TL;DR[/h1]
Campaign achievements not unlocking after the first mission. Robot voice may overlap during gameplay depending on how rapidly one presses targetting or speed matching keys and abruptly ends during loading screens. Music also ends abruptly during loading screens. Sound levels cannot be independently adjusted, infact it cannot be adjusted at all in-game. Other than that this game is close to AAA standard in presentation; graphics, voice acting, cutscenes and music. Considering that all development it's mostly done by a one man, it's really very impressive. Shaun T Williams is probably as talented as Chris Roberts of Wing Commander, Privateer and Freelancer fame
[b]Review 1.05 update[/b]
Can't comment on the state of the game before this patch because i bought it recently on 5th Jan 2017. At first i thought the random crashes are still present. After extended testing with various hardware and software combinations, i can confirm 2 major causes of crashes. One is the System Metrics, a new hardware monitoring feature in the AMD Crimson ReLive Adrenaline Edition that is incompatible with the game, especially during cutscenes. The other is due to an external USB headphone but a crash caused by this headphone driver only occurs rarely under specific conditions, both in this game and others that i've tried.
Another reason, though i'm not sure if it causes random crashes is conflicting settings in the Realtek audio properties. If you set under Recording Devices, Stereo-Mix, Properties to use Enhancements but in Playback Devices, Speakers, Properties, Enhancement to disabled, then it would cause a strong pulsed humming glitch on exiting the game. I suspect this also causes instabilities in the sound buffer during gameplay sessions. Either set both to disabled or both to enabled.
If you don't use AMD's hardware monitoring or an external USB sound device then this game is pretty solid. Mouse and keyboard control is excellent, very smooth and precise, more so than both gamepad and joystick. I have a generic gamepad and a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick. Tried them both and didn't like it; calibration problems, centering problems, over sensitive and unstable jittery input. I never liked using gamepad or joysticks, they always break before i even get to fully experienced them and they are costly, genre specific controllers. Keyboard and mouse are my preferred choices; simple, reliable and good for any type of game. Speaking of controllers, game defaults to X-Box controller gamepad and switches back to it from time to time even if you select mouse and keyboard. This occurs when changing resolution or toggling v-sync or after a CTD (Crash-To-Desktop). This is not game breaking, only a little annoyance.
[b]Gameplay[/b]
I read that previously you're required to complete all 4 tutorials before you can begin the campaign. Since the 1.02 patch, you only need to complete the Basic Tutorial. I dunno why people complain about the tutorials, i find them easy. If you've played Test Drive Unlimited 2 tutorials with keyboard where you need to pass the driver's license tests in order to participate in supercar races, you know how long and gruelling those tests are. By comparison these tutorials are a walk in the park.
The similarities with Wing Commander and Freespace is that it's missions based but there is no wingmen tactical commands. They fly according to script and there seems to be slight variance when the AI interacts with other AI or your action or inaction. For example, in the first campaign mission, if you don't hit the trigger points in the game properly, the transports ships would move too slowly. On the other hand if you hit them properly, they will move normally, thereby shortening their travel time. Or if you lead the enemy fighter to the transports they seem to move even quicker. Here is where i noticed a flaw s in the scripts, if your wingmen die, they will continue to broadcast radio messages giving you cues and help to move the story along. It's kinda like flying with ghost squadmates but it's fine. The alternative is silence for the rest of the mission or the developer has to write additional scripts to account for a change in narrative or mission flow.
Graphics is top notch. Ships look great in the CDF database. Too bad you can't see your own ship in external rotating views or flyby cinematic views except during cutscenes. You can however look around the cockpit. I wanted to buy both Nightstar Rogue Wings and this game but after comparing cockpit designs and total diskspace usage, i decided that this is a better alternative despite the other game having more positive reviews. This game may not have the coolest cockpit designs but at least the MFDs are functional and readable, the other game has a fancier but unreadable displays. Also i prefer the music in this game than the one in Nighstar Rogue Wings. Eventually i might buy that one too just for the experience but this one is more appealing to me right now plus NRW is still in Early Access.
Performance is very smooth in Full HD and high settings except that i didn't go for high Anti-Aliasing. Voice acting, OMG! it's incredible! very convincing. There is some humor in the squad chatter. I love every minute of it, even the robot voice has its shiny moments. At one point a voice sounded like the Stiletto character in Wing Commander Prophecy. I wonder if it's the same actress.
Story wise, i can't comment on that at this stage but it looks like there's gonna be some alien encounter in the mix. My guess is the pirates had discovered some alien tech and are asserting their dominance or maybe there's a misunderstanding and there's gonna be an alliance with the pirates in order to eliminate the alien threat. Either way would be interesting.
[b]Some minor issues[/b]
Flight controls is a little lacking in that there are no side thrusters nor reverse thrusters. However speed control is very fine and it's subdivided into thousands of units. Because of this, acceleration and deceleration is very slow. To speed-up and slow down quickly you need to use the 'Match Target Speed' function. There are no max throttle and zero throttle buttons.
CTA targetting is hard to use; it's like trying to aim with a sniper scope while running. A lead target indicator or auto-aiming assist would be a great help but i suppose that would require additional computations which could negatively impact game performance.
In certain missions where you need to dock inside an asteroid mine, the wing commander tells you to dock at Bay 2 but in the mine the bays are not labelled so you have to guess which recess is dock 2. Trying to dock in the wrong bay will not end the session.
Enemy AI is, i think, purposefully made a little dumber because of their insanely accurate targetting. If you fall into their line of sight, expect to take serious damage. However they don't turn, pursue or aim aggresively at you. Most of the time they appear to do warning shots but if you fly straight too long and you can expect a kick in the butt. Approaching them from the side and waiting for their guns to cool down is the best tactic. A head-on approach is too dangerous.
There is no difficulty setting in the Campaign. Difficulty can be chosen in Instant Action Mode but that is mostly due to the different enemy types and scenarios.
There are no checkpoints; fail or crash at any time means having to restart the mission. There might be a bug permadeath. Once i crashed on docking at the mine and i couldn't restart or continue the campaign.
[b]Summary[/b]
Overall, a great flying and combat experience. Nice cutscenes and voice acting. Excellent graphics, sound and music. Completely playable offline and without Steam overhead. Mostly stable but Campaign achievements are broken.
As it stands, a solid 7/10 if you don't care too much about achievements.
Here is Campaign Mission 4 & 5:
https://youtu.be/rG4Eet-sS0c
