If Starcraft, Wing Commander and Master of Orion had a baby, it would certainly resemble Into the Stars. It’s a combination of all of these things, plus built on the Unreal Engine 4 foundations. Again, very ambitious, pretty much for any developer trying to set itself apart from the rest. What Into the Stars does with all of these past titles starts with the gameplay. There is a good balance of strategy, action and exploration. It’s odd seeing these things in one title, especially for a bloke like me who is still new to the PC world.
Anyway, lets get this preview started.
Into the Stars is led by the need to find new planets, mine minerals and continue surviving. The game starts you out by selecting a leader for your expedition into the unknown. Once selected, you choose your crew from a number of randomly generated numbers with names, taking great care into focusing in on a balanced crew of experienced individuals (medical folks, pilots, etc.). The higher the number beside the category with the crew, the better chance of certain scenario success they have. Wanting to get to the gameplay will be a desire, but without careful selection of the crew, the game could end faster than it began — which is what you want to avoid. Having someone with great piloting skills and okay mining skills is a must. Having a medical person on staff to help when shite hits the fan is important. Having someone who is the jack of all trades and master of none is essential. There are several scenarios as the gameplay pushes through that require you to think about plans A-Z, which can be tough if you’re not used to it. It’s certainly far more complicated than I expected from a game like this at its early stages, but also a good foundation for deep decision-making and gameplay.
Shifting gears, the game goes from people choices to resource choices. Much like crew selection, you have to balance out what you believe to be important when it comes to surviving the long journey in space. There are certain chemical elements laid out that help with maintaining food on the ship, maintaining life support systems, fuel, weaponry and mining rigs. The game starts you out with 4700 points to use, each point represents a single element. It took me about 3-4 games before I found the right combination of elements to maintain the most gameplay with the least amount of trouble attached. Moving 1000 points towards fuel, 1500 points with food/oxygen and the remaining spread out for mining and such, equaled out to the right move. Making a mistake in this category of the game could potentially cripple the journey before it begins, so make sure you know what you want before you move forward.
From that point on, the game asks you to purchase certain types of material for the journey. Having the choice of protein creators (2-3, with prices varying) is vital to maintain food supply on the ship. Choosing whether you want to focus on weaponry over mining is vital, all depending on what type of experience you’re trying to create for yourself. Into the Stars limits the amount of funds you start with, which in turn limits the type of choices you can make, so choose wisely. Much like the previous two categories, but certainly not as incredibly damaging should you make the wrong choice, it’s important to think through this portion of the game before you move forward.
So, right before the gameplay actually commences, Into the Stars is already trying to get you to use your noggin’, which is superb if you think about it. Putting the gamer right into the thick of things and not progressing immediately to the doom/gloom/payoff is what makes Into the Stars, at least in its early access phase, a very interesting title. When the action begins, then you get to see how your decision-making turned out.
Once the actual game starts, you’re thrown into the captain’s chair. You’ve got to stay focused on the mission, keep up with how your people are doing, how your ship is handling/maintaining, while watching out for an alien race that is trying to hunt you down. The actual exploration portion of the game is driven by the amount of good decisions you made with your opening choices. For example, if you short-changed your ship’s fuel to up the ability to mine or feed your crew, then the trip could be shortened immensely. You’ll be required to stop frequently to mine planets (which is fun), but multiple quick stops can also endanger the mission because you might get hunted down by aliens.
Before we get to the action, let’s talk mining. The mining portion of the game is interesting. It comes in a role-playing game wrapper, where success/failure is determined by how good your crew members are when launched to planets for exploration. Sometimes the mining is pretty simple, only asking for one crew member to get on the surface with quick success following. Sometimes it’s difficult when three members are required with different types of needs for success, depending on 2-3 locations the map offered up. Sometimes it can get strange, as there were a few times the scenario shifted to an actual board game-esque, 2D level where a yellow drill went through labeled elements in the ground, while trying to avoid unbreakable rocks that would destroy the drill.
Regardless, the mining was interesting enough, and filled with enough variety, to keep the motivation fresh enough to search for new planets to explore. The actual gathering of resources was easy, though limited depending on storage capacity purchased at the beginning of the game.
Mining aside, if you had the good fortune of running into aliens, the game sort of slowed down a bit. This is the part of the title I currently do not like very much. My disdain lies within the unbalanced nature of the fight, where the alien ship is always spot-on their target, while you’re randomly trying to hit them. The game’s fight sequences are broken down into two initial layers, where you can deflect an enemy’s firing or fire back at them (or both). Both processes require a recharge time before they can be used again, and both are clunky at the beginning The deflection is clunky because there is no good rhythm from the enemy fire, thus the shield doesn’t recharge fast enough to catch all fire. That wouldn’t be so bad, if the aliens didn’t constantly hit their target (when they weren’t deflected).
The real issue in the early access version of this right now is with the offensive side of things. Again, the biggest problem I have is that the alien aggressor is too consistent with their shots, while the player (you) will miss every 2-3 shots fired. Ultimately, fighting a single alien ship at the beginning of the title is manageable, but when more than one gets involved it can get downright frustrating.
Anyway, this is something that Fugitive Games should work on as this title continues to develop. They have to give a new player a chance at the beginning, then progressively work have them work their way into bigger, better fights. Again, I know I’m not the best PC gamer in the world when it comes to titles like this, but I know balance issues when I see them. This portion of the title seems to be a work-in-progress.
What’s not a work-in-progress, at least from my point of view, is the exploration portion of the game. The sheer amount of territory, and the help of a good (though, complicated) XYZ axis, truly puts the gamer in the middle of space. As it stands right now, this game feels big, looks big and is big. While the fuel limitation, which is a good factor for a simulator like this, hurts the exploration of planets and space in general, Fugitive Games knocked this out of the park when it comes to establishing an engrossing atmosphere of environment. If I could just fly the ship around planets and explore the entire time without worry of fuel shortage, I would probably do this on a daily basis. It is quite impressive with the universe (pun intended) that Fugitive Games has built. Seeing a planet in the distance and flying there is so much fun. Avoiding asteroid collisions and dropping into a star is just icing on the cake. I want them to add an exploration option. Please write that down. *grins*
As Into the Stars stands right now, there is a lot of room to grow. It has a complex personality that requires lots of brain power to successfully see a mission through. It’s welcomed complexity and sets the stage for potential better things to come with this title. We shall certainly see how it all turns out in the coming months.
Until then, you should look Into the Stars and see what you think.