Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:32 pm
Nice Game: But could have been better
My two sons and I bought this game to play on our home network and I have to say our first impresssions were excellent. To be fair my sons still think this game is brilliant and were playing on it non-stop during Saturday and Sunday.
However, I rapidly became bored.
It seems to me that despite all the hype about being able to chose your role and career within the game there really is little viable choice as the game works at the moment.
In short, you either load your ship up with every weapon going and and start whizzing about killing things or you hit the exit button and find something more rewarding to do.
It seems the game designers put little if any thought into the non-combat career options. Trading is a practical impossibility and pretty pointless as there is really no career advancement concept even if you do manage to avoid getting shot to pieces and losing all your money. Smuggling and mining are similarly slow progress, low reward and high risk.
It seems the designers failed to consider the excellent idea's which were included in earlier games like Elite which developed trading concepts long before my youngest son was born and Hardwar which included some nice trading concepts including facility ownership.
For example:
* Why can't a trader hire escorts to fly protection on important trade runs?
* Why can't a trader obtain a list of routine convoys heading to dangerous planets and join them for protection in return for a fee.
* Why can't a trader hire other ships in order to build up his fleet and expand his business.
* Why can't traders buy shops and maintenance facilities in order to sell their goods and services to other players and NPC's.
* Why don't the police provide protection for traders when their ships are attacked in orbital space.
As things stand at present this game is little more than a high quality shoot-em-up and yet the concepts listed about are all as old as the hills and have been included in games which ran on the Commodore 64.
Didz
Fortes, balore et armis
Edited by - Didz on 3/8/2004 12:40:26 PM
However, I rapidly became bored.
It seems to me that despite all the hype about being able to chose your role and career within the game there really is little viable choice as the game works at the moment.
In short, you either load your ship up with every weapon going and and start whizzing about killing things or you hit the exit button and find something more rewarding to do.
It seems the game designers put little if any thought into the non-combat career options. Trading is a practical impossibility and pretty pointless as there is really no career advancement concept even if you do manage to avoid getting shot to pieces and losing all your money. Smuggling and mining are similarly slow progress, low reward and high risk.
It seems the designers failed to consider the excellent idea's which were included in earlier games like Elite which developed trading concepts long before my youngest son was born and Hardwar which included some nice trading concepts including facility ownership.
For example:
* Why can't a trader hire escorts to fly protection on important trade runs?
* Why can't a trader obtain a list of routine convoys heading to dangerous planets and join them for protection in return for a fee.
* Why can't a trader hire other ships in order to build up his fleet and expand his business.
* Why can't traders buy shops and maintenance facilities in order to sell their goods and services to other players and NPC's.
* Why don't the police provide protection for traders when their ships are attacked in orbital space.
As things stand at present this game is little more than a high quality shoot-em-up and yet the concepts listed about are all as old as the hills and have been included in games which ran on the Commodore 64.
Didz
Fortes, balore et armis
Edited by - Didz on 3/8/2004 12:40:26 PM
